Sometime back in February, my wife approached me with news of a two year old who’s birthmother was interested in placing her for adoption.  In case you don’t know, we already had six children.  Seven was not on my agenda.  But after meeting this little girl, and hearing her story, I was convinced that I needed to seriously evaluate my agenda.  We had the means to support this little girl, and give her a family.  She did not have a father in the home, he was in and out of jail.  We didn’t know it at the time, but mom would soon end up in jail too.  So, I literally took a leap of faith and my wife and I brought this little girl into our family for a “trial” on February 11th. 

Today, to make a long story short, I took her back to her grandmother.  After months and months of trying to figure out if the birthmother was ever going to surrender her rights, the grandmother decided that she would need to upgrade her custody from temporary to permanent.  The grandmother wanted us to adopt the little girl, but that wasn’t on the birthmother’s agenda.  Our attorney confirmed this through the jailhouse visitor’s window yesterday in a face to face meeting.

My wife is very sad, along with some of my more emotional children.  She couldn’t actually be a part of the transfer, so I had to handle that.  It was hard and I didn’t pull it off without tears.

It’s funny, I’m sure I need to put my self-righteousness aside.  But, I just can’t understand someone who has spent almost no time with their child, has not supported and is not able to support them financially, who has a drug problem, has multiple children with multiple fathers some of who are in prison – I just can’t understand how they could say I’m never going to surrender my rights to this child.  Especially, when the new parents have the means to love, support and educate the child in an environment and in a way that the birthmother never could.  Just don’t get it.  It makes no sense.  None.

But then again, I’m not sitting in jail right now. 

Been back in the U.S.A for just under a month now and I’m feeling a new groove.  Don’t really know how to explain it other than it is…. well… it’s like déjà vu.  Sort of.  You know, the feeling you have when you are certain that you have done what you just did before.  It’s like that.  But not exactly.

Maybe it is more like seeing someone and knowing for certain that you have seen them before because they are so familiar.  Yet no matter how hard you try to put your finger on it, you cannot figure out who exactly they are.  You know how that can be.  It can be very stressful on the brain as you search and strain to try to figure out who it is.

Or maybe it is more like catching a glimpse of something in the mirror, something that looks exactly like a place where you have been.  You look back into the mirror and …. poof …. it’s gone.  Like it was never even there, except that you know it was there.  You just saw it, dangit.  You know beyond a shadow of a doubt it is real – but no matter how many times you look away, and then look back in the mirror – it’s gone.

Anyway, I can’t quite place my finger on it.  It’s not a bad groove – it’s sort of a melancholy groove – involving a search for that thing that I’ve done before, or the name of that person I saw on the street, or that image in the mirror that was there and is now gone.

Sometimes, at least for me, a song will so capture the essence of the moment or the place of my mind or heart, that I latch on to it – working it out over and over and over again – until I have sucked out all of the meaning that it has for me.  Most recently, Laura Story has provided that song for me.  As I listen to it and soak it in, my current groove is found in it’s melody, in it’s lonely piano, and in it’s lyric.

“What if Your blessings come through raindrops, what if your healing comes through tears, what if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near…” – Laura Story, Blessings.

While you were sleeping (or watching Leno) on Wednesday night, Kathy and I were at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris waiting on our flight to Munich, Germany – and then home to Atlanta.  It had been a busy night for us with dinner at the Eiffel Tower and then packing afterward.  Paris in four days is tough.  One travel day on each side made it even tougher.   But in the end it was well worth it.  I mean, not many folks are able to even take the trip, let alone take it for their 20th anniversary.  Kathy and I had a great time, made some great memories, and it was time to head home to our seven awaiting children.

When we arrived at the airport in France, we found the kiosks to be of little to no help.  With sketchy internet the night before, I had spent too much time updating the blog and not enough checking in online.  With no boarding pass in hand, I asked three Air France employees for help and they all pointed me to the same desk.  Air France is a “Sky Team” partner of Delta’s and they were handling the first leg home to Munich.  Once at the desk we were greeted by, um, how do I put this politely, um, we were greeted by the “not nice” counter agent – who quickly informed us that we were in the wrong line and that we were causing terrible trouble for all of the people behind us.  After I politely (and you can ask Kathy, I was polite) offered to go to the correct desk, she hushed up and checked our bags and gave us boarding passes to Munich.

Kathy and I strolled through “security” and headed to the gate.  The security process was minimal, but hey, it’s France, right?  At the gate, I was given 15 minutes of free internet by the airport!  I cranked up the iPhone, where I took this photo of the puddle jumping Airbus (see Sunday’s post) A318 we were flying on to Munich.

I also was able to check my Fly Delta app and find out that my final destination was now Fort Myers, FL – not the ATL.  So – we made a plan to check on the final destination for the baggage when we got to Munich.  By the way, am Flughafen Munchen.  Here’s some photos from Munich.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Munich, we found out from Delta Customer Service Dude Lawrence (who was freaking AWESOME, by the way) at our Gate that the nice Air France chicky poo had not checked our bags through to ATL, only to Munich – which meant that we had to hoof it back to our arriving gate (a 20 minute walk – one way) and back – and then to check the bags – all in 30 minutes.  Do the math.  Ain’t gonna happen.  Lawrence did all he could to get the bags on the plane – but as of today (5:09 on Friday) we still don’t have any bags. 

But, we have our health.  So, I got that goin’ for me.

The flight home was smooth and fast.  I actually slept (if you can call any type of sleep in the Economy Cabin of an airline sleep) about three hours.  Here’s the only way I could document the trip for you.

Left: this is the east coast of Great Britain.

 

Right: this is the west coast of Great Britain.

 

 

Left: this is the east coast of Ireland.

 

Right: this is the North Atlantic Ocean.

 

 

I was sleeping most of the rest of the trip.  And when we arrived home, I was grrrrrrrrrrrrumpy with lack of sleep, so I slept for sixteen hours straight.  Getting close to back to normal.

Thanks again everyone for joining us on this trip – through the world wide internets.  We had a blast!  Au revoir.