Families are made of flesh and blood and personalities and shared experiences and history and every emotion on the spectrum. We are born into families. We are adopted into families. Seventeen years ago, after pledging vows and having a party with a meticulously curated soundtrack, MJ and I adopted each other's family as our own. We also made the decision to be partners in building a family that would be uniquely ours. We had no idea what kind of journey we were in for. Seventeen years later, we are every day trying and stumbling and occasionally succeeding in our roles as mother and father to our young daughter and son. Every family story is different. Every family story has wrinkles. Just like every family, our story has scars that forever remind us of how we got here, of how we became us.
In June of 2007, after two previous miscarriages, we started the painful process of saying goodbye to three babies who MJ formed and carried in her body for nineteen weeks. Our dreams of being parents had once again been dashed to pieces as we spent a full week in the hospital holding these little ones in our arms before too quickly having to let go. We named our babies. We let our imaginations run wild wondering what they would have been like. We mourned their loss and invited others to join us as we grieved. We hid from the world for a season. We wondered if we would be hopelessly childless for the rest of our lives. Whatever the future held, these three babies had made their mark on us forever.
From very early on we have shared with our kids the story of the brother and sisters that came before them. We have a box of memories and books that we look through as a family, and we celebrate their memory every year on June 26th and 29th. This June, after ten years, we finally scattered the ashes of our little ones. It was a difficult decision that we could never quite make until this year. Together, our family decided that we would baptize the town where we have decided to put down roots. On June 26th, 2017, our little family of four had a quiet picnic on the lawn outside the community center. We released balloons carrying personal notes from our family that were marked with our triplets' tiny footprints. We circled up in the creek that runs through our town and gave thanks for their lives before finally letting go of their remains.
Ten years...
We carry the memory of Nathaniel David, Lily Constance, and Hannah Jane in our hearts and minds and souls forever.
