Does Love Bring Change?

It is almost Xmas Eve or whatever holiday eve one celebrates in December. As the next series of snowstorms threaten to blanket the Puget Sound, I am watching "Home for the Holidays: An Adoption Special" on television. I waver between being mesmerized and reminded. The faces of children who have been adopted and those longing for family cover the backdrop as Faith Hill sings holiday carols and extends the invitation for families to adopt children who long for homes for the holiday. I continue to waver between being mesmerized and wanting to forget.

Jamie Fox just finished singing an original song he created called, "Love Brings Change," to an audience of parents, adopted children and a mixture of adults and kids waiting to make the connection called family. Jamie revealed that he was adopted at 7 months into a loving home of relatives who welcomed him, nurtured him, helped him to grow into a phenomenal manhood embracing life's gifts and opportunities. He was lucky and blessed. I continue to watch.....

As I sit and look at the longing faces of young children almost beaten down by the want of belonging, I think about my own want and my own longing of belonging to someone who made me visible and placed me in the center of their heart. I grew up in foster care in a place that shattered my heart and my want to long and belong. I was never adopted because the paperwork noted that I was incapable of connecting with a family. At five, my life of invisibility was scribbled on government paperwork and I was allowed to fester in the governance of the system and live in foster care hell. I'm not sure if I want to continue to watch now......

Does love bring change as Jamie Fox so wants his audience to believe? Yes and no............ For the children who have captured someone's heart and are embraced in the protective arms of family however defined, love does bring change. They have become visible and allowed to grow in the protective shell of love. With love comes safety and a sense of freedom to try on the different selves until a few of them fit and the child is allowed to progress undistracted by neglect, want or longing into the beauty of the adult self of independence and continued connection with the rest of humanity. I wish them the best and I'm still watching....

For the children who have been abandoned in the black ink of words on paper and relegated to the bowels of invisibility, love is an ambiguous word that defies definition and reaction. Love becomes synonymous to survival and survival for a child is a balancing act between daring to expect and welcome family and expecting nothing from adults who surround that child with the ineptitude of degradation and loss. For children who survive, the ability to connect becomes a life's journey. Survival precedes the connection; loneliness fills the void of the want of embrace; and love becomes the forbidden as life changes and so does the magnitude of the want. I know the question remains as I continue to watch......

However, for many children the change becomes because of love. Jamie was loved into adoption and he changed and grew. Faith Hill was adopted and carries those memories into an action filled mission to connect other foster care children with families who can show children that love does bring change. Keisha Cole, another singer was also in foster care and appears to have thrived beyond the system into a star. They all became stars and now share those memories to an audience of believers. Those believers are the children with stars in their eyes who long to belong and connect hearts with hearts. I continue to hope for them and watch.....

It's a testament for the Faith, Jamie and Keisha's who have grown beyond foster care into the adoptive hearts of families and thrived. It answers the question that love does bring change. They and countless others are the manifestation of the question and its response. They and others are the shadows that cover the shallow graves, prison cells and lost lives of children still longing to belong. They are the black ink on the paperwork of love and connection. They are the ones who were lucky to be lost in someone's heart and mind and center and remain there forever. I continue to wish them all the blessings of connection and love. I continue to watch until the show ends along with the memories.....