Dear Sister

Dear Sister-

The sparkles and confetti of celebration are settling. My thoughts these last few days have been constantly on how our lives are changing and will be changing. I hold and nurse my daughter, and think of how life will change for her when her little brother arrives maybe a year from now. I hold her a little more closely now that I know she won’t be the baby forever…

As friends mentioned upon the announcement of our intention to adopt, the molecules are indeed swirling. I feel as if we have conceived a child in our hearts, and I know with confidence someday we can tell our son he was planned and loved even before he was conceived.

Despite all the positive things we’ll be able to tell our son someday, all the ambitious hopes and dreams for his future, and all the warm feelings of our own good intentions we are indulging in, I know on the other side of the planet you may be struggling. Doing the vague adoption math, we can guess you may be pregnant, or close to getting pregnant. Perhaps you already know you’re pregnant, perhaps you have no idea, or perhaps like me…you knew immediately and are already sick and fatigued and weary with child.

I try to imagine you, and right now you are a cast of characters in my mind: mother, daughter, sister, friend, wife. I think of you as a young teenage girl finding herself in a difficult situation, a mother with too many mouths to feed, a woman victim to violence, rape, HIV/AIDS, hunger, abuse, a woman who may have lost or be loosing her beloved husband, a woman without a home. I think of you, and you are always beautiful, strong, brave and proud. I think of you. I think of you…

I think of you while I fold laundry. I think of you while I drive my car. I think of you while I cook dinner for my family. I think of you and want to look into your eyes, sit with you for a while, hold your hand and tell you everything will be O.K. But I don’t know that everything will be O.K. for you, and this haunts me.

Today in yoga class, my teacher, Jeffery asked us to dedicate our practice to someone else, to offer up our efforts. This type offering is a common practice in class, and most of the time I offer up my efforts to my daughter, Kysa…her name never being far from my lips or thoughts. The last week or so I’ve been dedicating my practice more specifically to my children…born and unborn. Today I dedicated my practice to you. Your face, the one I imagine, appeared to me and there was no question that every breath of my practice would be offered up to you.

I left class and driving across the bridge, suspended over the water, I was still thinking of you and it dawned on me that the one thing I CAN do for you is offer my practice to you every day during this process. Every inhalation and exhalation will be in your honor, every drop of sweat will be shed on your behalf, every hand pressed in prayer lifted for you, every backbend my heart will open for you, and every forward bend I’ll bow to your pain and effort. I’ll think of you when poses become uncomfortable and I want to come out and stretch my legs or release my fatigued muscles. I’ll remember that you don’t have a choice to step out of your discomfort.

I can only hope that in some small way my thoughts and actions will travel along Indra’s web to you like small pearls of comfort in the weeks and months ahead. I don’t know if we will ever physically meet, but I will hold you in my awareness and meet you on the mat daily. And on the mat I will honor the cosmic link to you, the other mother of the son we are both yet to meet.

The divine light in me bows to the divine light in you.

Namaste.