I Want a Happy Ending

Full disclosure to all my writing students and those for whom I edit: I like happy endings. I do. I like it when Lord Voldemort is finally defeated and when Ron marries Hermione and when they all live happily ever after with little red-headed magical children. Sam recently read the "Scarlet Ibis" for literature class and we had this email conversation:

Sam: Mr. Rice made us read an even more terrible story today...Scarlet Ibis. It was really sad and now I'm sad :*(
Me: Oh, yes. Dead bird. Dead brother. Blah blah symbolism. Humans are depressing. Think about princesses. And unicorns.
Sam: And sing rainbows and poop butterflies! (Horton Hears a Who)
Me: I'm so glad you're my daughter!

But I'm also a counselor and so I get that some stories aren't happy. They just aren't. But at least, if it can't be happy ever after, I at least want some hope. I want to make sense of it all and learn something and move forward a wiser, if sadder, person. I had a writing student who was working on a memoir (I love memoirs). We went round and round about the ending. He had some legitimate points and I was right. Ultimately he blew me away and tied the entire story of his life together with a single sentence: Somehow, there are always maybes. His wasn't an easy story, but there was a lot of redemption, a lot of hope, a lot of maybes.

I've encountered some sad stories, recently, and I'm looking for some maybes. In the last couple of weeks we've learned more about Retselise's story, and it's not really my story to tell and it's rather confusing, but suffice it to say that Retselise and his sister were matched with a family about the time that we were matched with Paul, and had all gone according to plan the two best friends may have met their new mommies and daddies about the same time. And this new mommy and daddy have even better and more affordable HIV treatment than we have in the United States and they were quite prepared to welcome an HIV+ child into their family. But, through no fault of this couple, all didn't go according to plan and various and assorted government officials determined that Retselise and his sister were not adoptable at that particular time. And now two families plus all those who cared for him in-country are heartbroken over the death of this little boy.

Then, while scrolling my blogroll, I read about recent sadness at Beautiful Gate, a well-run and truly blessed orphanage in Lesotho. They lost three children to death in four days! Three children! In four days! And I can't even wrap my mind around it because not this orphanage, this orphanage around whom it is clear that God wraps his hand. If this can happen at Beautiful Gate, then what of Paul's orphanage, what of the children in more impoverished and dire circumstances in other places around the world? HOW CAN THIS BE HAPPENING?

The director of Beautiful Gate Lesotho penned these words on his blog, "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, thought there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour" Habakkuk 3:17-18.

And yet it's so hard when mommies and daddies in Connecticut weep for their children and when children in Lesotho weep for their mommies and daddies. I need some hope. I need some maybes. I want a happy ending.

Then I stumbled across another blog (I'm supposed to be working on my taxes, you see, and so I took a personal day to do so only to realize that I can't file yet because 1) I'm missing an obscure HSA form that I'm not sure how to acquire and 2) the IRS does not have the paperwork ready for certain types of returns (mine) thanks to the ineptness of Congress). And I learned that Lesotho has an adoption matching meeting scheduled for FEBRUARY 20 (Sam's birthday!). And also that there are at last TWO American families hoping for a match (I didn't realize there were any American families still waiting due to the shifting and confusing process. I think we were the last American family to be matched in May of 2011.) Plus families from The Netherlands, Sweden and Canada.

On her blog she lists daily prayers for each day of February leading up to the matching meeting. Such beautiful heartfelt prayers for this country that has grown in my heart and that so graciously offered to share with us our beautiful Basotho prince. Her prayer for February 12 echoes my own oft-repeated prayers: I pray that a day comes that Basotho children do not need to be sent to homes out of their country, but that they can stay with their families and communities. Until that day, I pray that you continue to send people to Lesotho, to serve them and share your love.

 And that gives me hope. And "I will rejoice in the Lord." Somehow, there are always maybes.

Back when Paul was still waiting. I fuzzed out the faces of the other children for privacy reasons.
But they're all beautiful.