For the past 21 months I have watched my email anxiously every month between the 29th of one month and the 6th of the next month often checking my email daily waiting for a certain email. I knew it when I saw it, because the subject line was always the same: FW: Lee, JoonSoo (13c-107)/Armstrong/KHJ . It may seem like gibberish to many people but to me it meant that I had an update on Edric and new photos.
And on Thursday we got our final email with that heading. It is kind of strange after 21 months knowing that that was our last one. In just a couple of weeks instead of waiting for an email I will be chasing him through my house and pushing him on the swings at the playground. He will be sitting at my dinner table and splashing in the tub with Leighton and Caedmon each night. There will be three little bodies snuggled next to me on the couch for Bronco games and three heads to kiss each night while they sleep in their beds.
We have watched him grow in those photos each month, and I have charted his weight and height measurements on his own growth chart each month as well. And while our love for him has grown with each passing month, we will get to spend the next number of months and years learning to love the person that those photos showed us. There is still so much that we don’t know about Edric JoonSoo and so much that photos can’t show or convey. We will learn what makes him smile and we will learn how to comfort him when the tears flow freely. We will learn his likes and dislikes and the uniqueness that makes him him.
And very soon we will watch him grow in front of our own eyes. We will be the ones sending photos back across the sea to his Foster Mom so that she can watch him grow. She has been the one to comfort and love and play with him over the past 28 months and she will always be a part of him, and so we will make sure that we stay connected and she knows that he is doing well. And someday we will all go back and explore the land that Edric has known as home and visit with her again.
It has been a journey and while one big chapter is coming to a close, we are excited about what the new chapters will bring. I have waited anxiously for those emails each month and my heart beat with excitement each time I saw the subject line, I am glad that that part of this process is over and he will soon be home. It is time.
Hiking Mommy 