Baptism

Yesterday was Grace's Baptism and frankly, it turned out well beyond my expectations. I know that Grace and I are loved by many people. I know that many of them shared the anxiety and excitement and uncertainty while I was waiting to bring her home. So I wasn't surprised that just about everyone of the very intimate group of friends and family that were invited came. It's one thing to know you're loved, it another entirely to see it displayed on their faces and in there actions. It was a day filled with love and excitement and blessings for a baby girl who was embraced into God's family the way she has been embraced by my own.

She wore a dress that I bought her while I was in Ethiopia. She was not crazy about the head wrap so there aren't a lot of pictures of her wearing it but here are a few.


She really did well. She whimpered a little bit when the priest put the water on her. She gave me this horrified look like hey, I already had a bath today, what's up with this? Other than that, she did really well.





Afterwards we had a small dinner at a restaurant. It was really nice and everyone seemed to have a really good time and Grace was really social and engaging.

Ok,so now I'm going to make this very long post even longer by telling you about the most incredible gift that my cousin Ann gave Grace but before I do that I have to give a little back ground.

My mother passed away almost 8 years ago from cancer. I miss her every day but since Grace came home I think I feel the loss a little deeper than I had. And while I know she would adore Grace, it makes me sad to know that she'll only know her through stories and pictures. My mother and my cousin Ann's father were brother and sister and extraordinarily close. Their mother, my Grandma Connolly passed away when my mother was 14 and my uncle was 12. They and their father were a super tight family and because of that, their children have always been close.

When Ann and her twin Jenny were baptized in 1982 it was important to my mother that they have something from her parents. My Papa had given Grandma Connolly a promise ring and it had an emerald and two side diamonds. My mother inherited the ring when her mother died and she had the two side diamonds taken out of the ring and made into pendants for Ann and Jenny. Somewhere along the way we lost the emerald, but that's neither here nor there. So fast forward to yesterday. I open up the gift that Ann had for Grace and there in it's original box is the pendant that my mother gave her 28 years ago. And with it was the card that my mother had written her on the occasion of her baptism. Ann wrote in her card to Grace that the necklace meant the world to her but it means more for her to pass it on to Grace from her grandmother and her great grandparents. I will never be able to adequately express what that meant to me because my vocabulary is not that broad, and I am not that eloquent. But to know that Grace has a piece of our family history sitting in a box in her room means more to me than I can say. Especially since our family tree is not about sharing the same bloodlines. Grace happens to be adopted and so are my cousins Ann, Jenny and Eric. I don't think any of us has ever felt like we were less of a family because we didn't share the same biology. We've just always been family and it didn't matter how the process of becoming family happened. It just mattered that we all ended up together. I'm still teary eyed thinking about what a self-less gesture that was and how Grace will always have that special necklace because of Auntie Ann's loving an generous spirit.

I think that this is the first of many occassions where Grace will someday look back and be in awe of how loved she is.