I tend to find her birthdays a bit emotional, if I'm honest. It seems so important that we make it special, more important than feels usual. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I think this is in part due to the sorrow I feel at not being present for her birth.
When it's Keziah's birthday, I automatically think of her delivery at home, of our God-given midwife, of those intense and deeply spiritual hours of birthing and bonding, those first days of nursing and sleeping. Manu came home at 8 weeks old and I find my mind wrestling to imagine her first hours, the psychic pain of no longer hearing her birth mother's voice, the voice with which she had been familiar from within the womb. Then her first hours and days with her amazing foster mom.
It's hard to relate the wonder of birth with the reality of loss, and yet there it is. Every year, I hold this tension in my heart for her.
I don't remember Manu's birth, but I do remember the day we brought her home. I actually just wrote out that whole slightly surreal story, but I realise that this is not the place (or maybe the time) for it. Suffice to say, there is so much more I could say. So very much that should be said, that needs to be said. Primarily though, this story of adoption is a personal story that belongs to her first of all.
So on this day, the 12th birthday of this beautiful adopted princess of a daughter, mostly what I find words for is gratitude. Manu has been pure gift from the beginning of our story together until now. Loving and funny, warm and confident, beautiful and oh-so-smart. The privilege of being entrusted with raising this incredible girl is not lost on us.
(Yes, the incredible girl is indeed wearing her dressing gown and a pink sequinned fedora for the full-English birthday breakfast she requested!)
This lockdown birthday was not completely without friends and family - thank you to everyone who sent messages and even managed to get gifts to her - and certainly was not without fun. We had devised 12 cryptic clues for her to decipher, clues that repeatedly took her from one level of the house to another and each resulted in gifts, both small and large! The grand finale was her long-awaited drum kit - and yes, they are digital because we are not quite that drunk on parenting love!
Happy birthday, precious Manu. Certainly one for the books!
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