Your relinquishment has been my biggest blessing.

Your very life has made my own shimmer
with joy, laughter, the words “my child…”
Adoptive mothers, like me, shout our love from the rooftops.
Adoptive fathers howl thanks.
We sing infinite gratitude,
placing it on lanterns that light up the whole city, the forest.

You could bury our thanks-giving in a cave and it would light up the mountain.
We write letters in the sky.
Your choice, whether it was a choice or not,
Your decision, whether you were allowed to make it yourself,
Your life path, your relinquishment,
What you gave up, the source perhaps of unending grief for you,
Or perhaps only relief,
This source perhaps of ceaseless wondering, What if,
This is, for us, that deepest fountain of blessing.

I am praying that it was your choice.
I am praying that there was some joy in your decision, with the loss.
I am praying that you know your life story as its own blessing
I am praying that you can hear me.

May you know that your baby is loved, that we cherish each toenail and eyelash.
May you know that they love us, these babies, know fully that they belong with us
and still, sometimes, they yearn for you.
Flesh for flesh, blood for blood.

May you know that they still, perhaps only silently, call you mother.
May you know that, perhaps only silently,
They have spent hours wondering about you
Imagining you, envisioning your eyelash, your toe.
What you love, how you speak, your smell.
Sometimes they rage at you, raging from that loss.
Most of all they want to know that you remember them, that you think of them.

Our reassurances are given vicariously, with words written or spoken by others
who also underwent this journey.

Maybe we can speak your name to them; many of us cannot.
But I am praying that you know we speak your heart’s name in love.

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Rev. Meg Riley

Senior Minister at Church of the Larger Fellowship

Meg has been a Unitarian Universalist minister for more than twenty years. As a UU kid in West Virginia, she quickly learned to enjoy being "different," which has served her well in a "different" life. Meg lives in Minneapolis, where she enjoys walking by lakes, gardening, reading and writing. She also lives online, where she enjoys hanging out, keeping up with people, and playing the occasional game of Scrabble. She is the parent of a teenager, and the companion of a number of four legged friends.

Latest posts by Rev. Meg Riley (see all)

• From Your Minister - July 1, 2020
• From Your Minister - June 1, 2020
• From Your Minister - May 1, 2020