Thoughts

On September 11, 2002, I listened  to the voices outside my window in a local park commemorating the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks.  I lay inside, across the street, in a hospital bed, in labor waiting to deliver our twins.  I was only half way through my pregnancy when I woke up that morning with contractions.  As the day wore on, we prayed for a miracle, and waited.  I knew that as long as my babies were inside my womb, they were alive.  Once they were born, they would die.  When the time came for their birth, I halfheartedly did my part in delivering them.  Ben and Rachel were born minutes apart that evening of September 11, 2002.  They were perfect and beautiful in every sense of the word, just so tiny...too tiny.

Rachel's tiny hand print

Benjamin's footprint

One month later, the children and I traveled along with Mike on a trip to Rhode Island.   He had to work, so the children and I took advantage of the time and visited a state we had never been to before.  It was a difficult trip for me because I had anticipated Mike traveling while I was still pregnant.  I was anxious about being alone, knowing it was possible I could go into labor.  So, there I was, in Rhode Island, with my family, but without Ben and Rachel.  Little did I know that as we walked along the beautiful beach in Newport, Rhode Island, that a woman in China was giving birth to a tiny daughter.  Little did I know that as we toured the beautiful mansions along the rocky coastline that the same woman was having to make a decision.  And, little did I know that while I was grieving over Ben and Rachel, my daughter was found outside the gates of a home in a small town called Sanxiang, China.

"To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified."—Isaiah 61:3