There's a Wren in a Willow Wood

"There's a wren in a willow wood, flies so high and he sings so good, and he brings to you, what he sings to you. And the love in his lullaby, seemed to tell me if I try, I could fly for you, and I wanna try for you, 'cause...I wanna sing you a love song, I wanna rock you in my arms all night long. I wanna get to know you. I wanna show you the peaceful feeling of my home." - Loggins & Messina.

My daughter is seven-years-old, and she cried in my arms tonight because she doesn't want to live here. She doesn't want to be my daughter, and she wants to go home.

Home for her is the foster home where she's spent the last three years of her life, loved by two amazing moms, her own biological brother, and four great foster sisters, loved and protected, but a little bit lost and unlucky in the grand scheme of adoption timing. The wheels of progress in finding her a forever family (that's me), did not turn quickly, so Justuce, from four to seven, grew to love her foster moms and her foster sisters like any little girl would if she was placed in a home and left there for three years.

Three years is forever to a little girl. Why after all that time the world picked her up and dropped her in the lap of two new dads is beyond her comprehension. She was doing just fine where she was. She was happy. She had sisters. Two moms. And now they're gone. Now they've been replaced by a whole new life. And tonight she cried her first real tears -- tears of loss, despair and mourning -- hurt, painful, fearsome tears, because she's just a little girl, and she just wants to go back home.

All I could do was kneel at her bedside and stroke her hair and turn on her night lights - the turtle and the ladybug that light up and shine stars on her ceiling - and cry a little too. I told her I'm sorry she's sad, and it's okay to cry, and I will always be here to hold her, and that I don't know why the world does this to people either. I told her it's not fair. And I told her she's brave and strong; the bravest, strongest girl I have ever met in my whole life. And I told her how lucky I am, out of all the people in the world, I got picked to be her dad. How lucky, lucky, lucky that makes me. And that it's okay when she's too sad to want me. It won't change my love. I'm still the luckiest dad in the world.

Before I even met my new children, when they were just a photo and a bio sheet, when they were still just an idea, not the two beautiful, wonderful, frustrating people I now spend my days with, I sang to their picture every night. "I want to sing you a love song," I sang into two beautiful, but empty, brand new bedrooms. "I want to rock you in my arms all night long. If I try, I could fly for you. I want to try for you." I sang that promise to them before I even had them in my home. But now the bedrooms aren't empty anymore. Now they have two little owners, Justuce, 7, and Justin, 6. Here they are. All ours. Adam's and mine. Everything we always hoped for. Everything we could have ever dared dream. And everything is suddenly so beautiful. And everything is suddenly so hard.

One month, and five days. This is where our story begins. Love, tears, joy, sadness, and everything in between.

Some days are really, really good.

But tonight is sad because my little girl is seven, and she wants to go back home, and this isn't home yet.

This is just a dumb place they put her in.

And she's mad and she's sad and she has every right. That's what I told her tonight. If I were you, I'd be so mad, and so sad, and I wouldn't want to be here either. And I'm sorry the world works this way, I'm sorry she hurts, and I hurt with her. She looked up at me at one point, surprised, I think, to see me crying too. "I love you," I whispered. "Don't even worry about loving me back yet. Let's just try to build a new world together. A really good one, that someday might feel like home."

And she cried a little more, and I cried a little more, and then she fell asleep. Me stroking her hair, lullabyes playing softly on a speaker near her bed, and ladybug stars lighting up a sad, dark night in her brand new home.