Stay

"I know it's late, I know you're weary.
I know your plans don't include me.
Still here we are, both of us lonely,
Longing for shelter from all that we see.
Why should we worry? No one will care, girl.
Look at the stars, so far away.
We've got tonight. Who needs tomorrow?
We've got tonight, babe.
Why don't you stay?"

When Justice has a bad dream and climbs into bed with us at night, she is a perfect, snuggly little angel; a teddy bear who fits so perfectly into the hollow of my arm, I can feel at an instant she was born to be here. She goes right back to sleep, comforted, held, at peace.

When Justin has a bad dream and climbs into bed with us at night, it's like going ten rounds with the TNA wrestling lineup on Spike TV. He flips, he flops, he twists in different directions. I'd say with only a small measure of exaggeration, Justin burns more calories during a typical night's sleep than the backup dancers in a Madonna concert. If the U.S. Gymnastics team ever comes up a guy short, trust me, Justin's on deck.

Speaking of which, we took the kids to their first gymnastics class last weekend.

We did this because people kept watching them dance, and they kept saying to us, "you do have them enrolled in gymnastics classes, right?" The guilt finally got to us. Wherever we go, once the music turns on, they both break into such joyous, uninhibited mastery of movement, people just assume they go to dance classes, or take gymnastics, or both.

Justin's graceful one-handed cartwheels at a recent dance night with friends had people's jaws dropping, literally. The kid can flip himself upside down and land with the grace of an angel on a pinhead. This is the same kid that walks headfirst into trees. Go figure.

So, off we went to Gymcats, where they spent a lovely Saturday morning, flipping, swinging, bouncing and somersaulting. Both of them took to it naturally. Ducks in a pond. When it came time to leave, the coach actually held Justin back when he let the other kids go, so he could talk to us privately after the class.

"How long has he been taking gymnastics classes?" he asked us.

"He hasn't," Adam said. "This is his first one."

"His first one?" the coach asked incredulously, scratching his head.

"First one," Adam said, beaming, already picturing future Olympic glory.

"His floor is very strong," the coach said. "He's very good at this."

Our buttons were bursting, obviously, and we learned a new word. His floor. His floor is very strong. Take that, occupational therapists. My kid has strong floor.

So, there they were. Our two little swinging monkeys, happily adapting to their new world, full of laughter and joy and increasing moments of magic. It feels like our family is moving full speed ahead, with the troublesome, contentious moments of our first difficult months together far behind us. Now we just have the problems all you regular parents have. Brush your teeth. Make your bed. Don't talk back. Eat your dinner.

Which is why, in the midst of our growing, comforting bubble of normality, it surprised us when the kids' therapist, Hannah, told us last week:

"Justice expressed some fear in her session today that she still might have to leave here. She's still not sure she can trust that it's permanent."

You could have knocked us over with a feather. Poor kid. She really still believes that?

"She still worries sometimes that this might not be forever. That you might change your mind and she might have to start over again somewhere else."

Wow. That hadn't even occurred to us.

Our minds were so committed to loving her from Day One, and her personality is so strong, so independent, so utterly in-your-face defiant at times, it's hard for us to picture her 13 months later as anything but certain that she's stuck with us. But it turns out that's not the case. Once in doubt, always in doubt. She's still that fragile little girl, just a child, still hurting from a lifetime of uncertainty, never knowing where her next home is, or when she'll have to leave, never quite sure if she'll truly belong in one place forever.

It's something to think about as that tiny little hand shakes me awake at two in the morning saying, "I had a bad dream." As she crawls into bed for a protective snuggle from a dad and a daddy who are trying to make it right again, I realize how important it is that we rededicate ourselves to healing her.

I hear that old Bob Seger song, and it takes on new meaning, as if Justice is singing the words to us:

"Deep in my soul, I've been so lonely.
All of my hopes, fading away.
I've longed for love, like everyone else does.
I know I'll keep searching, even after today."

And I have to wonder, as a father, when will her searching end? She won't doubt my love. Give us a few more years, and she'll know that when it comes to me and Adam, our love for her is automatic and eternal. Unshakeable. "I'm like the rocks at Stonehenge," Eleanor tells Henry in The Lion in Winter, "Nothing knocks me down." 

But where will her other searching take her? Will her need and doubt and early losses create a woman who grows up unsure if she's wanted in every home and in every relationship? Who fears abandonment is just around the corner and she's not worthy of her own happiness? That's what the books say might happen to her. Probably will happen to her, if Adam and I can't fix it.

It's our job to make sure she learns stability, certainty, and confidence in the love around her before she leaves this nest. It's not just our job to love her, I suddenly realize. It's our job to teach her she is loved with permanence. That she is worthy of forever.

"Here's what you should do," Miss Hannah told us. "Speak to her in the future tense as much as possible. Ask her about things she'll do in the future, and include yourselves in the scenario."

So, that's what we've been doing this week. Little comments all week long, to let her know we envision a future with her, not without her. That no one is letting her go. Not this time.

"Justice," I smile as I sit on the floor by the coffee table, painting her fingernails, one of the true joys of fatherhood. "Are you still going to let me paint your nails when you're sixteen?"

"Yes," she smiles.

"Are you still going to let me paint your fingernails when you're twenty?"

"Yes."

She seems comforted by that, so that's how we do it now. Little by little, convincing her that this home has endurance. There's no more leaving. No more uncertainty.

My message to Justice, at eight, is simple and important: I will be here for you at nine, and ten, and forever. Little girl, when bad dreams find you, climb into my comforting arms, because this is your home now.

It's here, it's forever, and you never have to go away from the love you feel. Not ever again.

"We've got tonight. Who needs tomorrow?
Let's make it last. Let's find a way.
Turn out the light. Come take my hand now.
We've got tonight, babe.
Why don't you stay?"

 "We've Got Tonight" by Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, c.1978 Capitol Records.