Dear Mason,
We haven’t met you yet. We’ve just seen pictures. I’ll be honest, you’re amazingly cute! I think I am safe assuming that you’ll be even more beautiful when we meet you. (I promise, I won’t call you beautiful when you are 13. But, I’m going to now because you are allowed to call babies beautiful).
Tonight, on August 2, 2007, I am sitting in the Westin Casino Real Hotel in Guatemala City and I am fairly overwhelmed when this whole idea. In one sense, your mom and I have no clue what we are doing. We have no clue what to expect. It’s all pretty much like a dream. When we started this process in January of 2006, this moment seemed so far off. Honestly, last week, even when we heard we finally figured out when we would be coming down, seemed so far off.
In another sense, we know exactly what we are doing. We are adopting you as our son. We are bringing you into our family and calling you a very real part of it. We’re not doing this simply because we had trouble getting pregnant after Cole (I really don’t think anyone really adopts only for this reason). While we did have some issues getting pregnant our main motivation for choosing to adopt is because we can’t think of anything more faithful to the Scriptures and the call of Jesus than bringing a child without a home into our loving family. We are doing this not to make ourselves feel good (though, it does!). We are doing this because we love Jesus and we love you. This is not about feelings or pity or anything. It’s simply about choosing to love you as our son.
So, tomorrow your wonderful foster mom is going to bring you to this hotel and we’re going to meet you in the lobby. I am sure your mom and I will be rather strange to you when we first meet you (I’m also sure I’ll be strange to you for the rest of your life!).
But, I want you to know something. You have the most amazing mother in the whole entire world. She loves you so much. She is going to love you in ways you can’t even imagine. The scriptures tell us that each of us are given different gifts. I’ll argue to my death that she’s been given the gift of being a mom. Now, I don’t want to put undue pressure on her. She’s far from perfect. She knows that. Which is maybe what makes her such a great mother. And, in spite of her imperfections and maybe even because of them, she’s going to love you in ways that you won’t be able to measure.
I feel the same way of course. I promise to love you more than myself as well. But, I wanted to emphasize how much your mother loves you. You are one blessed kid.
I should also mention that you not only have a wonderful mother, you have an amazing big brother. Cole is so excited for you to come home. He’s been so patient waiting for the day he gets to meet you. He’s prayed for you every night and I think he’ll continue to do the same. I’m excited to see you two playing together in our living room and getting into all kinds of trouble.
I also can’t forget to mention the church family that you have in Philadelphia. This group of people called “The Well” (I know, its a weird name for a church but the name is irrelevant really), just can’t wait to meet you. They’ve been praying for you for over a year, even before we knew who you were. They are probably going to try and spoil you a bit so if you would do us a favor and learn to say “no” to them early on that would be great. But, I’m excited for you to meet them because I believe with all my heart that who you will become as you grow into a man will be very directly related to their influence, guidance and friendship. They too are far from perfect. But they are doing their best to love Jesus and love others. What more can we ask for?
Honestly, I don’t really know what else to say. I still feel like our meeting you is a year away even though it is only about 13 hours.
I guess all I can do is say “I love you, son.” And, I haven’t even met you yet. I can’t wait to watch you grow into a young man. I’m excited to see what the Lord has in store for you. I’m excited to be your dad.
Your daddy,
Todd
p.s. See you tomorrow!