Our Angelita

Phoenix: a mythical bird of great beauty fabled to live 500 or 600 years in the Arabian wilderness, to burn itself on a funeral pyre, and to rise from its ashes in the freshness of youth and live through another cycle of years: often an emblem of immortality or of reborn idealism or hope.

I can't pretend that finding out Audrey was coming into the world wasn't one of the most painful and difficult things that has happened to my family. I can say that during that time we definitely went through hell and back; and a WHOLE lot of humiliation (as in, the process of being humbled). There was not a member of our family that was spared some heartache. It felt like a mourning process--a kind of funeral service for hopes and dreams. There were some deep wounds that I wondered if would ever be healed.

But a miracle has truly transpired. Who would have known that after all that, we would be sent a beautiful angel? I am seriously weeping as I write this, because she is the most perfect angel I have ever seen. A touch of her tiny finger has healed rifts that were, to all appearances, beyond repair. The thread of love has begun to mend the tattered edges of our hope. In her was born a new life... not just her own, but for our family. And I can already tell she will be an integral part of it.

Thank you, Audrey.