Tizi is "In the House!"

On the Christmas morning when Levi and Jake were three and a half, Levi came to the stairway, looked down into the family room and yelled, "Jake, It is true!  It is true!  Santa did come!!"  I feel like that today.  It's one of those things when you think you prepare, you dare to anticipate, but until it really happens, you hold back from truly celebrating.

Celebrating we are!  It is true!  It is true!  Tizi is ours!  The transition went beautifully as she slept through most of it, including the coffee ceremony.  Tizi was blessed at Jane's House by a team of caregivers that loved her as their own.  They are women that are called to love and let go, again and again and again.  Mulu is the head caregiver and I asked her how she does this, this falling in love and saying goodbye.  Her reply, "It very hard. Very sad. Do it because hope.  Hope God to give them families and better life.  This very very hard."  Mulu, Esther and I cried together and circled around Tizi, hugging her and crying more.  Esther stayed with Tizi the first week of her hospitalization.  She has two daughters of her own and showed me her phone; it included pictures of her beautiful daughters and of our Tizi.  They describe Tizi as "God's miracle baby. She not to live, but she come back to us."

Their words alone make me cry.  Thanking them was inadequate.  The gifts we left, weak.  They know Tizi far better then we do.  They love her in a deeper way.  We left with a promise to continue to grow the love they began in Tizi.  We left believing more fully in hope.  We left forever changed by their willingness to make a difference in the name of love and hope and God.  We left believing that every effort does make a difference.