November 6...a mixture of joy and sadness fills me this on day.
- November 6, 2002 - I got the call from the adoption agency with my referral! I rushed from a downtown Austin hotel where I was in a meeting to the Great Wall China Adoption agency to pick up my paperwork and get the 3 photos of my daughter - you. Wow! I was a mom! I had a daughter waiting for me over in China! That morning on the way to the meeting downtown, I had heard U2's song Beautiful Day on the radio and boy, oh boy, was it ever true! After waiting for over a year for this day it was here...and I was a mom!
- November 6, 2006 - Dad died. He had been sick for the last year. Longer than that really between his heart and then the hemachromatosis, but the last year he just got weaker and weaker. Mom took such great care of Dad but it was tough to see such a strong man struggle so.
Bailee, I wish you really had a chance to know your Papa. We talk about him all the time and you bring him up as often as I do and even cry and say how you miss your Papa and wonder if he can see you from heaven. He loved you so! He thought you were pretty darn special. He loved making up songs...any little thing was a cause for him to make up a song. He wrote a song for you to the tune of Amazing Grace.
Oh Bailee Grace, How sweet the sound
A sweeter name can ne'er be found
Oh I've heard the modern names and the names of long ago
But Bailee Grace, oh Bailee Grace, the sweetest name I know.
I wish he were around to give me advice (he always had advice) when you and I are struggling with homework and tempers at night. He'd have the perfect scripture from the Bible to go along with whatever lesson he wanted to teach me and whatever I needed to learn. I wish he were around to play Uno or dominoes with you. I wish he were here to hold your hand or play basketball with you or tell you a joke. You love jokes...and so did Dad. A truly good man. I wish he were here.
