Loved

Two nights ago, while sipping peppermint hot chocolate and a mocha latte at Starbucks, my dear friend quietly handed me one of those gifts of a lifetime...for you Callyrose.  It was a book..lovingly crafted, hand made.

Inside, when I opened it, were pages that looked like this:

Each page, had a label of someone you will know very well, with a place to put their picture and with their name written not only in English, but also in your given language of Amharic. 

So that after we visit you, when we are forced to say goodbye for a couple of weeks or months, you will be able to look through this and get to know us.  Hopefully, someone will read the names to you in the language you can understand so you won't forget.

you are so loved.   Already.  By so many.  By all your mama's friends - who listen to me talk about you day and night, by your Daddy's co-workers where he constantly shows off your picture, by your sisters who draw your face at school during art classes, by your church who prays for you, by your neighbors who ask about you...by your grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunts.  They have all poured their money, hearts and prayers into helping us get you home. 

I don't know if there is a window in your room...but if there is and you look out it at night...all those stars that you can count from that little window...are like all the prayers and love that are going up for you daily, from another side of the world.  Lights of love amidst the darkness of loneliness telling you "you belong, you belong, you belong."