his box

So last week was a hard one for me. I'm just gonna lay it all out there. I don't want to be a downer or depress you {whoever you are, besides my babies}. But it just was a hard Seth week for me.

I think I mentioned it before. But completing that dossier was both exhilarating and nauseatingly painful. Isn't that crazy? How can that be?

More than anything, I want to bring the little prince home.

More than anything, I want to bring Seth back.

Only one of those things I am capable of doing. I know that full well. Trust me. I'm not nuts. The reality of those two statements are in the forefront of my mind every single day. But the closer we get to the little prince, and we still have a long way to go, the more I feel this tension. The tension of wanting them both. I desperately want them both home. I know that sounds so crazy. Seth is home. Our goal now is to walk this road {still a daily thing for me} with grace and bring the little prince here to his family who loves him so.

There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that we are doing the right thing.

None.

The little prince is ours and we are his and I would be the happiest woman in the world if they would just say that we could come get him tomorrow. Which is not at all likely since our dossier was just delivered to WACAP over the weekend! Lol. Yeah, I'm pretty sure no one has ever traveled to adopt their child without their dossier being in country! We will hopefully {prayerfully!}, be DTC tomorrow!  But if they called, I'd be on that plane today.

I loved Seth for 84 days before we found out he had died.

My goodness, how fast we fall madly and irrevocably in love with these children. Children we don't know and haven't met or touched. It is so very fast.

As of this writing, I have loved Seth for 133 days more, since we knew he went to Heaven.

He's been gone from us more days than he was here, as far as we were aware of him.

And so I finally, finally bought a box for his things. Of course, we have nothing of his truly. Lord, I wish we did. But that isn't possible or at the very least, isn't at all likely.

But we have pictures of him.

And emails of encouragement about him.

And prayer cards we made to give to people who loved him too.

And the little charm I ordered to wear until he came home.

And a huge stack of sympathy cards that were sent to us when he died.

We have all of those things. And for the last four months, they've been on an eye level shelf in our kitchen. Every day, there they were. I needed to put them away. I kept telling myself to buy the box and for many reasons, which you can surely relate to, I just didn't.

Until this weekend.

My mom and I had a few hours to ourselves this past Friday night and I told her that I really felt like it was time to do this. I had been putting it off and I needed to just do it. She helped me pick out the perfect box. Red, of course. Red for China. Red for heart health.

Red for our sweet Seth.

I came home Saturday night and placed his things in the box, had a good cry, and snapped some pictures. We will save it for the little prince to have when he is older. To me, they are so connected. Their stories so intertwined. Maybe that's just in my head. In my heart. But I can't get away from it. So one day, we will tell our sweet son about him and how the Lord used Seth to help us find him in Henan.

I think that this will go a long way in helping me move forward. Not that we/I am not already moving forward. But to remove these things from my sight on a day to day basis, is a good thing. To help me heal. All the while resting in the knowledge that we have a little prince waiting for us...and that our Seth is better than ever.