teach me to braid

My mom had been encouraging me to start a blog for years. She knows that I love to write and that I have a lot to say. So during those weeks when the genetic family was considering us as a potential adoptive family for their embryos, I started to seriously consider the possibility. I didn't expect very many people would want to read it but I thought it would be cool to keep track of our future children's story so that they would know how they came to be Ericksons. I wanted them to be able to read about how much their parents wanted them and how hard we worked to bring them here.

After nursing Harriet and climbing back into bed one night, a title for the blog just sort of popped into my head...teach me to braid. The meaning is two-fold. I came up with the idea when I realized that if we have an African American child, I'm going to need to learn how to braid hair. I'm super intimidated by that prospect because I can hardly manage a ponytail some days. But it's part of the culture so I want to give it a shot. "Teach me to braid" has a deeper meaning too - the idea of braiding together cultures and skin colors to create a family. I put the "teach me" part in there rather than calling it "learning to braid"  because I want to acknowledge that I'm going to need lots of help in this process - from other adoptive parents, people who share our child(ren)'s ethnicity, etc. They will all be our teachers and I want to have an open, teachable heart. That's part of the reason I started the blog - to jump into this adoption/infertility community online.

When the embryo adoption fell through, we were bummed. Really bummed. It sounds so trivial but one of the first things I thought about was this blog. Wait a second, I thought, this was my plan. We were going to create a family that blends genes and cultures and skin colors. I was going to chronicle all of this, share it. Now what?

So I stopped writing for a while. What was the point?

When I started writing again, I decided not to change the name. We really hope to have a multiethnic family someday, but even if we don't, "teach me to braid" can mean a lot of things. Maybe all of our kids will be white. Maybe they'll all share our genes and maybe my braiding career will consist of twisting blonde hair into french braids. But that's still braiding, right? And as a mom, won't I need to learn to braid my career with my family life? Won't I need to teach my children to braid justice with mercy, humility with confidence, education with experience, gentleness with strength, joy with sorrow... Won't I need to keep myself accountable to enriching my own life with other cultures and perspectives? So even if my hands never weave a cornrow, a fishtail, or a french...I'll be braiding.

Harriet's godmother sent me this poem a couple weeks ago. The further I got into the poem, the more vividly I remembered reading it as a child. It's such a beautiful piece of writing. I had to share it with you. I think Corrie Ten Boom knew a thing or two about braiding.

The Weaving

My life is but a weaving
between my Lord and me,
I cannot choose the colors
He worketh steadily.
Oftimes he weaveth sorrow,
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I, the underside.
Not till the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful
In the Weaver's skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern he has planned.

—Corrie ten Boom