The wonderful world of Layla: Ten Month Gotcha

But not even lightening
Will be frightening to my lion.

And with no fear inside,
No need to run, no need to hide,
You're standing strong and tall,
You're the bravest of them all
If on courage we must call,
Then just keep on tryin'
And tryin' and tryin'-
You're a lion,

In the BC (before children) age, Mike and I would go on virtual movie outings. I can’t remember why but for some reason we decided to see Catwoman. We probably wanted to go to see how awful it was. Well a few days after we saw it, Mike sent me an article from The Onion where people who saw the movie said they only wanted two or three of their bucks back after seeing the movie, when originally they had thought they would be asking for all or at least half of their ticket cost back. That to me sums up the movie perfectly, it wasn’t so bad it’s good a la Marci X; it wasn’t outright horrible, it just wasn’t good. Though I have to say the first fifteen minutes would have made the beginning of a wonderful romantic comedy, Halle was great, she had great chemistry with Benjamin Bratt, but I know Halle doesn’t do romantic comedies. And I won’t digress and go into a tirade about how she’s a chick in Hollywood thus in order to have real power she needs to be in pictures that gross over a hundred million dollars and for women that means romantic comedies and for men that means action pictures or comedies. And by making the hundred million dollar movies, you get to make your small indie films a la Monster’s Ball. Nope, I’m not going there.

Anyway the Saturday before Halloween four years ago, my mom and I are were watching Catwoman. Jory was asleep and I wanted to watch it with my mom who hadn’t seen it before. The phone rang and we discovered my brother-in-law, Leonard, had been in an accident. Twenty or thirty minutes later the phone rang again and Leonard was dead. Oh how I cried. He and I weren’t that close for he rarely left his adopted hometown. He was a self-proclaimed Louisiana country boy. He hated the big city. He lived and died a country boy.

I cried for the man, who could see forty coming, but didn’t make it. I cried endlessly for my sister, who met him her frosh year in college and nearly twenty years later had lost him. I cried for my niece who was two-and-a-half months away from being born and would never be held by the man, who would have thought the sun rose and shined on her. I cried for my babies, my boys, Mijo and Tigger, who at six-and-a-half and four-and-a-half had lost the man they looked up to. I cried for the lives my nephews would never have. Our family knew that the boys would have been driving before they became teens and by the time they graduated from high school would have known how to rebuild an engine and build a house from scratch just like their daddy.

I remember talking to my sister the very next morning and crying in her ear as she stayed strong and thanked me for my condolences. I remember when my sister put my nephews on the phone and I thought I’m not going to bring up their dad, yet the first thing Mijo said to me was, “Auntie, my dad’s at the mort- - What is it called, Mama?” I wanted to cry that my baby knew that word and knew it in reference to his father. “Yes, Mijo, Daddy is at the mortuary.”

I remember seeing Leonard in the casket then looking at my heavily pregnant sister, looking so dignified and lovely in her black maternity dress, and I just lost it. And a moment I will never forget in my life was when she wrapped her arms around me, hugged me, and whispered in my ear, “It’ll be okay.” Which of course made me ball harder. Why was she saying that to me? I didn’t just lose the love of my life. I wasn’t standing in front of the coffin of the man I had hoped to grow old and decrepit with.

The strength that my sister showed then and now wows me. I can still see her on that December 27th morning being wheeled off for her c-section all by herself, while the boys and I watched. She was all alone this time, when the two previous times Leonard was by her side.

When I think of true strength I think of my sister. I think of my grandmother. I think of my mother. I think of Layla. A little girl who can smile brightly and giggle delightfully in spite of the losses she’s experienced in her young life. She’s lost her birth family. She’s lost the country she was born in. She’s lost the culture she would have been taught had she been reared in Vietnam. She’s lost the only family she’d known at the orphanage. She’d lost all that in eleven short months, yet still at dinner in our hotel’s restaurant a little over twenty-four hours after she first met me, she smiled at me. She smiled at me. She smiled at me! How do you smile in the face of such great lost? All I can say is God.

And after her losses, she was then hit with a world of changes: staying at her first hotel, hanging out in the business lounge at the airport (loved that!), her first plane ride, and her first taxi ride. The new clothes, the new mother, the new shoes, the masses of people when we went shopping and sight seeing. The endless parade of motorbikes. Coming to America. Getting siblings. Getting an Oma. An entirely new family. And Layla just adapted. She went with flow and as each change came she took it on at full speed and conquered them.

I’m in awe of the strength God has given her. I don’t know if everyone has a Job phase in their lives, but this was definitely hers and she could have given up, but she didn’t. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb/And naked I shall return/For the Lord giveth and He taketh away/Blessed be the name of the Lord.” This is the song she had to have been singing in her heart, in her soul.

Before me today stands a little girl who melts my heart, who is loving, giving, caring, brilliant, beautiful. She loves her brother, her sister, her Oma, her family, and Happy (her babysitter). She deals well when her mommy brings her to work to show her off to the friends who asked about her, prayed for, thought of her before she was even aware they existed. People who told me she was a cute little baby from her pictures, who were thrilled for me and for her when we were matched and when she finally came home. People who delight in seeing the progress she’s made from the baby they made days after she touched down in the greatest city in the world. A little girl who is a complete Mommy’s girl.

I pray I was a good mother to her when she felt that she was a stranger in a strange land because I have been there. When I lived in Moorhead, when I lived in Butte, when I lived in Sliema. Every time God has sent someone or someones to me to be my friend, to be my family. I hope in her time of need I was to her what Ann and Fifi were to me in Butte, what Heather, Mike, Kelly, Scott, Kelly, and Matthew were to me in Scandawhovian land, to name a few. And what the incredible Lisa Carol was to me in Malta. You too, Peter. And what Nancy, Lisa, and Rock Star were to me in Vietnam.

When I was in Israel, standing and walking in the land of my forefathers, I thought of Abraham and how following God’s command he bound Isaac to the altar and was going to sacrifice him. He laid his son on the altar to sacrifice him. WOW! It hit me that’s what I have to do with my children. I’ve said they are the Lord’s, but would I have been able to do what Abraham did? Wouldn’t I have been trying to hide my child? Or trying to bargain with God? As much as I love Jory, Rowan, and Layla they are not mine, they are God’s. God loves them more than I can ever begin to conceive. He wants only the best for them. The paths they travel will not be the same ones I’ve traveled.

It’s so hard imagining saying, “Here God, here are your children.” I have no idea why I think I can do a better job protecting them then the One who knows the exact number of stars in the sky. Yet Regina Belle’s words float through my mind.

If I could, I would try to
Shield your innocence from time
But the part of life
I gave you isn't mine
I'll watch you grow
So I can let you go

If I could, I would help you
Make it through the hungry years
But I know that I can
Never cry your tears
But I would, if I could

God has loaned these children to me. They are His just like I am His. I need to give back to Him, what He gave to me and stand firm in Jeremiah 29:11. “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” God has plans for Layla, Rowan, and Jory to prosper and grow. I’m working on having the strength of the women I admire.

Strength. It can only come from God as I walk down this road called parenthood. The words from the brilliant Toby “DC Talk needs to put a new album out” Mac reminds me of the failings I will have as a mom because I am only human, which is why my children need God so they can trust in the One who will never fail them. And it reminds me that the love I have and feel for Jory, Rowan, and Layla can’t even begin to touch the love He has for me and for them.

This goes out to my man his name is True Blue
For all the nights that your Daddy spent away from you
For all the days that I told you "Maybe next time"
Laid up in the studio consumed with my next rhyme
What kind of lyric can I drop to make you think twice
About the trials that you're gonna face in this life
I can lullaby even point you to the Most High
Prayin' every little thing is gonna be all right
Someday my love isn't gonna be fulfilling
Try as I may, human love it hits a ceiling
But I can sow the seeds, say a prayer, this I know
If faith can move a mountain
Surely God can make His spirit grow in you

This goes out to my little man T Mac
For all the junk you've been carrying on your back
My burden's easy and My yoke is a featherweight
And this you know yet you're still a man of little faith
What can I do to spring your knowledge into how you roll
Don't you have the Spirit and the letters that My people wrote
My love stretches farther than your mind can conceive
I've got a hand full of grace, a heart full of mercy
Someday My son, your gonna find My love fulfilling
Hope as I may, you've got to turn in when you're willing
I'll take you as you are and just to add a human touch
I gave to you a son so you can understand the Father's love for you

I thought about entering the terrific trio in the Gap Kids contest cause at the very least, if we had made it to the semi-final round, we would have gotten a free trip to visit Miss Ashley in SF. And she could have come and stayed with us in our swanky hotel room. The following photos show why we didn't enter. Thanks, Layla.