Hannah was near the end of her kindergarten year when she joined our forever family. She was overly sweet and an expert at using the nurse pass. Hannah is a survivor and learned early in life to be compliant when adults were around and then frantically work to do anything necessary to take care of herself.

Our hope has always been for Hannah to wholly heal in childhood. Sometimes healing takes a whole lot of not-fine moments. Although her early experiences were vital for her survival, they didn’t give her a lot of experience in functioning in healthy ways. 

Our hope has always been for Hannah to wholly heal in childhood. Sometimes healing takes a whole lot of not-fine moments. Although her early experiences were vital for her survival, they didn’t give her a lot of experience in functioning in healthy ways. 

Last Friday was graduation. It is the definitive marker between childhood and adulthood. We went to the school together, as a family, even though Hannah needed to be there early to practice. She hurried across the parking lot to arrive on time, and I noticed the confidence in which she carried herself. She was sure-footed in her too high heals, she spent time on her hair and make-up, her shoulders were square and she was on her way. 

“Hannah,” I called from across the parking lot, unsure if she would hear me. Unsure if I am ready to let go.

She turned, “Yeah, Mom?”

I held up my camera. “I thought we should get a picture.” Hannah walked toward me. Her smile was genuine. I snapped her photo. 

There were many nights I knelt beside my bed when I should have been sleeping and the only words on my heart, in my mind, were: Please, please heal Hannah in childhood. There were tears cried into Andy’s shoulder that would likely fill the Great Lakes, and we whispered our mantra, One step closer to healing. There were the times when we let her go because she was so headstrong, and our only choice was to let her do the thing she was determined to do and then be there when things crumbled around her. Take a deep breath, we said. Then, we love you more every time you breathe.

We hoped things would turn out okay.  I had a fair amount of fights with Hope, sometimes slinging the accusation that Hope is a liar. Many times Hope made me feel ridiculous for believing that healing can happen, and giving one more chance, always giving one more chance, just to have one more not-fine moment happen. Yet, always we, Hope and me, became friends again.  

It took me aback, when I saw the photo from the parking lot. She smiles, and it is genuine. We’ve waited so long to see a genuine smile.

She is moving past rewriting a history of hard, walking through a commencement ceremony that was both a literal and figurative journey. She is on the other side. Hannah is now living her healthy, healed and wholehearted life. That is not to say that she doesn’t make mistakes, but it is to say that the grip of the past is no longer something she is continually rewriting. Now she is writing a remarkable and beautiful story by looking forward and following her dreams.