On each invitation, everyone
was asked to bring a bead to the shower. I opened my
sister's card which explained the blessing way ceremony
as "a West African tradition to show new parents their
support." So, basically, everyone had a bead and as a
string was passed around, each person added their bead
to it with a blessing. Some of the beads had meanings
and others were just beautiful...
here
is what it looked like and I'll explain some of the
beads...
The first three are from my
sister - the elephant, is to wish Micah a life full of
happiness, smiles and laughter, the second, the
Ethiopian cross is for protection on our journey, and
the third, the rose quartz, signifies unconditional
love, and then my sister wrote this (which I read out
loud, while crying!).
"Sometimes families must
endure unbearable means to find each other. We know you
two have had to endure this and yet you never stopped
believing in your family. And we, your friends and
family, have never stopped believing in you. Your trust
and love is truly beautiful. May this trust and love
cocoon you two and Micah and be the guiding force in
your lifetime together." Yes, there were certainly a lot
of happy tears... a lot. :)
All of the other beads have
some meaning, one is for protection, many are African
beads, there are some that are black & white beads from
our friends who also have a trans-racial family - to
signify that we are all together and beautiful in our
way. There is also a triangle - each point representing
one of us - Kevin, Micah and me.
There
is also a buckeye - Kevin is from Columbus, Ohio (home
of the Buckeyes) and a tiny football from his brother
and sister and their families. There is also Micah's
name spelled out in those little white beads. I didn't
know the significance of this until, at the end of the
blessing ceremony, Kevin's sister Becky gave us the
beads from his mom - it was the tiny bracelet that the
nuns had made for Kevin when he was born...
Well, that set me off into
sobs again - it was so tiny and beautiful! I felt so
moved that his mom chose to give that to us. We might
add it to the blessing beads or we might keep it
separate for Micah to have someday when he has his own
children. :) Needless to say, we felt very, very blessed
after the whole thing. We are lucky to have such
wonderful friends and family!
