Day 38: Don't Miss the Destiny

The first time we met Rex, it wasn't what we expected. It was our placement appointment, the official hand-off between the childcare agency, the foster family, and us. For two years, we had dreamed of this moment. And now it was upon us. The moment was magical, so thick with destiny I could fling it off my forehead like sweat. Oh yeah, that was sweat. At any moment we would gaze upon our son, and he would gaze upon us, and something cosmological or meteorlogical would happen. He'd come in floating on a cloud, kind of like Frenchie's Guardian Angel in "Grease."

Only it didn't happen that way. We were on the second floor of the orphanage, and all of a sudden, Rex' foster mom walked up the stairs carrying him. There really was no warning; one instant our son was not in the room and then suddenly he was. It was that simple. I thought at least there'd be an emcee or a wedding singer to announce his arrival. I didn't even get a chance to wipe my face. The first look he got of his new dad was of this salty, soaky mess; he probably thought I was a fisherman. That's okay, at least he met me in my natural state.

I think destiny is this way sometimes. We expect it to be utterly remarkable, beyond comprehension, otherworldly. Sometimes it is. But sometimes it's not. Sometimes destiny happens in the tamest of ways, in the unlikliest of places, on a stairwell. Sometimes instead of global events, we get a glance, which turns into a touch, which becomes a meeting, which turns into a relationship. Between a family and a son. Don't miss the destiny because it doesn't come the way you thought it would.