For the past six years, from 2003 through 2008, Allen’s birthday was more a day of grief than celebration for me. Every May twenty-third reminded me of the ninety miles we drove to get to the hospital where he was born. The countryside was beautiful but lonely, impressive but stark, inviting but remote.
The land mirrored my relationship with our son during the years when, in a desperate search for peace and safety, he ran to a monastery and began to heal. The first year, I couldn’t hold back the tears when I called to wish him happy birthday. I did better the next year. After that, though the calls were hard, I could see how Allen was maturing and becoming less self-centered and more loving, as he grew into the young man we had always hoped and prayed he would be.
Last May, we began a new tradition and spent the week before Allen’s birthday with him at the monastery. Though it wasn’t quite like a birthday party at home, it was more family time than we expected when he left us. His delight in our presence was more than we had dreamed of or hoped for, and I only cried once all week. We hatched a plan to visit the monastery every May, to celebrate with our son and the monks who had helped him heal.
Then last November 30, God put into motion a series of events that still take my breath away. Two weeks later, Allen completed treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and left the monastery for our home where we celebrated Christmas as a family. By the end of January, he was living with my sister in the Twin Cities. By March he began his dream job at an organic farm. In April he spent the weekend here helping fix our driveway, and he asked, “Would you come up to the Twin Cities to celebrate my birthday?”
“Yes,” I said as I fought back tears. “Yes.” So tomorrow morning, Hiram and I are heading north, with Mom and Anne in tow, the trunk jammed with suitcases and a cooler containing a German chocolate birthday cake, ten pounds of baby back pork ribs and fresh asparagus. And tomorrow night, we will celebrate more than just a birthday with our son. We will celebrate the outpouring of grace in the presence of a God who has worked exceedingly abundantly beyond what we could imagine or conceive: the emotional healing of our son and the restoration of our family.
This May twenty-third, I will cry on my son’s birthday once again. This year, my tears will spring from streams in the desert, like violets blooming tenaciously after a long, hard winter. They will be tears of incredulous, undeniable, and wholly unexpected joy.
