What Would We Ever Do Without Willow?

"What would we ever do without Willow?", Victoria asked Barret and me yesterday as we sat in our backyard enjoying some of her infamous bruschetta (one of Austin & Barret's favorite "Mom-recipes"). Behind Victoria in my immediate view was Willow bouncing like A. A. Milne's Tigger of Winnie-the-Pooh. As I got up to rotate some chicken on the BBQ both Barret and I said almost simultaneously and in unison, "I don't know what we'd do without her." "Life just wouldn't be the same, would it, Honey?", asked Victoria. "Not at all, Sweetie. Not at all," I said.

Yesterday was Willow's day, her birthday that is. Three years old (give or take a day or two here or there). Somewhere around this time over a thousand days ago in Wu Wei, Gansu, China, Wu Hui Xuan was left on the front entrance of the local orphanage, no doubt with the hope to be found and promise for a different life. Cleft lip and pallet exposed, she became a ward of the State with a future unknown. By that time we had already had Poppy for about four to five months, and adopting another was quite the furthest thing from our mind as we already had our hands full with a dramatic change in lifestyle.

But God was already at work, orchestrating and crafting a union that would occur 19 months later with a strange family from Lafayette, California. That first encounter was frightening for all of us, but most of all Willow. Her cautious and pensive spirit exhibited during those first hours and days have all but vaporized today. The girl we came to know in a foreign hotel in Lanzhou is not the same girl we know now. Either way, either girl, we would have been thrilled, but God keeps unfolding layers of her onion that reveal precious jewels unseen at first glance. Her joyful charisma, independent confidence and loving, tender sensitivity are blossoming right before our very eyes. She's brought a dynamic to our family that is difficult to imagine ever being without. In fact, it's almost hard to remember what life in the Kruggel home was like before she came into it.

Yesterday Willow opened numerous gifts that brought just as much pleasure to Poppy as they did her. But in a very real sense it was our birthday because her gift to us is unmatched by anything anyone could purchase. We honestly don't know what we'd ever do without Willow.

Happy Birthday Our Little Willow-Tree,

Dad & Mom (& Austin, Meagan, Annie, Barret & Poppy)