Attachment

I have no recollection of what my first attachment was, except for this teddy bear. When my parents adopted me at 4 years old, they gave me this as a gift, my first personal belonging. I don’t remember being given it. It was not a bribe but certainly carried a lot of love.

My parents told me that some of the other kids in the orphanage tried to take it from me. What I didn’t realize was they could take away my teddy bear, but they could never take away the family that I finally belonged to. For as long as I had that bear in my arms, I knew I was safe and secure.

I remember becoming so attached to this bear and the day I lost it several years later, never to be found. I was crushed and all I could do was cry uncontrollably for hours. The epitome of my helplessness was always after experiencing loss. For me, it didn’t have to be permanent for it to be significant. Loss was real to me whenever I faced any goodbyes.

Helplessness resulted from the fear of abandonment. It’s not only a child-like state of mind. Years later, as I hold a blue-eyed foster baby with rose-red cheeks in my arms as if she were my own for 7 months, little did I know the impact of how empty arms made me feel so empty-handed. The loss felt like the death of my own soul.

I couldn’t help but wonder if that was how my birth mother felt giving me away. I spent years running for what I felt I could never grasp. If it weren’t for my parents who willingly embraced brokenness with no return, I would have never known that kind of love. The depth of loss and pain from abandonment will always remain on this side of Heaven.

Yet little did I know how open arms would continually bring me back to feel safe and secure in the arms of God who carries me in my brokenness. After reuniting with my birth mother two years ago, I told her the story of my lost bear. She bought me a new bear to give me someday whenever we meet in person. Truth is, that bear will never replace what was lost, but the love carried with it is priceless to me. Unconditional love is not a replacement for what was lost, but an addition that I could never add up to.