I sent The Little Vine story to my daughter a couple of days ago. I had it printed onto a pale blue paper then had a dark blue plastic backing with clear cover bound onto the story. I wanted the effect to be something that says, “Keep me”. My hope is that she reads the allegory, understands on some level what I am trying to tell her, then saves it.

I poured my heart into the story and in that sense, I gave her the best I had to give. There was a part of me that was a bit afraid to send the story as I don’t want my heart stepped on any more than it has been already but I knew I had to. I have felt like God gave me the story for a purpose and I need to obey that internal leading and send it to my daughter even if I am a bit worried about being rejected.

I titled this blog Happily Ever After as that is the ideal response. Of course I would like her to understand that she is loved and will always be part of the family. Of course I would love for her to “like us” and join us again for family events and holidays. I put parenthesis around the “Happy” though as there are varying possibilities in the response I may get following receipt of the story, assuming she reads it.

Perhaps the opposite will happen and she will throw verbal darts at the attempt to use a story to reach her heart. I’m well familiar with her darts and have reached a point where I try to disengage from that conversation (text is all we get right now) then re-engage at a later point. The darts still hurt though.

The most likely result is that I will get no response at all. What I hope then is that she will have read the story and while not interested in moving closer to us right now, thinks about it. Like a small seed, I hope understanding…even if it lays dormant for a while, grows in her heart over time and helps move her to a different perspective of her life and the role her family plays in her life.

A rough translation of the allegory is as follows:
– The initial field where the little vine first poked up through the soil: Her birth family, most likely located in a small farming village in China.

– Sad-faced Gardner: Her birth mother is the sad-faced Gardner. I have always felt that the birth mother must have grieved after giving birth to a girl, knowing that she would not be allowed to keep her. I imagine her holding the newborn baby and desperately trying to pour all of her love into the infant in the few moments she had.

– Older, stern Gardner who judged the little vine to be the wrong type: The culture that allowed only one child put tremendous pressure on farming families to have a son. It is likely that the husband’s grandparents commanded the birth father to abandon the newborn baby.

– Greenhouse: My daughter was found in a park in a city, probably nearby the farming community where she was born. In my mind, I see care taken to bring the baby to a central place where she would be found and then taken care of. The birth family gave her the best possible chance at another life. The greenhouse is the orphanage where my daughter spent her first 6 months of life. It was run with help from an American Christian adoption agency and was clean, cheerfully bright with sunlight streaming through windows and filled with gayly colored blankets and bedding covering the babies. The babies were well taken care of though of course, not the same as a mother’s tender care.

– Second field, Momma and Grandma vine, Poppa vine: This was the foster family that took care of my daughter for two years. There were two older teenage sons, born before the “one child” decree. There was a Grandmother as well and though the apartment was extremely modest by Western standards, there is no doubt that she was well loved and that my daughter was very happy. We picked up our daughter from the orphanage (the foster mom had brought her there), had her for three days then went to the foster family’s home to meet the foster parents and say good bye. The agency had found that it was important to the child to see the adoptive parents and the foster parents talking together and being friendly. My daughter needed to understand on a 2 ½ year old level that she was going to our family as part of a plan and not because she did anything wrong. I do think that was a good idea…it’s just that to see the foster mom explain what was happening to my daughter and see my daughter shake her head and clearly say, “No, no, no” was hard. To leave with her screaming and crying was one of the hardest things I have ever watched.

– New Momma, New Poppa: Of course, that is us and the ordered vineyard is the very conservative Christian-values life we lead…and the same life that my daughter is carefully rejecting.

The conclusion that I have come to with this younger daughter is that at the core of her being, she is a good-hearted, fair-minded young woman who will find her way. She only thinks she doesn’t like us; I firmly believe that she does love us but needs to fly off on her own just to prove she is in control of her own life. I think if we stay the course, stay who we are and still convey love to her, she will eventually find her place in life and in our family.

I realized in writing this allegory that I have once again used “growing things” as my characters. This is a bit ironic since I actually have a black thumb when it comes to plant life. I think next time I will use frogs or birds or something else like that.