I finished this allegory for my daughter, as shown below.  The first part of the story is in the last blog post.

I plan to print the story and send it to her apartment.  I hope she checks her mail.  I hope that she will read the dedication to her, understand in reading this story that it mirrors her adoption story, and then understand on a deep level that we love her and support her finding out who she is meant to be in the world.  She doesn’t have to live in complete wild rebellion to be herself; in fact I am certain that the way she is currently acting is not really who she wants to be.

Continued from Part 1…

The little vine continued to thrive in the plain but rich-in-kindness soil of her field.  By this time, any other field was a distant memory and she adored the vines she had come to know as her family.  She especially loved the Grandma vine and the one she called “Mama”; they were dear to her and she expected to be with them forever.  Being so young still, she could not know that these vines, so special to her, were only allowed to take care of her until her permanent vine family came to take her to a different field.

The day came that the Mama and Poppa and Grandma vines knew would come and it changed the course of the little vine’s life forever.  The day dawned, a sunny day like countless others but then something different happened that had never happened before.  Two odd looking vines visited her field and came over to her patch where she had spent so many happy hours.  They held her and spoke softly to her with strange words she didn’t understand; she didn’t mind for a little while as she found them rather interesting in a peculiar sort of way.

The two strange vines spoke to the mama vine through another vine that knew both languages.  The Mama vine then told the little vine the heartbreaking news that the grown-up vine had known from the beginning…that she would be leaving with these new vines to start life in a field far across the ocean.

The strange vines watched as the little vine shook her stem and said, “No, no, no!”  The vine that knew both languages tried to gently remove the little vine from the soil but because her roots were SO far down into the soil, the roots broke.  Darkness flooded into the deepest part of her soul and joy ebbed out into a puddle on the ground.

The Mama vine’s heart broke while saying good bye though she did her best to smile.  The little vine was carried away screaming in agony and so did not hear the words the Mama vine called out to her.  The little vine also did not see that the one of the strange vines, the one that would become New Mamma, was in tears at the pain that she saw on the face of the little vine.

After a long trip across the ocean, the little vine found herself transplanted into a new field.   This field was so wildly different from all that she knew.  The sun was hotter, the air was dryer, the soil looked nothing like what she was used to, the water tasted different and worst of all, the new family of vines looked strange with taller stems and longer leaves, all planted in orderly rows in a vineyard.  She couldn’t understand the language and deep inside her broken soul she cried.  On the outside though, on a toddler level, she decided to be mad rather than sad.  The very next day, she grew her first little thorn.

Despite a rocky start, the little vine learned to adapt to her new field.  She learned to understand the strange language, acquired a taste for the different water in her field, and began to play in the red dusty field with the other sibling vines.  Most of them were bigger than her but one was her size and interestingly enough, one of the sibling vines looked more like her than the others.

Little by little, darkness started to recede from the little vine’s soul, joy started to build and she began to laugh and sway in the breeze again.  She was a quick learner and from the very beginning, her New Mama and New Poppa saw that she was going to be a beautiful vine.  They also saw a strength of character and used to say to each other that she was going to grow up to be a special vine.

The little vine grew taller with each year.  Though still the smallest member of the family, she made up for size with spunk.  Without realizing it, she slowly began to grow a taproot down into the soil.  She grew a few more thorns but only poked when a vine deserved it.

All might have been well, however life is complicated and sends unexpected challenges.  The sibling vine that looked most like the little vine started to fall over.  The New Momma and New Poppa vines propped her back up.  The sibling vine fell over again and they propped her up.  It happened over and over.  The New Mama vine especially tried to prop the older sibling vine up because she knew that healthy growth depended on it.  New Mama got so tired from propping, she would forget that the little vine needed some water and fertilizer too.  Sometimes New Momma, out of exhaustion from trying to prop up the older sibling vine, would scold the little vine for no reason.  The little vine felt the unfairness of being scolded when it was the other sibling that was falling over.

This propping up continued until the little vine’s New Momma and New Poppa placed the sibling into another field for special water and fertilizer, hoping to make her strong again.  The little vine and her younger brother vine finally had more attention but it was too late.  The little vine had slowly been pulling out her roots and though she looked solidly planted, she no longer wanted to have roots in that field.  New Mama vine tried to prune the little vine, give her some tasty fertilizer or take her on a special outing to another part of the field but to no avail.  Sadly, New Momma saw that the little vine’s roots were barely in the soil.

The little vine grew into a stunning teenage vine, beautiful in form and with many thorns which she used at every opportunity to poke those that displeased her, especially New Momma.  There came a point that nothing New Momma did pleased the little vine; every time New Momma anxiously watched for signs of a root, the little vine poked with a thorn instead.  New Momma grieved as she really did love the little vine but was at a loss on how to show it.

Time went on and the little vine left the family field, vowing never to go back.  She despised the straight orderly rows of the vineyard where she had spent so many years.  The little vine jumped into every field that looked different from the one she came from.  She grew wildly with other vines across a stone wall; she leaped into a tangle along a rocky path and furiously avoided anything that looked like the carefully tended field she came from.

She tried strong fertilizer that made her stem dizzy and pierced her leaves with all things colorful and blingy.  She joined a group of vines crawling up a tree; she wove among brambles in the woods and rejoiced in the knowledge that no one would ever tell her how to grow again.  She did not know, did not want to know… how often New Momma vine floated a message to her on the breezes that were the only connections across the vast distance between them.

Time went by.  One morning, the little vine raised her lovely head after a wild night of carousing with brambles and opened her eyes.  She found herself peering into the face of Wind who was gazing at her with a stern countenance.

“Are you ready?”  Wind asked.

“Ready for what”? the little vine answered crossly as she had a headache and wanted peace and quiet.

“Are you ready to be who you were meant to be”? replied Wind.

“I’m fine, go away”, yawned the little vine.

Wind unceremoniously plucked up the little vine then carried her through the air, across the ocean and towards a tiny field, deep in the countryside.  “Look down!” Wind commanded.  It was the field where little vine first poked her head up through the soil and as little vine looked down, she remembered.  She saw the loving, sad-faced Gardener that had gently caressed her, older now but with the same sweet face.  As she looked down, she suddenly remembered the parting words of the gardener.

In the next moment, Wind whisked her a short distance away to a field where she spent her happy years as a baby vine.  She saw Momma, Poppa and Grandma vine again…and Momma vine’s farewell words came back.

Lastly, Wind carried her on quickly moving air currents back across the ocean to the land that was now hers.  “Look down and see the messages on the breezes from New Momma over the years.  What do they say?”

“What did Gardener, Momma and New Momma all say to you?”  demanded Wind.  Little vine paused a moment thoughtfully then replied, “They all said the same thing.”

“My heart and my love will go with you wherever you go”.

The End

Epilogue.

Little vine grew wildly for a while still, but in time the words sank deep into her stem.  She started to see the world around her differently and eventually found a passion in life that she didn’t know she had.

One day, after enjoying the feel of warmth on her leaves, after spending some time in a field of dark soil, rich with nutrients, she bloomed.  The flower was a deep, rich, gorgeous red rose; she didn’t even know that skill had been there all along.  She tried on purpose to bloom again and to her astonishment, the next rose was even more beautiful than the first.  After a while, she became so passionate about developing this newly found interest, it became the focus of her whole life.

Yes, she still had a few thorns and she still preferred growing freely in whatever direction she felt like (no orderly rows for her).  She found that this free-flowing growth worked superbly to beautify plain walls; the little vine became known for creating spectacular arrays of color against stone garden walls.  Over time, her fame grew, drawing vines from distant fields to see this little vine that grew up to be all she was meant to be.

New Momma, New Poppa and her sibling vines?  Oh, they visited every new garden creation, swaying in the breeze and beaming with pride.  Wind was there too, puffing happily high over each of her displays; he had known all along what she was capable of becoming.  And what about the orderly field that she left in a fury, so long ago?  It was still in neat rows and always would be, however the little vine gradually learned to appreciate that there was a different kind of beauty in her family’s vineyard. She was still always glad to get back to her own garden though.