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Brenda can’t understand how losing Jessica and Erika has affected me. She won’t be able to understand because to her, they were just strangers living in our house. Since they were my daughters, I am not able to “get over it” like she expects me to. I’m not blaming her so much for them being gone anymore (though if she wanted to keep them, they would still be with us) but it’s more that I’m just very sad, and think about them often.

When you hear about someone’s children being abducted and the parents not knowing where the children are, what may have been done to them, or if they are even alive – that’s an even worse position than for those parents than at least have some sort of finality if they knew that the child was dead. I know that sounds terrible, but it’s true. Not knowing and wondering is much worse than having some sort of finality/resolution to the situation, even death. I’m in the former category – knowing that my daughters are out there somewhere, living with another family, but not knowing where they are, who they are with, not knowing how they are affected by what happened, wondering what they think about us and wondering if I will ever see them again. The only consolation is that I know that nothing terrible is happening to them.

Brenda tells me that they are not my daughters and that God had a different plan for them, different parents for them. Well, I don’t agree with her. I do believe they are my daughters. We went into adoption with the intent of having a successful adoption, of having new children become a part of our family. Adoption was not going to be a temporary thing for us. If we wanted temporary, we would have done foster care. We were doing what God was leading us to do – adopt children. Whatever children we would get would be ours, forever. I also believe that we messed it up. Was God surprised at what happened? No. Did we make bad choices that caused Jessica and Erika to be taken away? Yes. I believe it was our failure that caused this, not God’s choice. God does not choose for us to sin, yet we do. He does not choose for us to be out of His will, yet we have the free will to do that. I believe that’s what we did with Jessica and Erika (some of us more than others). Yes, God did allow it (obviously) but I believe it was due to failure on our part.

It’s a struggle at our house. Brenda, Holly and Mitch have “moved on” and have been back to living their lives as close to usual for some time now. We really don’t talk about Jessica and Erika. They don’t want to see pictures of them – I can’t have pictures of all 4 of the kids as a desktop or screen saver on the computer. They don’t want to be reminded of them and it seems like they want to just pretend it never happened. Though I doubt they’d agree, it’s like they are in denial that we had 2 daughters/sisters living with us. Is that a healthier place to be than where I am at – sad and greiving? I doubt if one is worse than the other, but I can say that they are not compatible in the same house. It causes tension. I want to remember Jessica and Erika in a good way, talk about them, not let them be forgotten. Brenda, Holly and Mitch don’t want to see them or remember them. I’m the one who is expected to “progress” to their viewpoint and move on.

Well, I think once we reach Adoption Day -100, I’ll stop using that as a header – except maybe for the yearly anniversary.

I think about Jessica and Erika and our adoption at some point of every hour of every day. Our house seems quiet and empty, which reminds me of the girls. When we sit at the smaller table with fewer chairs, I am reminded of Jessica and Erika – just by their absence. When we get into the van and there are only four of us, it reminds me of Jessica and Erika. At church I am reminded of them when our family takes up just four chairs instead of six. I still pray many times every day that God will give us (me, really) a miracle and put the girls back into our (my) lives and family, that we (I)  can ‘officially’ adopt them and our family will be as it should have been. I wonder where they are now and if it’s a permanent home for them. I wonder if Jessica is playing soccer and if Erika has other sisters to play dolls with. I remember Brenda and me telling them when they came home with us on December 20th, 2008 that this would be their last move and that they would be our daughters forever – that they would never be moved around again. I remember the gift certificates I gave them for Christmas that entitled them a date with dad every month of the year. I am ashamed of our failure to keep our word to Jessica and Erika.

Often, I think of the future that we (I) won’t have with them. There won’t be any good times or bad times to go through with them. There will not be any weddings, grandchildren, family gatherings, gifts to buy for their family members as they raise their own children. No teaching them to drive, no family trips with them, no time out on the lake fishing. We won’t be learning about them, their past lives and struggles they’ve gone through. We won’t learn any more of their quirks and things they like or dislike. God, please give us (me) a miracle and bring them back to us (me)!

We played Phase 10 tonight. Phase 10 is a card game that all 6 of us would play. Jessica and Erika liked playing the game and brought it with them when they came into our family. Tonight, we played without them. We talked about Jessica and Erika in a good way, for the first time since they were taken away. It was nice and it made me feel pretty good. For a short time tonight, as a family, we stopped pretending they don’t exist. I haven’t felt this good in a while. I want to thank Brenda, Holly and Mitch for letting this happen. I still miss Jessica and Erika, and always will. I continue to ask God for a miracle – that He brings them back to our family.

I have my second guitar effect nearly finished. I built a blues-type distortion pedal called a Blues Breaker. It’s supposed to be a clone of a Marshall pedal. I don’t have quite the correct pots on it right now, but it does sound OK.

It’s starting to get warmer out. I heard we may be in the 60s in the next week. When I get some free time and it’s warm out, there are a couple car repairs I need to take care of. The driver’s door doesn’t open from the inside and there are issues with the blinkers. The switch in the steering column is bad and I need to mess with the turn signal to get the blinkers to flash.

Things are lumbering along slowly. I still miss my daughters more than I can explain. The scary part is that I’m starting to get used to Jessica and Erika not being around. Even though I accept that they’re not going to come back to us, I feel bad/guilty knowing that someday I may be OK with it. I don’t want to be OK with them being gone. I don’t want to get over them being gone – that makes it seem like I’m betraying or giving up on them. Yet, I know that I need to keep what is left of our family intact and through this mess. It’s hard having to be in contact with those people (me included) that I believed contributed to Jessica and Erika to be taken away.

Meanwhile, I try to stay as busy as I can to avoid thinking about them most of the day. I just finished a delay effect for my guitar. I made what is called a Rebote 2.5 delay. You know those things guitar players stomp on with their foot – that makes their guitar sound different? That’s what it is. When you hit a string on the guitar, this box makes it repeat at different rates and amounts, depending on where you set the knobs. Don’t laugh at my lack of guitar playing ability, but here’s a sample of what the box does:

OGG version of the delay audio
MP3 version of the delay audio

I’ve started on another effect, called the Bluesbreaker. I may build a couple more after that. It’s really fun building these things. You get to use acid, hand tools, solder and be a little creative at the same time. I’ll get a picture of the box and put it up. It’s a do-it-yourself job, for sure. I used an electrical ceiling box to put the board and other junk in. It looks kinda cool.

We went snowboarding on Monday. Both Holly and Mitch took some spills and have sore rear ends. I was a little more careful (age?) and stood upright most of the day. We all noticed that our wax jobs on the boards made us really fast….or was it the ice crystals we were on that made us fly down the hill at uncontrollable speeds? We all had new-used boards this time and I think they all were OK. We did give them a wax before we went out. I wish Jessica and Erika would have been there with us…