Loss issues

My house is just now getting back to normal after hosting Alyssa's first birthday party. We must have had well over fifty people at our house on Saturday. It was a great party, and Alyssa was her usual funny self. I've been busy shuttling various relatives to appointments, with the hardest one being Alyssa's one year shots. CJ is doing great, and he is getting so big right now. He went through a pretty big growth spurt last week, which left me exhausted since he was wanting to nurse pretty much ALL the time. He's getting back to normal now, though.

I wanted to write today about loss, once again. I write about it so much because it's such a fundamental piece of an adopted child's life. Loss is pretty much the reason behind all of the difficult times an adopted child and parent goes through. And while it would seem that after so much loss, a person would just learn to live with it, just the opposite happens. In my case, I take loss very hard. Sometimes I wonder why I have to endure so much loss, then I remember that I have no room to complain, because no one suffered more than Jesus did on the cross, and He did so willingly and lovingly. But, since I am human, of course I get mad and upset when, yet again, I have to deal with another loss. Sometimes I think, "God, haven't I been through enough?" or "What, God, you want to teach me a lesson about loss?" Of course, everyone deals with losses in their lifetime. It's about the only thing that is guaranteed. What I cannot figure out, though, is why I take every loss so personally. Sometimes I wonder if "normal" people take each loss as another brick to add to their wall. I think maybe not. For adopted kids, every loss is just another example of why we aren't worthy of good things. Losses compound our feelings of rejection and anger, because even when someone passes away, we immediately think of how one more person has left us behind. Now, as an adult, I have worked through many of these feelings and I feel that I can now view loss in a more healthy way (notice a said a more healthy way, not a totally healthy way) because I don't think that I will ever be able to have a loss and not resort to my old feelings of rejection. All I can do is continue to work on it. Loss is hard for everyone, but I do believe that adopted kids face a more difficult road in a life where loss is inevitable, and others just don't seem to understand why saying goodbye to someone is just so hard for us.