Ceremony and Ritual Have a Place in This Life

I wrote this 2 years ago and want to share it today as I remember and recall this significant day... and the importance of ceremony and ritual in life.

Over time, and through grief, I have become a big believer in ritual and ceremony. In a culture that seems to be working hard to de-ritualize just about everything, I find myself leaning into the opposite. Ritual provides us with something to do when we don’t know what to do. This is true in sorrow as well as celebration. Ritual doesn’t have to be rigid, but it can be a beautiful guide to engage with the deeply poignant parts of our lives. They give a structure and format to do something important, be it engaging with our grief, or celebrating something new.

Today we did just that. For quite some time we have been going through the process of Eric adopting the kids. The process was not at all what we expected, although I had no idea what to expect. Really, it was just a lot of paperwork and paying people to file the right things with the right people. That’s just the legal part of it. But for me, the process was pretty emotionally intense.

Since Aaron’s death, I have learned how much exists in the space of duality. I can feel and experience two conflicting emotions in the same day, or even in the same moment. It is a hard thing to get comfortable with, but in grief I feel it becomes necessary. So, I’ve become accustomed to feeling both joy and sorrow in the same breath over these past 6 years or so. And so, I was profoundly joyful at the prospect of Eric becoming the kid’s legal father and felt deep grief over Aaron’s death and him no longer being a physically present dad. All these things swirled together for a very long time. I had a very emotional conversation with Aaron’s parents, and they have been incredibly supportive of this adoption. They really are amazing people, and I am so thankful to call them Mom and Dad.

I cried so much in that conversation and then, with their blessing, we began to move forward with the adoption process. Paperwork, waiting, paperwork, and more waiting. We signed all the final papers in August, but just a week or two ago we finally got all the finalized legal documentation that Eric was indeed their dad. Signing that paperwork was hard for me. Not that I didn’t want to sign it, but there was that cumbersome duality of emotions present and so I grieved and felt joy all at the same time as I signed my name over and over.

We didn’t sit in front of a judge. The papers just showed up in the mail. It felt very wrong that something so meaningful as the adoption of my kids by the man I love would be made real solely through papers in the mail. This was a huge deal for our family, and immensely emotional for me, and we needed ceremony around this incredible event. So, I created a service of adoption. We gathered with a handful of people to witness and be part of this ritual of adoption. It was centered on Christ’s love for each of us and the beauty of adoption into the family of God as sons and daughters of the Almighty. The kids chose Eric to be their Dad, and Eric chose the kids to be his children. We sang songs of praise and covered the entire ritual in prayer. I think it was better than a courtroom appearance.

The beauty of the morning has settled my heart and mind; ritual has a way of doing that. I know Aaron’s fathering lives on in each of the kids. I know Eric’s fathering will enrich the lives of our children. And my kids know that another man has chosen them to be his children. It isn’t something he had to do, but it is something he wanted to do. And I find that amazing. And Aaron would too.