This week we celebrated Jimmy's 16th gotcha day. 16 years ago, this week, he came home.
Wow, its been a crazy journey! This year has been especially eventful with Jimmy finding his 1st "real" girlfriend (yes, they are in love), finding his faith (getting water baptized), exploring colleges (wants to do football, political science and jazz), becoming politically aware (starting a conservative club at school and speaking about civil discourse in front of the Hopkins District), killing it in football and basically being a great kid.
Over dinner, we talked about when we met for the 1st time in Seoul, meeting his birth mom, the flight home and the 1st few weeks when we were blessed to start to get to know him.
He was a happy, talkative and social baby. He loved music of any kind and LOVED being around people.
He hasn't changed a bit.
Its funny how you are who you are. Jimmy is Jimmy and we are so blessed to have him in our lives. He was the start of our family and we can't imagine our lives without him.
However, our blessing is others sacrifice and we also honor their choices and pain.
Sending all our love and gratitude to his birth mother, birth family, foster mom, foster family and all the social workers, judges, volunteers and caring hearts that made a place for a (gigantic) baby from Seoul to become ... Jimmy Murphy.
Love.