For their birthdays and Gotcha Days, our boys always get to pick something special for dinner. So as we were counting down to our younger son’s Gotcha Day—the seventh anniversary of the day we met one another—I asked him how he wanted to celebrate.“I know just what I want to do,” he said—with the confidence that only an 8-year-old can have. “I want to go to the Orioles game and sit in a skybox.”
Ah. That.
So I explained that you can’t just get tickets to sit in a skybox, and that I didn’t actually know how to get into a skybox myself. I told him we could go to an Orioles game another time and sit in regular seats.
He’s a fairly go-with-the-flow child, and he accepted that. He asked to go to a hibachi grill, and his dad and I said that would be perfect.
Then I did what you might expect me to do on an important family anniversary. I shared a few photos from the day we met our adorable 20-month-old toddler in Guangzhou, China, on social media, including on Instagram, and linked to my blog about the day we met.
And I mentioned—just because I thought it was cute and sweet—how our little boy had said he wanted to celebrate in a skybox at the Orioles game. I loved that this child who was born on the other side of the world is an Orioles fan and that he always dreams big.
I thought the photo might get a few likes and loves and some thoughtful comments from friends. And that would be that.
But my friend Sharon, whom I worked with a decade ago and has worked with my husband too, saw my post. She tagged a friend of hers and asked, “Can you make this happen??” And, that evening, after we came home from our hibachi dinner, I glanced at my phone and saw that Sharon had messaged me asking me to give her a call.
You see, the friend she had tagged, Paul Tiburzi, is a partner at DLA Piper who has served professional sports teams as his clients. He’s also chairman of the Board of Directors of the Greater Baltimore Committee and a graduate of Loyola University Maryland (where I work). And—as I learned later—Paul and his wife are parents to three children they adopted from Guatemala.
Apparently Paul saw Sharon’s comment, read my blog, and reached out to her.
He wanted to offer us either four box seats at an Orioles game or an invitation to watch the Ravens-Redskins game from his suite on Aug. 30.
I was touched…overcome…absolutely blown away by this extraordinarily thoughtful and generous gesture that was inspired by our son’s wish. I still am.
Our sons—and, I must admit, their parents—have never been to a Ravens game, so we jumped at the chance to go. We are counting the minutes to an experience that I know will be so very special, so memorable for our whole family.
I’ll definitely share details from that evening. But I wanted to write about this amazing Gotcha Day present, which we never expected or hoped for or even imagined, and which I know our whole family will hold as a very special memory. I am just so moved to receive this gift.
It still doesn’t quite feel real.
But as with adoption, sometimes—even when you don’t think it’s possible—wishes do come true.
English
Spanish