I stepped into the hotel elevator, making a quick trip to my room to retrieve a forgotten item. She stood alone in the corner, perfectly-applied makeup, blonde hair, and a long black dress. I’d been up and down in that elevator at least a dozen times with dozens of different people. I don’t know why I immediately noticed her. Maybe it was the gold shoes she held in one hand.
I smiled, inserted my card, pressed my floor number, then backed into the opposite corner. We rode a couple of floors up in silence.
The elevator stopped twice as other people entered and exited. After the second stop, when the doors closed, she looked at me and words rushed out of her mouth that I’ll never forget.
I’m going to adopt a baby.
I looked at her, stunned as much that she was speaking to me as I was at the statement she’d just made.
Right now? I asked.
She nodded, tears in her eyes.
The elevator stopped.
Congratulations! That’s awesome! How exciting!
The doors opened, and she stepped out nodding her head, while seeming to choke back tears.
Just as quickly as she exited, the doors closed. I was equally stunned and amazed. I wanted to cry with her. I wanted to follow her and watch from a distance. And I wanted to drop to my knees to thank God for the gift of those moments in the elevator — the opportunity to see pure, unconditional love in action.
It couldn’t have come at a more perfect time, this knowing that a mother was choosing to love a child, to embrace the child as her own. Just hours earlier I’d witnessed the effects of a lifetime of parental shaming and abandonment. My heart was heavy with burden, wondering how a parent can be so cruel. But those six words spoken by a stranger in an elevator gave me a glimpse into the heavens, into a heart that will travel anywhere to embrace a child as his own with unconditional love.
I was reminded that even when we ache from the abandonment of the ones who are supposed to love us, there is One who loves unconditionally and will continually show up in the unlikeliest places to prove it.
When your world is cold and dark And the scars have all left their mark When you can’t cry one more tear And the night feels like a year You are loved When you can’t do one thing right And all hope is out of sight When the voice has told you lies And your heart just wants to die You are loved You are loved just as you are You are loved just as you are You are loved Love in a warm embrace In the lines of a letter or an unknown face A love that lasts, one that stays Even when it gets pushed away (Excerpts from “You are Loved,” R. Gilbert and G. Vinson)
