Today is November 17th.
It's not a particularly memorable date. It's a day that's easy to forget, and gloss over. It's roughly two weeks after Halloween, and roughly a week before Thanksgiving. And where I'm from in Ohio, it's usually just a blustery kind-of-day with gray clouds overhead.
But.
Nov. 17th is also the day that my adoption papers were finalized, and I came home to live with Robert and Kay Tieche. I had been born on Sept. 2, but was too small and too sickly to leave the hospital. This day is the day I went from "Ward of the State of Ohio" to having a family. A real, live family.
Bob and Kay decided to name me "David" which means "Beloved of God."
They then gave me the middle name "Alan" which means "wrench." But I always just put down the letter "A" because I like to write to think of my name as saying "My name is David and I am a Tieche."
This singular act—being adopted—changed my entire destiny as a person. These two provided a fertile, stable home for me to grow. My mother was a kindergarten teacher, who had me reading before I entered school, because of course she did. Her global travels drove deep into her a love—and I mean a genuine love and openness—to people of all colors and tribes. Being from Ohio, that's a RARE thing to have traveled as widely as she had. My friend-circle, life, travels and even my theology reflect that part of her.
My father is an Air Force pilot-then-engineer. I get my incredible math brain and meticulous attention to detail from him. Oh, wait. No, I have none of those things. My dad's brain operates on levels that I still have never understood. But early on, he saw that I loved learning, and told me to always do my very best. I did.
How do you repay your parents? How do you even make sense of all the ways they impact you?
I don't know.
The gift of what Robert and Kay Tieche gave me is literally incalculable. I suppose I simply want to live in such a way that's worthy of them.
Happy Nov. 17th, Mom and Dad.
It's a date that doesn't matter to most people. But it means the world to me.