Red Stripes

I was the youngest with 3 older brothers, the only girl.  Barely in Kindergarten, I got taken along on my mother's jaunts while my 3 older brothers were in school.   My mom seemed always to be in a hurry, clipped steps, sharp words.  I felt like an unwanted appendage.  She'd grip my wrist so tight all I remember is that pain while being dragged around.  I hated that.  Surely she didn't love me, or why else would she hurt me?  She left red marks on my little wrist.
 
When I was living in Korea in the early 1960s, it was a poor, third-world country.  I look at  pictures and remember...the dirt streets, children playing in the alleys, wearing only scraps, stray dogs wandering around.

Slums in the 1960s.  Photo from jellyfish1616.

As a mom, now I know it's the mama bear steel-claw death grip of protection.  Now I know that she was afraid of what every mom fears in the depth of her gut: to lose your child.  I held onto my son's hand and wrist, too.  It wasn't good enough to have him hold me - what use was that?  I held onto him and knew I wouldn't let go.

Lost children. Photo from jellyfish1616

How heart-wrenching even now, with the internet, the priority and resources of looking for lost children.  Back then, before people had phones, a phone book?  Was there a priority to find lost children? especially if they were poor? or did they accept it as part of life?  Did they even have the energy?  Back then, it was so real just to lose a child in the bustle of the open market.  And today, we have adult adoptees in their 40s, 50s, 60s, who were lost in the market.  Or left.  Because of the devastating poverty.

I think now with gratefulness the red stripes my mom left on my wrist every time she ran errands. She held me, the way my Heavenly Father holds me.  I will never be lost.

Who's Your Mama?

First mom.
Tummy mom.
Birth mom.

We chose to use "tummy mommy" because...well, because.

HH asked Boo this morning if he thought about his tummy mommy on Mother's Day.

"No - I don't even know her.  I love my mom."

It simultaneously makes me smile and break my heart.

Where ever you are, whoever you are - the woman who grew my son in her body, then suffered the breakage of giving him up - Happy Mothers' Day.

You will be happy to know that he is well.  I am doing my best.

I promise you one day we will look for you.  And if you cannot see him - for whatever reason - I will understand, if Boo won't.

Dog Tail

When I practiced architecture, I did some public school projects. Public schools, being ummm, public, fell under the auspices of the state. The state requires many, many forms. Forms about building codes. Forms about how big.  How tall.  How deep.  And cost estimates. And the absence of archeological finds. And historic significance.

One of the forms required me to certify that I was, indeed, a Registered Architect. Architects are registered by the state. That same state required me to certify that I was registered. By the state.

Are you getting the picture? Or are you dizzy?

The other day, I was reading yet another story about an adopted person, now grown, being deported because the parents didn’t fill out the proper forms 30 years ago. This person was adopted legally as an infant by US citizens and lived in the US continually all her life. It reminded me that I needed to get an additional form for Boo.

In 2001, a federal law came into affect that adopted children automatically acquire US citizenship upon immigration.1   I did get Boo a US passport. You must be a US citizen to get a US passport. However, a passport itself is not proof that you are a US citizen. Soooo. I have to fill out and send this form, N-600, “Application for Certificate of Citizenship” through the Department of Homeland Security, US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Take a breath.

Plus $600. Yep. So Boo can have a certificate proving that he is a US citizen. The citizenship that the US government gave him. That he has to prove. To the US government. Which gave him the citizenship.  For just $600.

Dizzy yet?

I can’t help but think of a little dog chasing its own tail, yapping and circling around. I feel like that dog.

 

I started to dig up some of the resentment I feel about the whole adoption process. If you are not familiar with adoption, you can feel free to be shocked. You’d think I would be grateful, right? Well I am grateful. But I’m not grateful for the heaping piles of humiliation and distrust thrust upon adoptive parents. Or maybe it’s just me.

See, I had to prove that I was worthy as a parent. That my husband was worthy. That my extended family was worthy. That we were neither criminals nor child molesters. Finger printed. Interviewed. That we made enough money by showing them our IRS forms for the past 3 years. Be threatened to terminate the process because of a misstep. We had to prove that our house was clean and safe. That we lived in a nice community. We had to explain our theory of child rearing and philosophy of discipline. On top of all the forms we had to fill out just for the actual adoption part. Then I had to argue with the pediatrician’s office that it is indeed a newborn checkup even if he isn't newborn and that I shouldn’t have to pay out-of-pocket for the exam. On top of all the checks that added up to 5 figures.

I thought ,"Why is it so hard??"  Why can some 16 year old open her legs and 9 months later the hospital just hands her the baby, but we, at 40, have to go through all this???  What is God trying to say?

And then it came to me.  Or, He came to me:

So then you are no longer strangers and ALIENS but FELLOW CITIZENS with the saints and members of the household of God 2

Yes! Of course! When you are borne, you are the heir.  Every nation, people and tribe recognizes that.  However, when you are not borne to, but a stranger and an alien,ow alone you are! How separated!  Even those who want you, to adopt you, must prove and pay, prove and pay again and again your legitimacy, your rightful place in their family.  I've read the text a hundred times.  I've contemplated adoption and the Kingdom for at least 8 years.  But it wasn't until that moment, when I saw how separated my child was from us, how foreign, that I saw a glimpse of how far we ourselves are separated from God.

God had to “prove” it, to pay for it with the blood of Jesus Christ so that we, as strangers and aliens could be adopted into His household, to be His heirs.

It's a complete circle for me, an adopted heir to His kingdom.

1 certain restrictions apply
2 Ephesians 2:19, NKJV

Being Yin

I sense the unceasing silence of the night
a damper around my head.



This whirling winding wonder

not surrendered
but overcome
Even his sleep seems alive
No yin to his yang


I bend over him

   Siberian tiger stares back at me

   (cheetah, rabbit, snake, spider, otter...)

My old bones are already aching
I hover pure love

his unimaginably beautiful face
his fleshy hands, bitten down nails
his hair askew

His.
I am the temporary Guardian

He sits up and his eyes are seeing another world.
He looks around - at me past me.
He turns again
his eyes stop

"Mom"

"hmmm?" I hum.

Then his eyes turn gentle: yin

He lays back down
into a soft cloud of tranquility
or so it seems to me
or I hope.

Then I hear the cheep-cheep chirping of the night.

Sticks and Stones

Late at night
when Boo's been slumbering for hours
I lean over him
Kiss him once
(he turns his head and wipes away the moist)
Kiss him again
(he might wake up)

and whisper in his ear "Oma loves you."

"Oma" so he's reminded in this (white) world that he belongs to me.

Kiss him again and again, at the risk of waking him
because
I think he remembers my kisses
and
misses them when I don't.

He won't remember them when he bounces out of bed
When he's watching PBS kids.
or saying the Pledge.

But I will.

My kisses and whispers are like pea gravel

plop plop

that I drop against his foundation

where the insults of this world

the stones cast on him

  ("you can't play")

drain

through.

A Long Time

I'll never stop loving you.

From my little boy.  It took a long time to get here.  Along the painful journey to love, I have learned so much.  Healed so much.  Through the pain of this child, God healed me.

If he hadn't been sent away, he wouldn't have suffered.  If the sending country had a better social service system.  If they weren't sexist.  If they weren't biased.  If.  If.  If.  Some even think the whole idea of adoption is evil.  So many evils in the world.  What we do with them?  There are some that insist that I believe certain things, fight for certain rights, join certain organizations.  Maybe I will.  Someday.

Today?  I am still reveling in a little boy, laying in bed, blanket tossled and twisted around his legs, his arms around his oma,who can say,

I'll never stop loving you.

Innappropriate

This is a comment I made on someone else's blog awhile ago.  Looking back on it, it was totally the wrong place to share this. (hang my head in shame)  BUT.  I did think it was well written!  ha!  (pat myself on the back)  I've written about this in several ways in the past but I thought I'd share a serendipitously well-written comment:

I want to insert an idea that I have never seen. I’m pretty new to the bloggy thing so I may not be going to the right places. I apologize ahead of time to incorrect or innappropriate uses of terms. . . please just read my heart.

As an adoptive parent (internationally,) I have lived through the trauma that my child went through, and I believe, many children go through when transferred from first mom to foster mom to foster mom to adoptive mom.

I believe some of the pain that the adopted feel can be explained neurologically. I believe, as many therapists and AP do, that the children, yes, even infants, are traumatized by the separation from their (in their mind) moms, over and over again. The bond of birth is torn, then the bond of trust that the infant develops with the next carer is broken, then broken again. Depending on the child’s internal temperament, this trauma can cause neurological damage. This was true of my son. I hope none of you find this hard to believe, because anybody who has lived through trauma can become altered neurologically (PTSD, depression, anxiety, etc.)

There is a special kind of horror at seeing an infant screaming in terror and horror after being taken from his carer. That pumping of “bad” chemicals into his sytem for months…years…can wreak havoc emotionally, mentally and physically. Had I not been made aware of this phenomenon and sought the right therapies and parental methods, I cannot imagine how he would be today. And, what kind of adult he would become, thinking that the world was a dangerous, unpredictable, uncaring place, where the safety-ness (safety nest) can disappear at any time.

Adoption is rife with the complexities that you all are blogging and commenting about – and I cannot remove the fact that his first mom, for whatever reasons and forces, “gave him away.” I cannot erase my unborn dead baby, her relinquished baby, or his lost parents. But I can give him a level playing field of being as neurotypical as possible, retraining his brain to rewire disrupted development.

Adoption has been going on since forever.  (highly accurate terminology) I talk about the trauma aspect.  But do you know about coercions?  profiteering? selling babies?  buying babies?  false documents?  outright lies to your face?  Innapropriate.  (understatement)

Labor Pains

A new friend asked me to tell her about adoption. I share it with you, with only a few minor changes:

I'm not sure where to start or how much to tell you. I wish I had had an open heart and an open mind when I went into this. I think I still would have adopted, but it would have been less painful had I been prepared - emotionally and mentally.

Here is where I see the beauty of adoption. For me, it has enriched my understanding of God. My faith in Jesus has deepened and widened. You can take religion out of it if you want, but I have to share it within that context:

Take a young woman, in our case a 19 year old who worked at a gas station, had no college in her future, and an 18 year old son of a divorced mom. In Korea, a child born out of wedlock has no identity or place in society because they cannot have family registration. The woman would be shunned at every turn.

I believe the oneness we experience as husband and wife is a glimpse into the mystery of the Trinity. How can you be 3 distinct Persons in One? I also believe the mother and child bond is another way God shows us the mystery of the Trinity. Totally separate and complete individuals that are bound so fundamentally that the baby does not exist without his mother. He knows nothing of the world but her. Then take that baby, rip him from every sensation he knows. Hand him to a stranger who doesn't rock the same, walk the same - doesn't sound the same feel the same smell the same. A month later, just as he's settling down with this stranger, hand him to another stranger in another city. Raise him to a stage in his development where he recognizes faces and consciously knows his new "mom." Then give him to total strangers. Again. Who, on top of not rocking, smelling looking, smelling the same, don't SPEAK the same. What baby would handle these traumatic changes blandly??

Then look at the couple - me and HH. We try the infertility treatments, think about the more invasive ones, count the candles on our cake and realize not only are our chances of success minuscule, but the process smells distinctly immoral.

Take the sad choices those two young people made, the sad result, the unfairness of the societal structure. Then take this baby who is ripped from everything he knows. Then add the frustrations and failures of the couple. Shake it all up - sadness upon sadness upon sadness. Bring out of that a Beauty. No, not everything is happy, but there is a beauty to what happens. And I believe only God can bring Beauty out of so much pain.

As a Christian, I have heard the notioni that I am an "adopted heir" to the Kingdom. (Romans 8, Romans 9, Ephesians 1, Galatians 3) By adopting Boo, I have seen more clearly the significance. This child was a stranger to me, forsaken on this earth, destined to a pitiable life. By adopting him, this stranger has become mine (ours.) He is exactly as if I had borne him and is our heir. And we are strangers! yet God adopted us as heirs to His Kingdom just as much as Jesus His Son!!

I want to tell you adoption is not for the faint of heart. The process is long and rife with uncertainty, humiliations and potential hazards. My process was relatively smooth and I was in total denial about the humiliations of the whole process, because I had a goal: getting a baby.

If you adopt domestically, it can be quick and inexpensive but very uncertain. You can go the private route with an attorney but I really don't know about that except again, it is very uncertain whether the mother will actually relinquish the child. Overseas? there are accusations of baby selling (Guatamala) and baby stealing. You can be lied to and 'taken." It can cost more than $20,000 with multiple trips to the country. I have one friend adopting from Haiti and it has been 4 years. I have another friend who adopted from China and that little girl was so sick they almost lost her. I know someone else who had to give "gifts" to the foreign workers.

You know any 16-year old can do it behind the bushes and have a baby. She can even take the baby home. Take a mature, respectable, educated couple like us? We have to prove our financial capability, show them the medical and social resources available to us, show pictures of our house, have a social worker deem us worthy, write a biography of our family, list family members names and addresses, get child abuse clearances, get a criminal check, fill out umteen forms, be herded around like cattle, and swear you won't spank.

They will ask you what level of disability you're willing to accept. So, you and your husband sit there, like you're picking features on a car and check off boxes: missing digits yes no; missing limbs yes no; mental disability yes no; cystic fibrosis yes no; cleft lip yes no; mental illness yes no. It's painful.

Korea has a very well established adoption process. Actually no bragging on my part but it is considered the best. Their medical system is very advanced (established by American missionaries.) There was some concern about Boo's head, so they did a CT scan. That won't be happening in places like China or Haiti, believe me! They tend to be generally honest, and even overly cautious of the medical condition and physical development of the child. At one point, they thought Boo was hypotonic. Well, you're on the other side of the earth and what the heck does that mean?? Do we continue or do we abandon?? Abandon HIM??

Your child finally arrives. You have been dreaming of those misty pictures of a mom snuggling a baby, tinkly nursery music, revolving moon and stars behind them. Instead? The baby screams and screams and screams. He won't sleep for more than two hours at a time. He won't nap for more that 20 minutes at a time. Every tiny noise startles him awake and it's more screaming. He doesn't lay in y our arms or want to be held. Instead, he's stiff as a board, and "stands" in your arms always looking - hypervigilent - over your shoulder, looking for his "mom."

Or. . . some kids don't care whether you come or go. He'll go in anyone's arms. When you return, he doesn't even look up. He's listless.

And the spectrum is anywhere in between. Sure, lots of babies do OK. But they get older and they talk late. They have learning disabilities. They're autistic. They're overly charming and/or extremely temperamental. Most parents chalk that up to the child's "personality." They'll even be racist and say it's "kimchee temper." Yeah, and blacks dance well.

IF I HAD KNOWN, I would have been prepared and parented him differently. I would have used attachment parenting. I would have read books on attachment. I would have understood FROM THE CHILD'S PERSPECTIVE what was happening. I wouldn't have been selfish and only seen it from MY point of view. I wouldn't have sunken into a deeeep depression wondering WHAT in the world I had done. WHY was God punishing me for becoming a mom??? Planning escapes...change my identity...leave Boo with my husband to deal with.

When Boo was 3, God saved me (and him!) by bringing another adoptive mom who told me all about the devastation to attachment and bonding that EVERY adopted child goes through. (Although I know not every child will be traumatized, depending on their innate personality.) She shared with me what she had gone through with TWO adopted children. And she introduced me to mom after mom after mom who recognized their adopted child needed to be raised differently than a birthed child.

Now, I do not exaggerate when I tell you how much I love Boo. Labor pains? You bet.

When Boo Met Mommy

All children are curious about their birth. Adopted children seem to have a keener sense of their existence and relationship to their birth that is hard to define. Then, there will be a conversation like this, and then you can hear a melancholy that seems beyond his years:

"When I grow up, I'm going to be a farmer. I'm going to give the hens lots of eggs."

"What do you mean? Why are you going to give them eggs?"

"They don't have . . . well . . . How do hens get eggs?"

"Honey, hens are mommy chickens and eggs are their babies."

"I know that, mom. But how do the hens get eggs?"

"Well, all females can make babies in their tummies."

Silence.

"I wish you were my tummy-mommy. I could meet you when I was born."

*

The Miracle In You

If you're a mom (or even if you're not,) you may be saying "Awwwww, how sweet." But you also might think that it's not so extraordinary.

You may think you understand when I say that this makes me choke up and practically hysterical. If your child has or had a life-threatening disease, then you do understand. A woman like me, who a close buddy described decades ago as "like glass - shiny and hard but breaks," has been shattered. To smithereens.
Silica.

I am not weepy in a Hallmark or Kodak kind of way. No, not weepy. But I weep because it is Redemption. The power of producing Good out of Evil. What could do that? Who? This month 6 years ago, the 3 of us via Seoul, Taejon and DC, arrived back in Pennsylvania. Even then, as a 7-1/2 month old, we are sure he could sense our relief, that this, finally, was our last stop. He fell asleep on the sofa, into that arms-over-the-head I-give-up nothingness.

Our home, but not his. His was back in Seoul, with that other family he knew as his own. In that garlic aromad, seaweed souped, crowded apartment.

He never let me rock him. He never hugged me out of joy or affection. He never sat in my lap. For more than a second. Never mimicked me the way toddlers do. When he was 2-1/2 years old, I distinctly remember laying down behind him while he slept. I reached out to touch his shoulder and he flinched to shake me off. Time and time again, night after night I tried. Weeks of moving bit by bit, a hand, an arm. After months - of emails, phone calls, one therapist then another, this book then that, changing my entire focus and approach, neurological reorganization - this boy, this boy. . . became my son.

During the night, 3 and 4 times, I go to his room and watch him sleep. I touch him - and now - 6 years later, he leans into me. Now he seeks me out to fall asleep on my breast. He was lost but now am found. The miracle in you.

*

Bond - Shaken & Stirred

My mother died over twenty years ago, but only recently, just recently, have I been able to say, "I miss my mom."

Look, she was difficult...high strung, demanding, a perfectionist. She was as warm and protective as a mama bear and yet could snap and nip just as quickly. But we were One at one time. When that bond is broken, by death, by estrangement . . . or by adoption, there is pain. Cosmic, profound, soul-wrenching pain. And all these years, I was ignoring the gaping wound, not believing that our bond could be so strong.

She never knew me. I never felt like she knew me. Or cared. She hated that I was so tender and sensitive. I think she wanted me to be strong and confident. And yet she was miserly with praise. Heaping measures of criticism came my way.

I'm not here to diss my mother. I am here to tell you how shaken I am at realizing, that no matter who she was, I can finally say how much I miss my mother. What have I missed by denying that? What energy have I subconsciously poured into waste drainage that should have instead sustained me and made me stronger?

Funny. I think I'm going to get stronger now that I've admitted this stirring in my belly, this ache, this throbbing, this unbreakable bond that is my mother.

*

Ms. Oh

That was my name, pre-HH. Oh, for Organized. I had my closet arranged, (of course!) but in addition, the hangers were color-coded. Oh, for OCD.


Then I decided to become a mom. This is my adoption binder. This does not include the Attorney binder or the Post-adoption binder or the Trauma Disorder binder. Or the Infertility folder. Or the Miscarriage folder.

To the right is our application, what we call the "big app:" 71 pages. What you don't see is all that went into the 71 pages: getting the child abuse clearance, the criminal check, social worker's interviews, photographs of our home and neighborhood, going to the IRS to get copies of our back w-2's, getting our birth certs, writing our autobiographies, including information about our nuclear families and our philosophy of child-rearing. When people ask me if we'll have a second, it's not a uterus I'm worried about; it's my carpal tunnel! I did all this while still working a more-than-full-time corporate job and commuting 48 miles each way. Did I say each way?


What is my point?


Oh yes. Boo comes home. Traumatized. Hyper-vigilent. Not sleeping. Not playing. Not looking at me. Clinging. No. That is not an adequate description. Velcroed. No. Is there a word for "suctioned on?" My OCD served me well. I kept his world very consistent. And constant. Any changes were made (and recorded) incrementally. I kept a minute-by-minute log of his first year with us. I have the notebooks to prove it.

I did loosen up and through those years of being home full time, raising and healing this toddler. Now this toddler has mysterisouly become a little boy. A little boy wearing size 13 XW shoes! Over the years, I stopped being so organized. I kept a rigid schedule of meals and sleep, and all but totally let go of everything else. It's time now to pick up the pieces of Ms. Oh and get Organized again. So that I can be a good steward of the 6 hours he's at school.

It's not as easy as it sounds. In fact, I should be getting organized right now!

Lucky Boy

Oh, how many times have adoptive parents heard "Oh that little boy/girl is so lucky!" When we know, that we are the lucky ones. If you believe in luck, that is. Did we "save" a child? or did that child "save" us? Are we, as adoptive parents, some kind of saint? or did we merely want a child?




*

Widows and Orphans

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Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. - James 1:26

US Adoption Site Photolisting

International Adoption Photolisting

These sites are just 2 of many, many sites. Adoption is not for everyone. But then, neither is birthing. My desire and hope is for you to get a mere glimpse of what orphans are up against.


*

Second Class Citizen

Aren't you proud as an American to be a classless society?

But like all people, we learn to separate, to judge, to make decisions about who is like us and not. Whether we want to admit it or not. We can slice and dice in different ways: ethnicity, gender, finances, religion, speech, education. We see some as "less than," and others as being or having more.


When Bob Hope died at the age of 100, CNN's obituary said this:

"During the run of the show, Hope met nightclub singer Dolores Reade. They married on February 19, 1934, and eventually adopted four children: Linda (born in July 1939), Anthony (July 1940), Kelly (July 1946) and Nora (August 1946)."


CNN, BBC, The New Yor Times, Wikipedia all state that he and Dolores adopted 4 children, sometimes even listing the name of the orphanage! They don't say he is survived by 4 children, or had 4 children, but adopted 4 children. What is the point? The oldest of his children, Linda, was by then 64 years old. Bob Hope died at 100, and his eldest child was probably a grandmother herself. Yet she still could not be considered just his daughter, but had to be qualified as his adopted daughter. Or maybe it was important to announce to everyone that Bob and Dolores were infertile? Are they better people because they adopted? or did they simply want children like you and me and him and her?


Do you think of adopted children as not "real" children? Do you think that a birthed child and his adopted sibling aren't "real" brother and sister? Have you ever said of adoptive parents, that they don't have any children "of their own?" Is blood thicker than water?

"For he chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will. . ." - Ephesians 1: 4,5

". . .we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Romans 8: 23, 24A

Is my son my son? or is he a second-class citizen?

*

I Love Mommy

"I Love Mommy" by Lizi Boyd is one of my favorite books for Boo. I love everything about the book. I love the graphics, including the font, the drawings, the colors, the characters, the size, the paper - everything. I ran across it at a local bookstore, which sadly, is no more.

I bought the book because Boo had a rather narrow range of emotions. It was one of the many effects of early trauma. I am sure he had feelings, [aside from anxiety, which he readily knew how to express] but I'm not sure he recognized them, and he certainly did not know how to express them. You may say "Oh so-and-so wasn't very affectionate, either." But that's not it. Do you know, somewhere deep inside you, when something is not right with your child? When that rash, that cough, isn't something "normal?" Well, I knew. I couldn't be in denial because he never sat on my lap, never hugged me, never felt pain or extreme cold. Never. I mean never. I had to teach him how to put his arms around me and hug me. I can't explain to you fully what happened in his little brain, but I know, surely as I know there is a God, that he was damaged by being taken from the family he had come to trust. Can you imagine getting all the diapers, crying, messes and duties, but not the cooing, the imitating, the nuzzling? Well, all that's for another post.

.

I was drawn to the book because it so simply shows a relationship between mom and child, and how the very ordinary things in life form the bonds of love. That mommy "always has a fizzy drink for me," that mommy makes me dinner, prepares the perfect bath and tucks me in at night. Fortunately, Boo took to it, too. We read it over and over and over, literally for years. One day, I took the cover image, printed it on some iron-on transfer paper and made him a t-shirt. He loved that shirt and wore it for quite awhile. Then, like most things, he moved on to other books, other shirts, other characters.

.

The other night, he suddenly said, in that tight, tear-filled voice, that he missed his "I Love Mommy" shirt and pulled it out of his drawers to wear that night. I was deeply satisfied, that he had such affection for something I made him, but also that he could feel and express what was locked inside of him. We were both disappointed to see that he had grown out of the shirt. Then he said,

"Oma, when I'm a man, and I'm big, could you make me a 'I Love Mommy' shirt that is man-size?"

.

Ofcourse, honey. Ofcourse I will.

*

For Julia

I met her a year or two ago...because so many people seem to talk about her blog. I was captivated by her writing. I was drawn into her light...and then saw underneath the darkness of pain. Of a father that said he never felt like she was his daughter. And had the cruelty to say it. Of the mother who seemed to love her, and yet, was not at her ailing daughter's bedside across the sea. I don't know Julia's part in their relationships...it doesn't matter to me.

She fought her cancer. Hard. I won't say she lost. That's just not how I see her. I am just sad that she left this world. For many reasons.

Honor her by reading ...and remembering her.
http://juliasworld.wordpress.com/

*

BooBoo

This is the first snippet of my love story for my son. I hope he will forgive me for sharing his life with you.

This little boy was handed to me by another woman. A woman and her family, that loved him fiercely for 6-1/2 months, and cried harder than I did when we said goodbye. She got him from another woman, who cared for him for a month. I don't know if she loved him or she simply did her job, but I am thankful nonetheless. This faceless caretaker, in turn, got him from his mother, a 19 year old single woman, who is not allowed to keep her own flesh.

Torn. Torn. Torn he was.

And now he sleeps with a measure of peace, hoping that he will not be torn again. The little scars in his heart remain...turning red with anger when he is afraid.
I will take care of you. I will love you forever. I will never leave you.