Monday, January 26, 2009

Tania

If you've known me for a while, you know about my baby girl Tania.

I was almost 17 when we got this little baby girl at our children's home. She was so sad and confused. She needed her mama. She didn't come from an abusive situation like most of our girls. Her mom had mental problems and her dad was an alcoholic and a drug addict. When the mom found herself without a husband and no where to go she decided to take her two young children to DIF(child services). They brought them to us.
Tania and I bonded in an amazing way. She was MINE and I was her mommy. Some people would tell me that I couldn't love her like a daughter because I didn't know what that was like. Now I can honestly say that I did love her like a daughter, I still do.

Anyway, a couple of years later mom and dad get back together and decide that they want her back. They already had her older brother but hadn't been as interested in Tania.

She was a little princess, every ones pride and joy. My mom and sister who had never gotten attached to a child that was not a part of the family, loved Tania and were so attached to her. We all were crazy about her, but especially me. So when DIF decided to give her back to her family it broke my heart. Tania wanted nothing to do with her parents, she was so little. Her mom told us that she would cry for us and call our names.

When I saw her again my little princess was changed. She had rough feet and scars on her body. Her hair was dry and damaged, full of lice. The sparkle in her eyes was gone. The pain I felt was sometimes unbearable. I would ask her mom to let me take her, I would clean her up and love on her. Every time I had to give her back it was like my heart was being pulled away from my body.

One day Tania's mom got scared. Her and her husband were doing really bad, he was drinking, they didn't have jobs, their shack was disgusting. They knew that if social services went to check on them they would take the kids away. So they took off. And for 7 years I have been praying my heart out for my baby girl. I had heard that her mom went to the south of Mexico and left her kids there.

My sister told me that on Saturday someone came to the ranch, it was Joanna, Tania's mom. She came looking for my mom and me, to apologize. She said that her life had been a nightmare but that God had changed her. I still can't believe it. Roshon asked for Tania immediately so Joanna came back the next day with her, with my baby girl that I loved so much. I couldn't stop crying when Roshon told me!

They had been in the south, Joanna and her husband had separated again and and he had the kids. She did everything to get them back. She truly fought for them.

They are staying with Joanna's mom, I don't know how long they will be there. I had been waiting so long for them to come back. Many, many times I had wanted to go look for them. I just didn't even know where to start. God heard my prayers. And it is because of Him that I didn't go crazy thinking about my baby girl. I trusted God with her life, I knew she was surrounded by danger, by nasty, evil people. But He has protected her.


The crazy thing is that I can now see how God used her to prepare me for the birth of my sons. I grew so much with what I went through with Tania. Anyway, God IS good.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Welcome to Holland!

Well, I am finally making an entry to this blog! Yeah, it only took me a few months... Anyway, I wanted to start with this: "Welcome to Holland".
My friend Amy told me to read this... Wow! I could not have put it better! It's a great analogy, and it really does describe the feeling of expectation, wanting and waiting for something, and then, getting something totally different. Enjoy...

WELCOME TO HOLLAND
byEmily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.