Writing Journal/ Blog ~NurseWriter~

Adoption, a gift - Word count 654

Did you ever think what a gift adoption is?  Think of it.  You are a child.  You have nothing but an institution and the STAFF that WORK there to take care of you.  Not the love of a someone that wants to take care of you. 

The experience must be frightening.  Waiting, like items in the store for purchase.  Am I good enough to be picked? Why didn't I get picked?  What did I do to deserve to be here?  These are some of the things I think go through their little minds.

How did they get there?  Some may be happy to be there. Many of these children had a home, and for some that home was worse then the institution they wait in.  How sad is that?

Some are taken from homes of abuse and neglect, others left behind by people that couldn't or wouldn't take care of them. 

I hear people all the time say they wouldn't adopt, because they are damaged.  Sort of like damaged goods left in the discount basket at the grocery store.

Did you ever realize that often you get a very good deal in those baskets.  In fact most of them are just broken on the outside and still very good on the inside.

I just can't imagine being thrown away.

I do not have the happiest of childhood memories, but at least I wasn't thrown away. 

If I was thrown away I would hope that God had someone in this world that would come and find me and take me home.

I understand that damage is already done to these children, but there is always hope with the right mixture of love and endurance, damage can be repaired or at least brought to a level that is acceptable in life.

If you think of it, we are all damaged to some extent.  Couldn't we use that pain to see through to the little hearts that need love?

As a teen I had goals for life.  One of them was to adopt.  I have not legally adopted anyone, but did take in 2 step sons when I married for the second time.  To me these are little hearts I adopted.

These young boys were 9 and 10 when I met them.  Their mother was addicted to drugs.  They often went hungry, roamed the streets of Irvington NJ late at night to find her.  They were finally taken away when the youngest ended up in intesive care from a ruptured appendix.  After returning home she never filled his antibiotics and he abcessed ending up having emergency surgery.  His grandparents and father finally stepped up and took them away.  Shortly after that we married and I welcomed them with loving arms. 

I took them to counseling, as I knew they would be prone to follow the footsteps of the ones that hurt them, by not caring for them the right way.  They were little boys, taking care of and making excuses for a mother that never deserved them.  They had a father that never got involved. If it were not for the love and care of my Inlaws, that saved them, they may have just continued to survive in an enviornment that surely would have led them to a jail cell, or a coufin.

This was not easy in any way.  We made a blended family of my 2 children, his 2 and then within a year we had a baby.  So beleive me I can honestly say this was A LOT of work.  But I look back to those days and I wouldn't have changed a thing.  I can think of special times, or a look of love coming from those little eyes that were like scared animals at first.  Hugs that I knew they were not used to giving or recieving.

The sacrifice was worth the outcome. 

By reaching out and giving, you change life.  Not just for that little kid, but for yourself.