Love Each Child

Hope Giver

by christy

As Steve posted earlier in the weekend, we had an incredible experience with Little Girl. So incredible, we are still recovering from having to leave her behind with her foster parents in the Food Lion parking lot. As we walked away from the car that we placed her in, the tears streaming from Steve’s eyes produced by a loving connection with a child he just met and for me….trying to understand the intense feelings I have for this child that was “just staying with us a few days”. No, this child will stay with us (in our hearts) for quite a while. Whether or not we see her again, she has left a mark on our lives that will not be easily erased.

What kind of mark can a child leave that was only in our lives for a short while? Let me share….

Little Girl arrived Friday morning. I took the day off from work so that I could spend the entire day with her. Previous to her arrival I was questioning myself. Can I give a young child everything she needs? Do I remember what sacrifices I will need to make to provide for her? Do I want to make those sacrifices? Even as I was spending time with her that first day, I was going through different scenarios in my mind and second guessing my abilities to love this child. But then….

I held her.

This child loves to be held. She loves to be loved. She needs to be loved. And is so easy to love.

So, in one moment, this child removed all my fears by just responding to my love for her. At that moment, I realized that she was also filling a need in me that hadn’t been filled in a long time (15 years, in fact!). It had been 15 years since I have been able to hold a child in this way, to have a child desire for me to fill a need in them and to be able to give them the stability of unconditional loving arms. To say it was an incredible experience is quite an understatement!

I was not the only one that was given something by this child. I was able to see my husband with a whole new perspective. I was able to see in him the desires of his heart…to be a daddy to a young child. The love he extended to this child was enormous….and I can’t wait to share that love with him one day with a young child of our own (biological or adopted).

Our teenage son was touched deeply as well. At first, Little Girl was apprehensive in being near him. She was intrigued by him, watched him like a hawk, but was cautious with what she shared with him. Then yesterday she initiated interaction with him and asked to sit in his lap, to which he wholeheartedly complied! This act of acceptance changed something in our son. He purposely looked out for her and thought about her needs. This is very big for him! It was apparent that he was falling in love with her as well!

This child touched us in so many ways, it really is hard to talk about each moment with her. Some that come to mind (apart from what I’ve already stated) :

• This child has a very sweet spirit, always has a song in her heart, which she shared with us all the time. This, of course, made us smile and laugh with her.
• She has a great taste in literature– After offering her a book that was packed in her toy bag, Baby Einstein Mirror Me, she pushed it aside and reached for a book that was sitting on the nearby table, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and was very content to look through the pages of this classic. She also very intrigued by a beading book I also had on the table– there’s a girl after my heart!
• She loved hummus and fruit….really anything that we fed her. She was just so easy to please!
• She obviously loves to smile and with that smile, she brings a joy that is so much needed in this world we live in.

In all these things, Little Girl has brought us so much, but most of all, she has brought us hope. Hope that we can be parents to a child that we will be blessed to love, a hope for our son that his desires would be fulfilled through offering his love to another and a hope in a world of constant negativity, that one weekend with a gem under the label of “foster child” would bring so much peace and shut out the noise of all the doubters that say “this will be so hard”. If I have not met an angel before, I truly believe one was at our home this weekend.

I think I’ll change her name to Hope Giver…