I started this blog as a way to contribute to a design team. I was new to the crafting world and design teams in general. So, my posts have centered on my creations and promoting the team(s) that have chosen me to represent them. But today, is a not a DT or promotion day. It's a day for my thoughts, my feelings, just me.....
I came across a post from a FB friend that mentioned
#redballoonsforryan. As I began to read about this beautiful boy who was taken all too soon, I began to ache.....for so many reasons. I have had many things happen lately, in my immediate family and extended, that I am still trying to process. One such ache comes from trying to understand how someone can be allowed to create another life (who has had her first two children taken from her due to abuse, and extremely high risk of neglect due to instability - emotionally and financially) and not be taken out and had some sense beaten into her? That may sound harsh, but look at it from my perspective. A child is a gift....a precious, helpless, defenseless creature who has been give to you to love, protect, care for, nurture, teach, raise.... And this ONE person has the opportunity to just take that for granted...to continue to create lives, without any regard to those precious, helpless, defenseless little people that she has brought into the world with no chance of being protected or cared for or nurtured or, or, or.... instead to be given a life that is full of emptiness, hurt, pain, physical abuse.... Then you have this precious life - Ryan - that has been given to a woman/couple who wholeheartedly loved, protected, nurtured, etc.... that is taken away forever. I cannot begin to understand the rationale in that. It just makes me angry, sad, down right hopeless.
For those of you who don't know me personally, my husband and I have taken in and adopted 3 beautiful little people whose parents were not able to take care of them the way they needed to be cared for. (Two of them are the first lives created by the person mentioned above.) I have watched as these children grow, the loss they suffer........the personal struggle of belonging that they deal with on a daily basis. For example, (on numerous occasions) when my 5 year old has been corrected, he has asked me if I am going to give him away! Could you imagine the constant feeling of not being loved or good enough or worthy? That at any moment, if you are not perfect in every way, the person who you love most in the world, who kisses your boo-boos and wipes your nose, is just going to give you away. It just tears me apart every time I look in one of my kids' eyes and see that pain. It's something I cannot change. NO amount of love or time will take that away....EVER!
So when I came across Ryan's story and the pain that his parents must be going through...I had to speak...I had to put some of my feelings into words......there is much more that I am feeling and much more I could say...but that is for another day...
Today has been a day of curiosity, understanding for me. I have to learn to accept things, even things that I don't understand. To gain the ability to process these things, and move forward. Not to dwell, not to question and allow only those questions to direct me. To remember that I am a good person, a good person deep into my soul...no matter what others may choose to believe. That I am allowed to feel angry at people I care about...and to know that doesn't make me a bad person in the eyes of the Lord. It just means I'm human.
I will be praying for this family, who will not wake up to the smiling face of their baby boy. And I will be hugging my children (natural and adopted) a bit tighter.
