Imagine

I've known her for eleven years. She's the first and last kid I truly loved and would have adopted. Her behaviors have frustrated me, worried me and at times made me question "what the hell was I doing?" She has amazed me and awed me with her strength and determination. I try not to, but I tend to hold every other kid in comparison to her.

She was only fifteen years old when she gave birth to her first child. And at fifteen years old she wanted to move out of her foster home and do it all herself. Of course I wouldn't let her but just one year later, she wore me down. Was it the right thing to? Was I setting her up for failure? How was she to cope being a single parent with no adult role model living with her? God knows she had no example of what a loving, nurturing, responsible parent was like.

But there was something about her.

I saw a bit of me in her.

She graduated from high school a year early. She went on to have three more births. Sadly her first daughter was taken too early. We mourned together.

That's when things changed for me.

It was too hard. Loving a child who wasn't mine. To see her heartache and knowing there was nothing I could do to change it.

But she survived.

She has grown into the most beautiful woman. The most amazing mother. Still.. She faces more heartache. It is not the life of her child but her own that she must fight for. The survival rate is high with modern medicine.

But it's the fear of the unknown.

How much more does she have to go thru? Why can't she be given the break she is so deserving of? Her life hasn't been easy. And now there is another mountain she must climb.

It makes me so angry.

As I write this and try to make sense of something that makes no sense at all I'm listening to a song called "I can only Imagine"... That's all any of us can do. Is imagine what the future holds. Speculate. Hope. But not one of us can control tomorrow. We can plan and then in a flash everything can change.

One day at a time. When that's too much, one hour at a time. And when that's too much... One minute at a time. And if that doesn't work, imagine the good. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine a life with no loss, no pain, no heartache.. One day, we will all have that.