Dear Star,
I’ve been thinking back over our time together. It seems as though it just flew right by but, looking back over all the hardships we faced, I know that it was actually a process of years that contained both joy and heartache. I remember the very first time I laid eyes on you. A little, satin-skinned doll with sparkling eyes that seem to take up your entire, cute face…those were some big, brown eyes, that’s for sure! And my eyes…you were afraid of them, afraid of me at first. I don’t believe that in the two and a half years you’d been alive, had you ever seen blue eyes! Let alone a face as pale as mine. That fear was short-lived as I took you in my arms, trying to protect you from any more trauma than you’d already experienced.
Looking back, I wonder if we should have done things differently. We were so young, your oldest brother and I. We were in love and trying to build a life for ourselves and, of course, the two of your older brothers we had already taken custody of. Knowing that something had to be done to help you and your remaining siblings is not the same as knowing what that something is…or more to the point, how to do it. So with a toddler of our own, and calls coming in from relatives in Mississippi giving us the choice to come and get you guys or have the State step in and handle things, well, we made a choice.
I will never forget the baby that you were, stepping off that Greyhound bus in the arms of my husband, along with three more of your brothers. The cornrows in your hair so old that they contained dust and were starting to lock, the tattered pajamas you were wearing that were just begging me to throw them away, and a fear on your face that I’d never seen a two year old express.
Through birthdays and grade school graduations, from first days of school – to Outdoor School – to high school, past the smiles and through the tears, around numerous hugs and countless kisses, from missing your own mama to waiting daily by the mailbox for her package that never came, and then my trying to explain away her “illness” in an attempt to defend her, and comfort you…I have had the honor of watching you grow, and grow, and grow.
Now, a young woman. I am proud of you and the right choices you continue to make. Even starting with the choice, made by all of us, that you return to Mississippi to be reunited with your mom. Your heart’s desire to love her and be loved by her has been so central in the amazing comeback she is making. I am so proud of you. She is so blessed to have you as a daughter…and I am so blessed to have been a part of the beautiful woman you are still becoming. I love you Star-Bar.
