Ever have one of those days. Days when you are challenged to your core? I'm not talking challenging behaviors here, we all have those, I am talking about something that challenges a belief you held to firmly. A belief that you thought was at a core belief of your belief system.
I woke up this morning the same person I have been. One phone call changed that.
Let me clarify. Nothing mysterious or life altering happened to me physically. Nothing has changed my faith in God. Nothing has affected my family.
However, that phone call changed my beliefs. Now, of course, I cannot divulge the nature of that call without breaking confidence but I suppose that is not the issue here. I suppose what I am trying to convey is that you cannot wholly understand someone else's choices until you have lived them. This conversation has given me a whole new appreciation of judgement and specifically judging other's choices. I get it. I finally understand something I have struggled with and JUDGED others for for years. I have said I would NEVER make that choice and I can finally say I WOULD. I know now there are times when sometimes NEVER is not an option. Someone was put in that NEVER situation and through their words I understood.
I feel like I have been given a blessing. I feel like I grew YEARS in that hour conversation. While this lovely friend went through hell (and still is), and for that I am sorry, I am thankful that I have been given a lesson from it. I have been horribly judgmental of others in situations that have been similar. I have no place to judge. I don't know everything. I have not lived in their shoes. This friend shared this information with me knowing what I have said in the past. They are truly a HERO, not only for living it, but being willing to be REAL and telling her story.
Thank you dear friend. Thank you for changing me. Thank you for humbling me and making me understand yet again that I don't have all the answers. Thank you for what you do daily to touch others. I am thankful you are you. I pray for peace. I pray for healing.
I am struggling with that at the moment. I try not to be judgmental of Hope's first adoptive parents, and while I can keep the words from coming out, they still live in my head. I am praying for your friend and whatever situation she is in.
ReplyDeleteWoW! That is powerful! I have passed judgment way too many times and it has always come back to haunt me!
ReplyDeleteThis is beautiful, Sheri.
ReplyDeleteSheri,
ReplyDeleteI've missed reading your blog and wondered how the kiddos were doing... I was just passing through. If this post is who I think it is about and what it is about, this is why I turned away from you that day on FB. I didn't want to think that you would say those things about her and encourage others to say things as well. I felt like we needed to be supportive of each other and I didn't know how to express it. In fact I'm not even sure if I'm expressing things in the right way now. I used to feel like you did about the subject, it was a done deal...but then I saw what some people were going through and I had met parents who had been through it and almost a decade later still couldn't come to terms with the loss. I started to live some of it and then I found myself at that crossroads.
I suspected the outcome would be this for her and I could only wonder how she felt seeing that thread on FB. She is a hero and I know that it had to be the very last resort and the best thing for her daughter. We do hear stories about people acting like kids are merchandise or something but for the most part it's parents being forced to give up their children for everyone's safety and the best interest of the child.
I was so flustered by you back then, I lashed out too. I understood what you were saying about disagreeing but I just felt like it wasn't about disagreeing it was about the pain. When I first had to think about disruption/dissolution. I felt so worthless, like I was a quitter and I was failing my child. I felt alone, I felt like no one could understand. I felt selfish, not because I was trying to get out of it but because I didn't want to let her go. I had seen a glimpse of her true heart under all that pain and I had promised her forever. But I couldn't help wonder if I was ruining her more. If I was making her worse because I was being selfish for making her stay when the last place she wanted to be was with me. I didn't know if I should let her go and in doing so force the state to HAVE to give her the services she needed. I worry about the additional abuse that she is inflicting on the other kids since she is the perpetrator now and what fresh new traumas she is causing them. I still fear that she will attempt to kill one of us. She has stabbed her sister before and I don't know if I blogged about it but she tried to throw her brother in the Grand Canyon... It's just an awful place to be. I'm still hanging in here. But I could only imagine how hurtful those conversations are for people who have had to go that route. They were hurtful to me because it just seemed so closed minded and callous.
But I reacted like my children do- out of fear. That's the place where I was at that time. I was just as hypervigilant as them and I felt like I needed to protect myself from you. I wish I could have been more articulate about it and more mature about what happened on FB.
I'm sorry for that.
~Sasha