my history

With Baby B's placement in our home and the fact that she is Native American, I have started paying more attention to ICWA (Indian Child Welfare Act) and my own Native American heritage.

My parents married in Arizona and that is where I was born. My dad was full-blood Hualapai and lived on the reservation. Though he tried to get sober and live as a Christian, he went back to drinking and being abusive and my parents divorced when I was 2.

While thinking about ICWA and the push to keep Native children in Native homes, I started wondering what my life would have been like had my parents stayed married and had I grown up on the reservation. So I started reading online about what is happening in my tribe...and I looked up some of my relatives on Facebook. I have relatives that I have never met (or maybe I did when I was very little but I don't remember) and I have an aunt by marriage and one cousin that I met several years ago on a trip to Arizona. On that trip I also saw the graves of two uncles. At the time my dad was still alive but no one knew exactly where he was. To my knowledge he was on and off the streets. Now his grave joins their graves which are nothing more than plots of dirt that are decorated with items. Most people are too poor to afford fancy burials.

The reservation continues to be oppressed with drugs, alcohol, suicide, poverty, and fractured families. The tribe is small and although they have tried to bring in revenue through tourism, their most recent business venture--the Skywalk which looks out over the Grand Canyon--has become a source of legal problems.

And then I looked up my dad online. I knew that he died in 2010 but I just wanted to see what I could find. His obituary was brief...just a couple of sentences stating that he was born and he died. It seemed so sad to me. What a waste of a life due to addictions. I found his prison record and it didn't look too much different from records of children who end up in DHS custody. Perhaps that is why I have a heart for children in foster care. My dad was in foster care and if things had been slightly different in my life--if my mom wasn't the amazing woman she is--I could have landed in foster care as well.

My family helps with an outreach downtown with poor/homeless and often there are Indian people there. I think about my dad frequently since I know he benefited from downtown "missions"...they usually ask me if I'm "Native" and what tribe. 

I looked at his death record online and thought about writing something in the online memorial, but what to say....I wish things could have been different, I wish you could have been a stable father, I'm sorry for how your life turned out...I don't know.

It's so crazy...in a way, it seems that by my own involvement in fostering that I am looking at parts of my past, maybe coming to terms with things, gaining a better understanding of people and life.

I'm grateful for the life I have been given when it could have been so different. There are things I would change if I could but sometimes I think we are handed circumstances in life and it is what shapes us and it is what motivates us to fulfill the purpose God has.

Just my musings for the night.

sweet baby girl

My mom took Daniel this afternoon to do errands, so with fewer feet in the house I thought I would take the opportunity to sweep, mop, and vacuum all the floors. I laid 3 month old Baby B on a blanket so she could have some floor time to kick and practice being on her side instead of her back.

I put on a playlist and when the song "Holy" by David Crowder came on, I put my mop down and went over to Baby B to move her arms and legs to the music and sing with her. She is so relational now at 3 months and has a smile that lights up the room. As I sang and played with her she began laughing and her eyes sparkled...and my eyes completely filled with tears and all I could do was pray...

Sweet baby girl, so full of life and looking at me with such trusting eyes....you have no idea the chaos that you were born into. How I wish for your sake that you had been born into a peaceful situation, that you would have had parents who were eagerly anticipating your birth, making a special nursery for you.....that your family could have been there to surround you with love when you were born. Instead you had to be taken away from your biological mother that carried you and nursed you those first few days of life, and you were sent away with strangers.
We love you so much and I wish with all my heart that I could protect you from further pain or confusion. I wish that it was in my power to make the very, very best decisions for your life. 
But all I can do right now is love you....and our family can give you security and unconditional love while we wait to see what will happen in your life.
Sweet Baby B, I love you and want the very best for you. And right now I'm happy that you're happy....

So many prayers were poured out on Daniel's behalf. His life is a miracle. And the same God is present in Baby B's life. I can't predict the future and I can't control others' decisions. But today I can love and pray. And believe that God has her future in His hands.