I will allow myself to express my feelings.

I will let the words come from my heart.

I will allow myself to cry when it hurts.

I will forgive myself when I feel so weak and hopeless.

I will believe with my whole heart that one day this will all be over.

I won’t put on a smile when my spirit feels crushed.

I will stay strong when I want to break down.

I won’t feel ashamed because I am heartbroken.

I won’t apologize for loving my niece more than life itself.

I won’t ever give up the fight or trying to make it right.

I will trust in God that He will make our family once again whole.

I won’t be so hard on myself when I feel overwhelmed.

I won’t rest until every detail is told.

I will wait for my niece, no matter how long it takes.

I will allow myself to live while I wait, owing that to those around me.

I will pray night and day, silently and out loud, that our dream will come true.

I won’t take my hurt and frustration out on those that love me and are supporting me through this.

I will make a conscious effort to survive this.

I will always be her auntie, no matter who tries to take that away.

It’s been so unbearably painful dealing with this catastrophe that I’ve had to take a break by forcing myself to clear my mind of everything.

For my sanity’s sake, I’ve had to stop myself from thinking about the million details that haunt me. Court dates, paperwork, unanswered questions, past visits, red flags, the set up, everything to do with the adoption, I’ve had to choke down and bury it as deep as it will go.

All these years that have gone by, it’s been non-stop and it never goes away. I can’t get away from it no matter what. Everywhere I am and everything I do, it’s always there. There is no escape. The whirlwind of emotions is constant. I keep my niece as close to me as I can, even if it’s only in my thoughts. Thinking about her, loving her, and writing to her are things that no one can take from me and I’m adamant about all of them. The love and passion I have for her keeps me going when I feel like I just can’t go one more moment or one step further.

I’ve had to keep my blood pressure down, I’m still recovering from an accident and surgery with corrective surgery coming up, the vivid nightmares still continue to wake me up in cold sweats, I have to close my eyes and breathe out the anxiety that consumes me. I have no choice but to take care of myself right now and to be honest, I’ve had to learn how to do that because I have put myself off for so long. I have come last and been the last thing that mattered and now that I’m being taken care of instead of being the caretaker, I really don’t know how to handle it. I feel out of my element when someone does something for me. I feel guilty about resting or even sitting down. I pray away whatever creeps in my mind, at least for the time being. As soon as I’m better, I’m sure I’ll be just as diligent as I’ve always been, but for the short-time-being, I have to take it easy. I have to give myself back to those who love me and depend on me, those who lost me because of the madness. I’m resting and feeling more rejuvenated than I’ve felt in quite a while. It’s a struggle, but my faith keeps me afloat.

For my niece, I can and will go the distance.

One of the hardest parts of this whole ordeal, is the stillness of the wait.

I want to just jump out of my skin, cry, scream, drive down right this second to go get my niece and bring her home.

Instead, I have to sit here quietly, keep all the barrage of emotions buried, pray through it, and try to breathe. I’m in a constant fight to keep myself calm. Every day I think to myself that we’re one day closer. Getting through each day seems like forever and as I look back at the years that have gone by, I really don’t know where the time has gone. It’s like I can literally hear the hours screech by. I never knew that quiet could be so loud.

The waiting is so hard. I think about all the time we’re missing out on, I wonder if she even knows that I exist.

As the days pass I ask God for strength, for patience. We’ll never get back all the time we’re missing out on, and that breaks my heart. I wish I could hold her close to me and never let her go. I wish I could read to her, I wish I could hold her hand.

I spend time with her by writing to her, by praying for her, by making things for her. She’s always on my mind and I want her to know that.

I wish we never had to go through this. I wish our family was still intact. What life would have been like without this dark cloud hanging over us. If not for this, everything would be okay.

What a horrible thing Lupita did. She stepped into our family, where she had no place, sold my niece away, and left nothing but destruction behind her. What kind of person would even think of doing such a thing? Every time I even picture her face it makes me sick to my stomach. She’s a baby seller, what else do you call someone who makes a profit from an adoption?

I just want this all to be over. I want our lives back. I want my niece back. But for now, all we can do is wish, and wait. I know God hears our prayers and sees all the tears we cry.

I love my niece with my all the pieces of my broken heart. I can’t wait until she comes home ….

This ridiculous adoption that Lupita set up and profited from took everything.

It took my niece.

It took my sister’s entire being.

It took a baby I lost by miscarriage ten days after we found out.

It took two marriages.

It took peaceful dreams and replaced them with nightmares.

It took our sense of security.

It took the faith we had in people doing the right thing.

It took the air from our lungs.

It took our free spirits and left us with a heavy darkness.

It took normalcy and gave us chaos.

It took ME.

It took me from everyone who loved me.

It took me from my friends.

It took me from my job.

It took me from smiles to tears.

It took the relationship between an aunt and niece I always wanted.

It took me away from my own children.

When this all happened, I changed so drastically. In an instant, I was an entirely different person. I couldn’t put one foot in front of the other.

I couldn’t eat.

I couldn’t sleep.

I couldn’t think.

I couldn’t keep track of time.

I couldn’t follow a conversation.

I couldn’t remember things once engraved in my memory. 

The sparkle in my eyes was replaced with a glossed over daze. All these things have stayed with me since then and I have to pray through it and force myself to be strong no matter how much I want to crumble.

It hurts me so much that my kids essentially lost their mom in this madness. A mom that took care of her family with an eager and loving heart. I cooked, cleaned, ironed, baked, planned the best parties, handmade costumes, read stacks of books, always took such good care of the kids and their friends. I surprised them with goodie bags and balloons at their school on Valentine’s Day, took them on picnics, helped with homework, took them on weekend outings, had regular slumber parties, all while working a full-time job. One day it was smooth like butter, and the next it came to a screeching halt. I didn’t want to get out of bed, I started getting terrible headaches, my body was constantly achy, I didn’t want to see the sun, I didn’t want to talk, I just wanted to crawl in a hole and pull the hole in after me.

My daughter was 9 and my son was 6.

Fast forward 9 years, my daughter just turned 18. The last nine years have been an enormous struggle. The day-to-day has taken every ounce of energy I have left. I’ve had to talk myself through everything I do and remind myself that although I am fighting this huge battle, I still need to be the mom I once was when all was right in the world. I still have desserts to make, museums to go to, games to cheer for. I can’t break down and cry in front of them because then they’ll fall apart. I have to get them through something that I can barely get through myself. I tell them that God will make it right someday. I pray us through long nights and emptiness. I remind them that love is the strongest force.

They’ve gotten me through this without holding it against me that I almost gave up. They’ve reminded me that there is always hope. They’ve held me when I felt like I couldn’t go on for one more second. They said so sweetly, “mommy please don’t cry.”

They were so little, trying to understand a grown up nightmare. A nightmare we still can’t make sense of. By her “parents” demands, they weren’t allowed to see my niece or have contact with her. They made sure to break their little hearts as they did ours. It didn’t matter that they were innocent children. They act  as if my niece just dropped out of the sky and had no one who loved her and needed her. Complacent, just like Lupita.

Every time I got home from a visit, they asked me endless questions, wanting to know every detail. I had to swallow with a lump in my throat and when we finished talking, I would go in my room and bang my head against the wall with tears streaming down my face. Until this happened, I never realized that more than one tear could fall at a time. They literally poured out until my eyes were puffy and sore. 

Despite having only seen her in pictures their love for her remains unbreakable. They still miss her, still think of her, still wonder about her, still have pictures of her in their bedrooms. They await her return with a love that will never fade. So young, they’ve shown courage beyond words.

I’ve tried to balance the world despite being weak in the knees from heartbreak. I’ve done my best to make them smile as I hold back tears. I just want them to know that I for everything I couldn’t manage and the times I came up short, I’m truly sorry. I hurt so bad that I literally prayed for God to kill me just so I wouldn’t have to feel this any more. The burden of heartache is that heavy and profound. Their love made me realize I had to find a way to survive this. I’m sorry that our lives were ruined, I’m sorry that this left us with a million pieces to put back together. If I could give them back all the time they deserved, I would.

I owe them everything for getting me through this, for not letting me completely unravel. They took care of me when I was stuck in a trans. They brought me soup when I needed to eat. They gave me the time and space to grieve even though they were hurting too. They’ve been so strong and understanding, patient and loving.

I want them to know how much I love them and how thankful I am that they were there for me, and still are. This ordeal robbed them of  so much yet they saved me …. 

Monique  and Josiah, I love you more than words can say. With a sincere heart, I truly thank you.

I dream.

I wish.

I cry.

All this time later, I still wonder why.

Will you ever come home?

This just isn’t fair.

It’s so hard to cope with the restlessness.

I toss and turn with racing thoughts.

They’ve tied our hands and there’s nothing we can do.

Only God hears the screams through the forced silence.

All I can do is pray and have faith through the storm.

The time will come when I can hold you close.

One day the sun will shine through the clouds.

The love we’ve saved will beautifully bloom.

The black and white replaced  with bright colors.

The emptiness will be no more.

The heavy weight will be lifted.

Chains broken, spirits free.

It’s so terrible having your whole life and well-being decided by some “suit” that sees your name on a file, makes a decision on your life, then you never see them again. Men you don’t even know getting to pass judgment on you, your past, your future, your very sense of self and place in the world. They get to decide as if they are God and what gives them the right?

“The Suits.” The judges, the district attorneys, the flashy lawyers that know the law and how to bend and break it, the police and detectives that are supposedly there to protect you, when in reality they’re there to protect themselves and their own. Then it’s not until years later that you find out about their sins and secrets, immoral acts, and wrongdoings. By then, it’s on court-filed paper and undoing it is impossible. Their connections give them advantages the rest of us don’t have. They can just not answer questions, files are “lost” or buried, they get to get to point fingers and pass the blame. They’re simply not accountable. They get to take advantage of the innocent and their victims get victimized over and over again. How many families have they torn apart that shouldn’t have been? How many times have they made the wrong decision? How many times have they stepped in the middle when they should have stepped aside? How many times did they look away instead of looking through?

Those who “know best” don’t always know best.

Judy and Marissa still live in the house across the street from one of my parent’s houses, next door to where Lupita lived until recently. Their family was already there when our family had our house built on the empty lot across the street. I think my sister was three and I was eleven. I babysat both Judy’s daughters and had what I thought was a good relationship with Judy.

We got our Thanksgiving gravy from Judy’s husband, her parents stayed in my parent’s guest bedroom when they came to visit. She gave us vegetables from her garden and my mom and I dressed her up and did her makeup for a special dinner, my mom helped stencil roses in her dining room. Yes, there was an obvious friendship that extended beyond the normal hi-and-goodbye neighbors. We trusted them, they trusted us, which makes it harder to swallow the betrayal they inflicted upon us.

Judy was originally the person that my sister confided in about her pregnancy. She asked her not to say anything, but the first thing Judy did was run to Lupita. And, Lupita took it from there, promptly sending her sons to move my sisters things over to her house, without my sister even agreeing to do so. Judy’s character can be described as weak, a follower that worked too many long hours to give her daughters whatever they wanted. Judy told me a lot of things about herself and her rebellious stage growing up and she lent an ear when I needed to talk out my confusion about coming into womanhood. She told me how her father had to go get her and bring her home after she got into “drugs” when she was living in California, and I knew of her affair with a married man and the conception of her eldest daughter, she definitely had her fair share of making bad decisions.

After I found out about the adoption, what Lupita did, the situation was still unfolding, and I couldn’t hold back the way I felt for one more second. Being that we had been so close, I was so dumbfounded to learn that Judy had any part in it. But she did, and I called her on it.

Overcome with emotion, I called her on the phone; asking her how she could do such a thing, did she even know what this had done to our whole family, how could she look us in the eye after having done such an awful thing. Her daughter Marissa was on the other extension, trying to defend her mom and her deceitful actions, as if they had a leg to stand on. What they did was dirty, but still they tried to justify it. I remember myself hysterical, wanting to jump through the phone. Not surprisingly, I had a few not-so-nice things to say, but never once did I threaten them, I simply told them how I felt and what disgusting people they were. But the story doesn’t end there.

They actually had the audacity to call the police and what a surprise, good ol’ Elliot County jumped on the chance to issue an arrest warrant for ME, which I didn’t find out until I went for a visit and the police were investigating a missing turkey, yes a missing turkey, near a house I had spent the night at. I thought I was being ‘punked.’ They arrested me, I posted bail, and was given a date to come back for court.

To this day, I feel I did NOTHING wrong, so I made a phone call to people who I had known for twenty years and told them how I felt. I guess the truth hurt them so much they had to try to make themselves look good by smashing salt into our open wound, it wasn’t enough they took part in this clandestine adoption. Our family obviously hadn’t suffered enough, now it was ME who was on trial for something so ridiculous as a phone call, yet Lupita sold our baby away from her ticket window. What a great DA with impeccable judgment, anything to take the focus off what the issue really was.

So I went to court, missing my daughter’s eighth grade graduation to go defend MY name. Seeing Judy and Marissa, and Lupita at the window, mere feet from where I was being tried and questioned made me dizzy. It took every ounce of self-restraint I had not to completely go postal on these horrible people. 

When I was finally before a judge, I never denied calling them, why should I have to, I never threatened them, I merely told them they were garbage and how could they do such a thing. The judge looked at me and I could tell he didn’t want to be hearing what I was saying. There was no order that was in place stating that I couldn’t call them, but because I never denied having made that ONE phone call, he gave me the most lenient punishment of one day in jail, suspended so I wouldn’t have to actually go spend the day in jail. Thank goodness I was able to clear my name completely.

What justice.

All that these people had done and I was the one being held accountable for A phone call, as in ONE call I placed to them. Sounds like a joke, but it’s not. I told the judge I had no interest in ever speaking to them again, that they were trash, and I wanted nothing to do with them. They helped to set this unnecessary adoption in motion and all they got was a phone call, how did they ever make it through such a horrific thing …. I hope that phone call didn’t land them in therapy for the next ten years. It’s so ludicrous, I don’t know which it makes me do, laugh or get mad.

Really, I’M the criminal in this scenario?

Give me a break.

I utterly despise Judy and Marissa. They stuck a knife in our backs so eagerly after so many years of trust and friendship. I can only hope that they are given the same courtesy they bestowed upon us, that their hearts will be torn out by a friendly face when they least expect it.  

They certainly have no room to talk when it comes to family situations, or scandals, so the finger they point at our family for the small incidents we ever had is just plain stupid. They have a lot of nerve thinking they’re superior to anyone. I pray that with every misfortune they have they will be reminded that what goes around comes around, no matter how long it takes. I hope God shows them every tear we’ve cried and that they too will face a trauma so deep they can barely get out of bed. They should be ashamed of themselves. They cannot be trusted as friends or neighbors, and I hope they’ll keep their blinds shut tight like they have since this all happened. I hope being in their own home makes them uncomfortable, as they try to save face.

I don’t ever want to lay eyes on them ever again, they are absolute garbage.

It’s late and I’m tired. Emotionally I feel so worn out. As usual, the quietness of the late night seems the loudest time of day. I seem to go crazy right before bed every night unable to get away from the rage I feel. The emptiness only soothed with prayer.

I’ve been creating a new writing space, since I have all things pertaining to this adoption in a huge ottoman-style storage bench, I need the room to be able to keep everything organized and accessible. I have had to create a designated space for my writing so I don’t spread the negative emotion throughout the house. As I sit here going through paperwork, seeing documents, I feel my blood pressure rise.

I’m not even a lawyer and I’ve put this case together like my life depended on it, because it does. Since the DA of Elliot County turned a blind eye to our accusations, because that’s what Elliot County officials do to protect their own, I’ve put it all together myself. After all, Lupita’s boss’ actions were essentially covered up, so why wouldn’t hers be? She worked directly for him, no wonder we couldn’t get any questions answered; justice denied.

If you follow the money, or in this case, the Tiffany jewelry, plane ticket, and God knows what else, all roads lead Lupita. After all, she was the star of this show. Instead of performing office tasks at her clerk’s window, she was busy setting up an adoption that should never happened. She seems to take pleasure in the fact of knowing that she did such an ugly thing.

Recently, I found out that she no longer pollutes the house across the street from one of my parent’s homes. She and her husband sold their home, separated, and she now lives in a mobile home park. Not that it gives me any satisfaction in seeing her life fall apart, no amount of despair could ever come close to what we feel every moment of every day. Only me taking one of her children and selling him away would make us even, and that is something I could never do. I’m just glad that should I ever decide to visit that area, I won’t have to see her living so comfortably and going on with her life as if she had no part in ripping a family apart. Not so pleasant when that family is your own ….

I’ll wait anxiously forever if it means one day I’ll be able to hold you …

I wish for you when I look up and see the stars in the sky …

In my dreams, I find you, and no one can take you away …

I hope your heart will show you how much we long for only you …

My thoughts always drift to you and I cry silently inside …

I ask God to bring you home through the days and nights I pray …

I remember your eyes and your smile, the way your hand felt in mine …

You’re my niece and no one can ever change that.