Her name was Samantha

All I ever wanted was for her to be safe.

From the day I left her mother sitting in an attorney's office and clutching the hand of the man she loved, I never knew if she was. I had no chance.

Just 19 days before she might have become ours to care for, her mother returned to her father, the man who had abandoned her, who left his partner and his unborn child to fend for themselves in a strange town, with strangers. It was left to us to care for them, as best we could, making sure they had a home and food and clothing and proper medical care.

But when he came back with promises of love and forever, we were lost. And so was the baby girl we would have named Elle and had already started to love.

We spent the next 12 years not knowing. Anything. How she was, where she was. Were they taking care of her? Was she safe? Was she happy?

Until one day last year when, on a whim, I typed a name into a search engine and found her mother. And her. Not Elle, but Samantha.  Blonde, blue-eyed, beautiful, about to turn 12 just like our daughter. But most important, safe. And seemingly happy.


My mind and my heart could finally rest. I knew she was well. I could wonder no more.

Until, for some strange reason, this week.

I searched again. And found another photo. This one of the same young girl, Samantha, lying in a hospital bed, her blond hair pulled back behind her on the pillow, her blue eyes closed, a tube in her mouth. And prayers from her family to their angel. In heaven.

The girl who would have been Elle died on June 12 in a hospital in Alabama. She had been riding a bicycle when she lost control. She received internal injuries, which led to sepsis, which led to her death one week after her accident. She was still 12 years old.

And my heart broke a little.

It broke for the young girl, just one month older than my daughter, who left this earth much, much too soon, who had so much of a life left to live. It broke for all the pain and suffering she had to endure. It broke for all the promises that were broken.

And it broke for her mother, the woman who almost gave her baby to me, who said time and again that she didn't want that baby, didn't need that baby, couldn't care for that baby.


But things happen.  Some say they happen for a reason. Maybe it was meant to be. Maybe I wasn't supposed to have Kim's baby. I was supposed to have the one I have. Maybe Kim was supposed to have hers, keep hers, love hers because it only would be for a little while. 

All along, as we danced around the potential adoption, all we both ever wanted was for that baby  to be safe.

That's the one thing we didn't get.



Click to read the blog post: Her name was Elle

One

 

She would have been one.

Should have been.

My husband's first grandchild. His son's first daughter. More steps for me.

A perfectly beautiful baby girl named Parker, she was born one year ago today. But instead of a joyous celebration of life, this date is one we will never forget.

She was born sleeping.

I saw that in a post by another heart-broken mother somewhere. I liked the way it sounded, though it's no less sad. No less tragic.

She was otherwise perfect in every way.

And this should be her first birthday.

She should be blowing out her first candle, receiving her first birthday presents, mushing cake all over her adorable face.

Born in December, this should be her first magical Christmas. We should be picking out presents and little red velvet outfits with lacy pants and tons of toys. She should have sat on Santa's knee for a picture and screamed for her mommy.

So much we must imagine.

When I lost my beloved cousin this year, the officiant at her funeral talked about her dash, the mark between the date we arrive on this earth and the date we leave. Some people, like my cousin, fill that dash with a full, rich life. Others do not.

Parker didn't even get a dash. She only got one date. This one, for all of us to remember.

So we gathered today as a family. A Louisiana family, of course. There were boiled crabs and beer. And laughter and love, a cute smooshy baby boy and beautiful little girls.

And chips and dips and candy and cookies.

But no cake.






.

Empty arms

She barely comes out of her room these days, unless it's to feed or to grab another soda from the fridge. Or to let some out.

Sometimes it's to show me some "hilarious" video she has found on Youtube, that isn't really funny at all but I stop what I'm doing to watch anyway.

Or to show me the latest item she needs for her newest "Cosplay" costume, which I totally don't understand but I say yes anyway because I certainly don't want to stifle her creativity. And it's usually pretty cheap -- even the makeup she had shipped from England.

Yes, I pick on her about the acne she's getting on her face and try to explain (gently) that if she would just wash it regularly....

Same with the dandruff....

And I try hard not to roll my eyes at the wrinkled pants she pulled from the bottom of the pile to wear to school today. I have to pick my battles I guess.

I do try hard to hug her more. And harder. And closer. Especially since Friday when a madman with insane weapons went into a quiet little elementary school in a quiet little town and massacred 26 people -- 20 of them first graders as they huddled in their merry classrooms with their teachers. Some in a tiny bathroom.

I can picture the tiny bathroom our local elementary school has for the first graders, some of whom have tiny bladders and short attention spans. I don't want to picture her in there with her friends, cowered in fear. Or their teacher, mulling any and all options when there are none.

I can still see the little girl with the beautiful curls, the big brown eyes, the pink sweater and the pink sparkly shoes. The bright-eyed, sharp-minded little girl who loved to entertain herself in her room most of the time, but would come out every once in a while to show me something she had drawn or written or made, or to repeat some hysterical line from her latest favorite TV show. Kim Possible mostly.

Who refused to wear anything but pink -- or a princess costume.

Who lost her two front teeth.

Who sang with no fear on a stage in front of a full crowd of Saturday night fair goers, after which she was asked for her autograph.

Whose daddy would pick her up and put her in my bed in the morning as he left for work so that the two of us could cuddle until our alarm went off.



Of course, now that she is an all-grown-up snarky tween it's harder.

She won't come out of her room enough, or hold still long enough, to let me hug her much. And when I do, she just rolls her eyes. When I try to tell her how much I love her and how happy I am that she is here, she sings that exasperated "Mo-oom" song that really sounds like "let me go."

And her dad and I can no longer pick her up at all (except in the pool).

But he still wakes her up every morning. And every morning she groggily climbs the stairs to crawl into bed with me so we can cuddle until our alarm goes off. Then, and pretty much only then, she is still my little girl. Still my baby.

And I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like if she wasn't. Or what it must be like for those parents who no longer have their babies to cuddle with. Ever again.

Her name was Elle

To the rest of the world, it’s just another Facebook photo, of just another kid, posted by just another  proud mom.

It’s not a special photograph. In fact, it’s rather poor quality. Dark and a little blurry.

It's just a cell phone photo of a blond-haired, blue-eyed little girl wearing purple girly pajamas and holding a pair of puppies. 

Probably no one else zoomed in for a better look. And looked really hard at the face, at the hair, at the eyes, at the body, at the setting.  Or searched for signs. Of sorrow, of fear, of overall health and well-being. Of what might have been.

To the rest of the world, she's just another child. But for the better part of the year 2001, she was my child. The child I dreamed of. The child I prayed for. The child I yearned for.

The child I prepared for. The child I built a nursery for. The child I bought that first yellow and blue blanket for. 

The child I named Elle -- because everyone was expecting me to name my child something with an "L."

But I never got to see her. Never got to hold her. Never got to take her home to her white nursery or wrap her in that blanket.

Just 19 days before the date I had circled on the calendar, her mother had a change of mind.  I won’t call it a change of heart. 

Never in the six months I knew her did she say she wanted that child. More often, she said she didn’t. She had already lost custody of three babies, under circumstances never fully explained by her or understood by me. She never expressed much regret over that either.

In her seventh month we sat together in the waiting room at the doctor’s office – my doctor’s office --  watching a toddler, well, toddle.

“That’s exactly what I don’t want,” she said of the adorable straw-haired little boy bouncing from chair to chair in the room.

I looked at her in utter amazement.

“That’s exactly what I do want,” I said.

Just days after that, I got a call from my attorney, who was telling me that the boyfriend who had dumped her all those months ago and set her on the path to me, wanted her and the baby – and any money we were paying her for it. Just days after that, I was driving her to the attorney’s office for a face-to-face meeting with him so she could see if he was telling the truth. She said she had to look him in the eyes. In my heart I knew what was coming.

We left without them both.

And I never saw them again.

Until a few months ago when, on a whim, I typed her name into the Facebook search box. And there she was. Alone. No children. No him. Lots of high scores on Farkle.

I had never stopped wondering where they were. How they were. If they were taking care of the daughter they decided to keep.

So I guess I can forgive myself for checking on her again, on another whim. And I can forgive my heart for squeezing a little bit at the sight of the girl I named Elle and they named Sam. And another child, a boy. 

And I can forgive my mind for trying to imagine what might have been.

If everything had gone as originally planned, after we got that other phone call from that other mother in the fall, today we would have two 11-year-old girls in our family, in our house, in our lives, and in our hearts. One light. One dark. Both tall. Elle and Lora Leigh.

But everything did not go as it was planned. It went as it was meant to be.

Guest blogging at America Adopts!

I was asked to write a guest blog post by the fine folks at America Adopts! for Mother's Day.

After much contemplation, what came out was a post about what it's like to be a  Mother in Waiting on Mother's Day, or  a mother who has lost.  We tend to forget about them. Or ignore them completely.

They don't get the breakfast in bed, the carnations in church, and Hallmark definitely doesn't have a card for them.

And all they really want to do is stay in bed with the covers pulled up over their head anyway. But sometimes they can't. They have to spend the day with "real" mothers or their mothers-in-law.

But I hope you will take a moment to remember them. At least in your prayers.

Happy Mother's Day to ALL mothers -- even the ones in waiting.

Click below to read:

Honoring What We Have -- and What We've Lost -- on Mother's Day

Parker

I'll admit it. I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of becoming a grandmother.

I don't know that any woman with any sense of vanity is, really. Me? A gray-haired old Granny? Hell no.

But then we start imagining all the fun we can have, all the cute clothes we can buy, all those sweet baby kisses and hugs, all the sugar-coated sticky-fingered outings we can go on, followed by quick dropoffs back to their parents (followed in turn by a long, long nap) and we get excited.

A grandparent. OK. I can handle that. Just don't call me "Granny." That was my Granny's name. That's my sister's name.

That's where I am.

Was.

My stepson, who became "my" kid when he was 9 years old,   and his wife whom we've known forever , announced back in the spring that we were going to be grandparents. My husband was thrilled that he was going to be a grandfather. I was going to be a step-grandmother.

No, a Lolo -- which is what I already am to my stepchildren, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews and even one of my bosses. Lolo.

But we couldn't tell anyone.

As hard as it was for this reporter and social media specialist to do, I dutifully kept their secret from everyone except my closest family members. And my best friend. And my nail technician.

As hard as it was for the other grandparents -- my husband, his ex-wife and our very good friends the in-laws --  they too kept the secret, even long after it is traditionally necessary.

It was a very quiet pregnancy, which was fine by this not-ready-to-be-a-Granny. But there was a date circled on the calendar.

Then "it" became a "she."

Then "she" became Parker.

And that's about when those ideas about cute baby outfits and fun trips to the zoo and Sunday afternoons in my swimming pool began to form. And saying, "I'm about to be a grandmother," became a little easier. Every time.

And then came November, and a Sunday afternoon shower, for which I dug out some of my own baby girl's special things -- the first blanket I fell in love with and bought for my "possibility" of a child when we were waiting to adopt, and one of her favorite books after she finally came.

And then I ordered some cute little sports-themed onesies for this granddaughter-to-be of a high school baseball coach and daughter-to-be of a high school football coach, and a die-hard LSU and Saints fan. And a football-themed baby bunting.

Oh, I wasn't the only one. One of the other grandmothers coincidentally bought the same outfit, with shoes to match!

And then came December and Christmas shopping. And a beautiful Cinderella carriage piggy bank I just HAD to have, and a personalized Christmas ornament with "Parker" etched on the front. All beautifully wrapped under my tree for the few remaining days until Christmas and then her December 28th due date.

And, honestly, I couldn't wait to see Daniel become a dad. I had seen him be such a great big brother to his baby sister. He was 17 when she was born and the big galoot came in every afternoon after school to scoop her up and toss her around. She adored him, and he her.

"He's going to be a great dad," I said.

And then came the phone call.

My stepson, in hysterics, telling his father something was wrong. They couldn't find a heartbeat. They were on the way to the hospital. Come.

Then my husband peeling out of the driveway.

I stayed home with my 10-year-old daughter, the aunt-to-be, who had spent the last weekend with her brother and sister-in-law while we went out of town for a romantic anniversary weekend.  Who had hoped all weekend, to feel the baby kick, but never got to.

I waited for her to get out of the shower, to tell her we had to go to the hospital for Bubby. But when she got all excited, I had to sit her down and tell her what was really happening. She didn't want to go. I didn't want to make her.

So we stayed home, and waited for news, while the rest of the family gathered in the waiting room, waiting for the inevitable.

Parker Anniston Luquet was born December 22, 2011 at 11:22 a.m., perfect in every way except that she never got to take a breath. The very cord that gave her life for the last eight months took it from her sometime in the final days.

Her parents and grandparents and aunts got to see her, to hold her, to tell her how much they loved her. They shed a million tears over her.

I, the step-grandmother,  did not. I had to tend to my own baby girl, who wanted to know if there still would be a Christmas this year, and what would we do with her presents? We baked cookies with her friends. Then I hid in the kitchen and sobbed.

Yes, this was my stepson's child. My step-daughter-in-law's child. My husband's grandchild. And also mine.

Our stepchildren are just our children. There is no such thing as step-grief. Or step-pain. It all hurts just the same.

Believe me. I know.

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