Dana's Gift
Dana's GiftAssistance Information Support
Email this to a friend Susan Culver
Months went by, we completed our paperwork. And then we discovered that the placement agency who had photolisted this child could no longer help us adopt her. But we wouldn't give up. We found another agency to help us bring her home. This new agency had a video of her to share with us. A video of a child so small and sweet . Oh, how her hair had grown in the past months, yet the eyes were the same. A minute and nineteen seconds of my dream coming true, this little girl was simply waiting to come home.
More paperwork to do, and then finally travel plans to be made. We would meet her in the spring. The expectation of her nearly carried me on its own wings across that ocean to where she awaited. The time of our departure dwindled down to two weeks, then one week. Just days to go before we took that flight across the world. Just days to go before she was our child at last and forever.
And then the call came.
It was the call that ended the dream. The agency said we couldn't have Dana. See, Dana wasn't what we thought she was. In the past months it had become apparent that Dana was severely handicapped and perhaps terminally ill. This was something that the orphanage doctors had suspected for quite a long while, but that had gotten lost somewhere in the translation of languages and miles and time. It was a mistake - not one that could be blamed on anyone in particular - just something that happens from time to time. We were shaken and stunned. We didn't believe it. After all this time, we were just three days away from her. How... Oh, God, how could this be happening?
The shock hadn't even settled deep down into our bones before the agency began inquiring as to what we wished to do at this point. Did we still want to go to this orphanage? Did we want to look at other children? Did we want to wait? Our hearts told us one thing, our mouths said another. We would let them air mail us a video of another child from that orphanage. We would somehow find a way to step onto that plane, and to step into a situation we had never imagined.
We did a lot of praying that day. A lot of thinking too. How could we go so far and bring home a child that wasn't Dana? How would one child ever replace another? How could we have this dream if Dana wasn't a part of it? How could we trust this system and believe that there was a child out there that God had for us? These questions we couldn't answer and they still weighed heavily on our hearts as we boarded that plane and flew to a place we'd only seen in picture books.
It was a world that was not ours, spoken in a language we could hear but not understand. It was a place where the common luxuries of life are stripped away for the simpler necessities of survival. But God lives too in that world, and it was there that he gave us a miracle. She was ten months old, weighed sixteen pounds. A shock of dark hair, bright eyes. A bright ray of sunshine that the walls of an orphanage couldn't contain. The first time I held her I knew that she was ours, and a day later we had papers to prove it. The dream came true on March 30, 2000, and a few days later it went home with us. A little piece of that world that we would take back to our own. A life to discover, to nurture. To cherish. Her name is Alia and I heard her first word. I feel her in my arms. I've seen her dancing and laughing each and everyday. She is my daughter, the child God has for us, the source of so much joy, so many blessings.
We never saw Dana, even though she was somewhere in that place just rooms away from us. We never held her, never kissed her cheek, never said goodbye. I still think of her sometimes, and about the things that couldn't be. I'll never regret her, she was the bright light that led us to Alia. It hurts to think of her still there, and it hurts worse to imagine that maybe she isn't. It's a pain that will never go away, but sometimes it pales before a new dream... A dream where I am in heaven, and I see her face to face. It's a dream where we are not strangers. I tell her I always loved her, I tell her I'm sorry, I thank her for being such a wonderful part of me."I never quit praying for you," I say. "You were in my heart. It was that part of you in me that made me hug my children tighter, hold them longer, live for every second I had with them. It was in losing you that I saw how much I had to hold on to.""Then it was just as I knew it would be," She replies in my dreams, and those beautiful eyes melt my heart once more. "When I was laying in that crib and I hurt all over and I didn't understand, God told me there was a reason. He said that through my weakness I would give greatness. Through my sickness another would have life. And then He took me in His arms and it was through Him that I spoke. And I laughed. And I danced. And I had a Father. I had a home. And I wasn't alone anymore."
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