Our Angel of Mercy

“Love is just a word until someone special gives it meaning.” (Author unknown)

Every mother wants to know her children are protected and loved.

But what happens when one’s child comes to her old enough to have faced unprotected moments, yet is too young to recount or appreciate those times when someone DID step in to offer protection and care?

When Allie joined our family in late March of 2012, she could ask for ‘w-unch’… could sing ‘Twin-tle, Twin-tle W-ittle -Tar’… Yes, could even count to four in Spanish. (Thanks, Dora!)

At about three months shy of three, she recounted over and over the morning her Papa Jimmy, while they all sat together to eat breakfast, suffered a fatal heart attack. “Is Papa Jimmy in Heaven?” she would ask almost daily, sometimes several times a day.

Yet, she could not recount much concerning the nearly 550 days she’d lived prior to being legally adopted by her maternal grandfather.

Thankfully, from her birth until that day, Allie was in the protective, loving care of a guardian – a woman whom I’ve come to know just a little through the medical records we received prior to our adoption of Allie in July 2012. She was faithful to keep scheduled doctor’s visits, as well as meetings with Allie’s assigned social worker.

And though I deeply wish it had been me to hold, nurture, and love Allie from her very beginning, it wasn’t.

Such shall never be.

Thus, it’s been upon such records and reports that I’ve come to rely in my attempt to piece together much of Allie’s first year and a half of life – from June 22, 2009 until she moved to Papa Jimmy’s and her beloved “Bunny’s” home in January 2012.

I remember well the day this packet of papers arrived. I shut myself up in my bedroom and read them, cover to cover.

And I wept.

I wept for a little girl – our little Girl — who I’d only known then for several weeks but had grown to love so deeply.

I wept for the young woman who gave Allie life but, despite all good intentions, was unable to offer Allie a life with her due to her struggles and immaturity at the time.

And I won’t lie.

I wept, too, for me – this grown-up Girl.

For the lost years – never to be regained.

For the lost stories – ones I would never know.

Yes, her stories collected over many days.

And because she was ours, they seemed rightfully OURS…

Still…

Pieces of her “Life” puzzle then were laid out that day between page one and page 50-something – snippets to be pieced together in my desperate attempt to SEE more clearly… that I might KNOW her better…

And as I read through tears, there – on 8 ½ x 11 paper purchased at Staples or Office Max or some other insignificant (when compared to the totality of what I was surmising) so-named supply store – was a signature…a name of extreme significance.

Written once.

Then twice.

Three times.

Finally, I lost count.

Yes, a name.

A name I knew… had known for more than 16 years.

A name from my past…

This name – her name – belonged to someone I’d known when we lived in Greenville, SC. Her son had been in the third grade when I was a teacher of the same grade in the same school. And her daughter had been in middle school then. I knew her, too – Yes, by name! A name she shared, in fact, with her mother. A beautiful name for two beautiful people.

But then, barely a teenager, this young girl – a daughter… a sister… a friend to many. – passed away.

A brief and sudden illness that took her with hardly a warning.

I remember – not long after our school’s annual Junior High fall retreat.

The leaves fell and were gone.

And so was she.

It devastated our little school.

But not nearly as it devastated her little family.

Their hope, then, was found only in knowing she was with her Heavenly Father – free from all harm and all human frailty – like the frailty (sickness) that took her away… carried her Home.

A curse and – because of Grace – also a blessing.

Yes, both results of the Fall.

And so, our school grieved this loss.

Her parents and brother grieved most.

I’m sure her mother grieved more than any.

As mothers do.

And as I sat in my overstuffed chair on this “treasure hunt” of sorts – reading through pages and pages of medical records and a social worker’s reports – I found a gem.

The social worker who had handled, almost exclusively, Allie’s case was this woman.

The mother who had lost her daughter to illness and grieved until her heart, no doubt, felt as though it would break was the very one who visited with my daughter’s caregiver(s) on many occasions – who’d held our Allie long before my arms would ever be so blessed.

She heard Allie cough.

Sneeze.

Coo.

And cry…

Long before my ears ever took in the sound of her.

And she spent hours at her desk – typing reports… dotting an “i” here, crossing a “t” there.

All.For.Allie.

Perhaps she even prayed for our Girl – caring for this little one who’d become, by no mere accident, a part of her life by carrying her to the One who is the Source of Life.

As I tearfully read over the reports, lamenting that I’d missed out on so much, it was by God’s perfect and divine grace that He opened my eyes to see her name – to be reassured that, even before we knew and held and loved Allie, she’d been cared for lovingly by another woman…

Yes, another mother – one who’d experienced such great loss in love.

The death of a dream.

The death of her Daughter.

Yet, she tenderly cared for mine.

How could we have known?

But such is never unknown to God — our good and gracious, ever-loving Father.

He showed favor – to Allie when, as a baby, she was cared for by a loving social worker…

And to me, by allowing this discovery… this truth revealed – though years had passed.

And so, it’s no surprise that this woman’s name means…

“Favor.”

“Grace.”

After Allie’s adoption was final, I wrote to her and explained how I’d discovered her name in the reports she had signed off on years earlier. And she lovingly wrote back, saying, “… I love all my little children and get so wrapped up in their lives. Many start life struggling… they are so precious. I remember Allie…”

“I remember Allie…”

She remembered Allie.

Our girl.

And like all the other precious lives she has touched over decades of work in this field, she touched Allie when I could not.

She was there when I was not.

She loved her before I could.

And she prayed for her when Allie was still just a dream in my heart.

God gave us this woman to be an angel of His mercy to our little Girl long before we would call her our own.

And my prayer is that, in some miraculous way, Allie – as well as all the other little ones who’ve come across her path – touched her life, as well. Perhaps helping to ease the aching place deep in her heart where the memory of her little girl (who would now be 30) lives on.

Some pains never fully heal.

But God does, by His grace, give us balm that soothes the hurt.

She was that for Allie.

And I pray Allie was, in some small manner, that for her, too – even though our girl can’t possibly remember nor fully appreciate all that was done through this woman to preserve her and prepare her for life.

No, there’s really no way we could ever repay this dear woman for the kindnesses – the loving protection and care – shown to our Allie; yet we believe that – for her – it’s near enough just to know of our gratitude.

To know we are thankful.

To know that our thankfulness spills out in praise to the One in whom we all take delight – our good and loving Father.

The Giver of all good and precious gifts.

The One who shares our grief… bears our grief when – an ugly result of this fallen world – some of life’s precious Gifts are taken away.

We share a belief in these ancient words, even when we walk through darkness – “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of [our] LORD” (Job 1:21).

We have no doubt that this woman was Love for Allie long before we were.

And for that, we are forever grateful.

“You have not lived… until you have done something for someone who can never repay you” (John Bunyan).