Adopted Mothers Day Quotes

She turned back to Jace. "Do you have to be so-," she began, but stopped when she saw his face. It looked stripped down, oddly vulnerable. "Unpleasant?" he finishes for her. "Only at days when my adoptive mother tosses me out of the house with instructions never to darken her door again. Usually I'm remarkably good-natured. Try me on any day that doesn't end in y.

Unpleasant?" he finished for her. "Only on the days when my adoptive mother tosses me out of the house with instructions never to darken her door again. Usually, I'm remarkably good-natured. Try me on any day that doesn't end in y.

The thing is that I am a member of that sad, ever-dwindling minority... the child of an unbroken home. I have carried this albatross since the age of eleven, when I started at grammar school. Not a day would pass without somebody I knew turning out to be adopted or illegitimate, or to have mothers who were about to hare off with some bloke, or to have dead fathers and shabby stepfathers. What busy lives they led. How I envied their excuses for introspection, their ear-marked receptacles for every just antagonism and noble loyalty.

Imagine you’re visiting a place where there’s little to no English spoken and you wake up one day to find that the group you went with has all gone home and you are left there alone.

I cannot pretend that I understood my mother at the end of her life. I was trying to follow the goals she had set me even though she had rejected them for herself. I took the following to be her death poem: Why do we suffer so in the world? Just regard life as the short bloom of the mountain cherry. Over the years, my opinion of this poem changed. At first I considered it another lament in the pessimistic mode she so often adopted. Then one day I realized it was actually joyous, and my entire understanding of her was transformed. In the end she had no more sorrow than does a cherry blossom at its falling.

Then one detail caught my attention. "Time (of birth), 5:57 A.M." Wow! I really was born! I wasn't an alien who was dropped down into my adoptive parents' arms. I was a real baby who experienced a real birth from a real mother at a real time of day. For me, that tid-bit of information was like a meal to a starving woman.

More seriously-and this is probably why there has been a lot of garbage talked about a lost generation-it was easy to see, all over the landscape of contemporary fiction, the devastating effect of the Thatcher years. So many of these writers wrote without hope. They had lost all ambition, all desire to to wrestle with the world. Their books dealt with tiny patches of the world, tiny pieces of human experience-a council estate, a mother, a father, a lost job. Very few writers had the courage or even the energy to bite off a big chunk of the universe and chew it over. Very few showed any linguistic or formal innovation. Many were dulled and therefore dull. (And then, even worse, there were the Hooray Henries and Sloanes who evidently thought that the day of the yuppie novel, and the Bellini-drinking, okay-yah fiction had dawned. Dukedoms and country-house bulimics abounded. It was plain that too may books were being published; that too many writers had found their way into print without any justification for it at all; that too many publishers had adopted a kind of random, scattergun policy of publishing for turnover and just hoping that something would strike a cord. When the general picture is so disheartening, it is easy to miss the good stuff. I agreed to be a judge for "Best of Young British Novelists II" because I wanted to find out for myself if the good stuff really was there. In my view, it is...One of my old schoolmasters was fond of devising English versions of the epigrams of Martial. I remember only one, his version of Martial's message to a particularly backward-looking critic: "You only praise the good old days We young 'uns get no mention. I don't see why I have to die To gain your kind attention.

Filth, filth, filth, from morning to night. I know they're poor but they could wash. Water is free and soap is cheap. Just look at that arm, nurse.' The nurse looked and clucked in horror. Francie stood there with the hot flamepoints of shame burning her face. The doctor was a Harvard man, interning at the neighborhood hospital. Once a week, he was obliged to put in a few hours at one of the free clinics. He was going into a smart practice in Boston when his internship was over. Adopting the phraseology of the neighborhood, he referred to his Brooklyn internship as going through Purgatory, when he wrote to his socially prominent fiancee in Boston. The nurse was as Williamsburg girl... The child of poor Polish immigrants, she had been ambitious, worked days in a sweatshop and gone to school at night. Somehow she had gotten her training... She didn't want anyone to know she had come from the slums. After the doctor's outburst, Francie stood hanging her head. She was a dirty girl. That's what the doctor meant. He was talking more quietly now asking the nurse how that kind of people could survive; that it would be a better world if they were all sterilized and couldn't breed anymore. Did that mean he wanted her to die? Would he do something to make her die because her hands and arms were dirty from the mud pies? She looked at the nurse... She thought the nurse might say something like: Maybe this little girl's mother works and didn't have time to wash her good this morning,' or, 'You know how it is, Doctor, children will play in the dirt.' But what the nurse actuallly said was, 'I know, Isn't it terrible? I sympathize with you, Doctor. There is no excuse for these people living in filth.' A person who pulls himself up from a low environment via the bootstrap route has two choices. Having risen above his environment, he can forget it; or, he can rise above it and never forget it and keep compassion and understanding in his heart for those he has left behind him in the cruel upclimb. The nurse had chosen the forgetting way. Yet, as she stood there, she knew that years later she would be haunted by the sorrow in the face of that starveling child and that she would wish bitterly that she had said a comforting word then and done something towards the saving of her immortal soul. She had the knowledge that she was small but she lacked the courage to be otherwise. When the needle jabbed, Francie never felt it. The waves of hurt started by the doctor's words were racking her body and drove out all other feeling. While the nurse was expertly tying a strip of gauze around her arm and the doctor was putting his instrument in the sterilizer and taking out a fresh needle, Francie spoke up. My brother is next. His arm is just as dirty as mine so don't be suprised. And you don't have to tell him. You told me.' They stared at this bit of humanity who had become so strangely articulate. Francie's voice went ragged with a sob. 'You don't have to tell him. Besides it won't do no godd. He's a boy and he don't care if he is dirty.'... As the door closed, she heard the doctor's suprised voice. I had no idea she'd understand what I was saying.' She heard the nurse say, 'Oh, well,' on a sighing note.

She likes the word mother and all the complications it brings. She isn’t interested in true or birth or adoptive or whatever other series of mothers there are in the world. Gloria was her mother. Jazzlyn was too. They were like strangers on a porch, Gloria and Jazzlyn, with the evening sun going down: they just sat there together and neither could say what the other one knew, so they just kept quiet, and watched the day descend. One of them said good night, while the other waited.

As I approach the last stage of my life, I know one thing for certain. When my final moments on this earth come to pass, it won’t be what house I lived in, what car I drove, what job I had, or how much money I put in the bank that will be on my mind. None of that matters in the end. What matters is the lesson that God has taught all of us from the very beginning when He said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Because that is all that really matters. The people. The relationships. The love.

When the dogma of the Assumption was defined a friend of mine, a very intelligent Mohammedan, congratulated me on the gesture which the Holy Father had made; a gesture (said he) against materialism. And I think he was right. When our Lord took his blessed Mother, soul and body, into heaven, he did honour to the poor clay of which our human bodies are fashioned. It was the first step towards reconciling all things in heaven and earth to his eternal Father, towards making all things new. "The whole of nature", St Paul tells us, "groans in a common travail all the while. And not only do we see that, but we ourselves do the same; we ourselves although we have already begun to reap our spiritual harvest, groan in our hearts, waiting for that adoption which is the ransoming of our bodies from their slavery." That transformation of our material bodies to which we look forward one day has been accomplished—we know it now for certain-in her. When the Son of God came to earth, he came to turn our hearts away from earth, Godwards. And as the traveller, shading his eyes while he contemplates some long vista of scenery, searches about for a human figure that will give him the scale of those distant surroundings, so we, with dazzled eyes looking Godwards, identify and welcome one purely human figure close to his throne. One ship has rounded the headland, one destiny is achieved, one human perfection exists. And as we watch it, we see God clearer, see God greater, through this masterpiece of his dealings with mankind.

Just let me grab my thinking cap,” she told him, heading for her locker. The long floppy hat was required during midterms, designed to restrict Telepaths and preserve the integrity of the tests—not that anything could block Sophie’s enhanced abilities. But after the exams, the hats became present sacks, and everyone filled them with treats and trinkets and treasures. “I’ll need to inspect your presents before you open them,” Sandor warned as he helped Sophie lift her overstuffed hat. “That’s perfect,” Fitz said. “While he does that, you can open mine.” He pulled a small box from the pocket of his waist-length cape and handed it to Sophie. The opalescent wrapping paper had flecks of teal glitter dusted across it, and he’d tied it with a silky teal bow, making her wonder if he’d guessed her favorite color. She really hoped he couldn’t guess why. . . . “Hopefully I did better this year,” Fitz said. “Biana claimed the riddler was a total fail.” The riddle-writing pen he’d given her last time had been a disappointment, but . . . “I’m sure I’ll love it,” Sophie promised. “Besides. My gift is boring.” Sandor had declared an Atlantis shopping trip to be far too risky, so Sophie had spent the previous day baking her friends’ presents. She handed Fitz a round silver tin and he popped the lid off immediately. “Ripplefluffs?” he asked, smiling his first real smile in days. The silver-wrapped treats were what might happen if a brownie and a cupcake had a fudgey, buttery baby, with a candy surprise sunken into the center. Sophie’s adoptive mother, Edaline, had taught her the recipe

The sun woke at the dawn of the day. Nova woke up, brushing her hair quickly. She brushed her teeth, and then she hurried into the kitchen where her adoptive mother, Silvia, had waited for her. Silvia had adopted Nova when she was just a baby, left on the castle's front steps. It was from then on that Silvia raised her as her daughter.

The truth is that we never know from whom we originally get the ideas and beliefs that shape us, those that make a deep impression on us and which we adopt as a guide, those we retain without intending to and make our own. From a great-grandparent, a grandparent, a parent, not necessarily ours? From a distant teacher we never knew and who taught the one we did know? From a mother, from a nursemaid who looked after her as a child? From the ex-husband of our beloved, from a ġe-bryd-guma we never met? From a few books we never read and from an age through which we never lived? Yes, it's incredible how much people say, how much they discuss and recount and write down, this is a wearisome world of ceaseless transmission, and thus we are born with the work already far advanced but condemned to the knowledge that nothing is ever entirely finished, and thus we carry-like a faint booming in our heads-the exhausting accumulated voices of the countless centuries, believing naively that some of those thoughts and stories are new, never before heard or read, but how could that be, when ever since they acquired the gift of speech people have never stopped endlessly telling stories and, sooner or later, everything is told, the interesting and the trivial, the private and the public, the intimate and the superfluous, what should remain hidden and what will one day inevitably be broadcast, sorrows and joys and resentments, certainties and conjectures, the imagined and the factual, persuasions and suspicions, grievances and flattery and plans for revenge, great feats and humiliations, what fills us with pride and what shames us utterly, what appeared to be a secret and what begged to remain so, the normal and the unconfessable and the horrific and the obvious, the substantial-falling in love-and the insignificant-falling in love. Without even giving it a second thought, we go and we tell.

My wife's an incredible woman. She's loving and devoted and caring. And don't tell her I said this, but the woman's always right... I love my wife more than anything in this world. And I... it kills me that I can't give her a baby... I really want a kid. And when that day finally comes, I'll learn how to be a good dad. But my wife... she's already there. She's a mother... without a baby...

Over the past several months, Amelía’s Google history had become a reference of her despair: “can’t have children, reasons for infertility in women, reasons for infertility in men, discussing infertility with husband, price of surrogate mothers, signs of depression, adoption agencies, infertility support groups…” The endless searches only provided two categories of results: medical sites that took pride in listing every worst-case scenario, and blogs written by white women with phrases like “silent suffering” and “living with uncertainty,” mixing in Bible verses about God’s Grace, none of which filled the void or helped Aimee ignore the fact that Mother’s Day was a month away and she would have to watch her family celebrate the one thing she wanted most and might never have.

I liked her. It was improbable that we’d ever be friends, in the broader definition of the word, but I would have liked to have known my daughter’s mother. If friends were an option, I would have explained the reasons I had to give her up and then maybe she’d tell me why she couldn’t have kids, why they didn’t adopt more children, and what it was like the day they brought Michelle home. “I’ll

I began for the first time to really understand the loss my adoptive mother must have felt from not having her own child. I was terribly sad for her and realized that she had missed out greatly - we both had - and there was nothing I could do to change that. I could never be her natural daughter and I could never make her feel better about that loss. Guilt is a strange waste of time in the cold light of day.

Perhaps it’s time you stopped sulking over an engagement three years broken and bore yourself like a man!” The duke’s voice snaps like a whip. “Zeus and Hera, how did I beget such an unruly son?” “If you’ve forgotten, perhaps you could summon up the dead and ask my lady mother.” The duke barks a laugh. “You got that tongue from her, that’s for certain. But she was obedient to me for all her carping.” “Obedient?” says Lord Anax. The desk creaks and shifts; I think he is leaning against it. “We must remember her very differently.” “Always when it counted, my boy, which is more than can be said of you. I wanted that girl for my daughter, you know.” “Adopt her, then. I believe it’s legal.” “First I’d have to kill her parents,” says the duke, “and I am given to understand that’s frowned upon these days.” “It’s gone the same sad way as the right of a father to execute his sons.

I had brought my schoolbooks along with me and I’d fully intended to start my weekend homework, but I couldn’t concentrate. All I could think about was Emily and how she’d been adopted. Emily was lucky. Sure, she was having a few problems, but every day, her mother and father told her about her adoption, even though she was too little to understand. I knew this because Kristy had told me. Every day, Watson or Mrs. Brewer would say to Emily that she wasn’t just adopted, she was chosen. And she was very, very special. I wished Mom and Dad had told me that so I wouldn’t have had to find out on my own when I was 13 and completely shocked by the news.

Good night, Grandma!” I called as I was skipping out of the kitchen with Adria on my heels. Grandma, who was at the sink rinsing dishes to stack in the dishwasher, stopped and looked at us. She had a funny expression on her face, which made Adria and me pause in the doorway and look back at her, waiting. Grandma wiped her hands on a dishtowel and said, “Simone, Adria, come here.” There was something different in her tone. I didn’t know what to expect “You know, girls,” she said as we stood in front of her, “we adopted you both today. So I’m your mother now, and he”—she pointed at my grandpa, who was wiping the table mats—“he’s your father.” Grandpa paused what he was doing, stood up straight, and smiled. I just glanced from one to the other, my eyes big and round. What had happened in court that day suddenly became clear. “Does that mean I can call you Mom and Dad?” I asked. “It’s up to you,” my grandma said, one hand cupping my cheek, the other one smoothing Adria’s hair. “Call us whatever you want to. Now go to bed.” The two of us scampered upstairs without another word. But when Adria went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, I stood in the middle of our bedroom, my hands pressed against my temples. I was hopping from one foot to the other and jumping up and down, so much excitement was flowing through me. Mom. Dad. Mom. Dad. I kept whispering the words, getting used to the sound of them. Finally, feeling as if I would burst, I ran back downstairs to the kitchen. “Mom?” I said, standing in the doorway. She looked across at me, her lips twitching like she was trying not to smile. “Yes, Simone?” I turned to where Grandpa was putting away the table mats. “Dad?” “What is it, Simone?” “Nothing!” I said, squealing and bouncing up and down gleefully. I had done it—I’d called them Mom and Dad! I turned without another word and raced back up the stairs. In my room, I flopped backward onto my bed and let out a happy sigh. Adria and I were finally and forever home.

After that came more injections, pills, low-quality eggs, toilets and screens with naked women on them and the pressure to fill the plastic cup, baptisms they didn’t attend, the question “So when’s the first child coming along?” repeated ad nauseum, operating rooms he wasn’t allowed to enter so that he could hold her hand and she wouldn’t feel so alone, more debt, other people’s babies, the babies of those who could, fluid retention, mood swings, conversations about the possibility of adopting, phone calls to the bank, children’s birthday parties they wanted to escape, more hormones, chronic fatigue and more unfertilized eggs, tears, hurtful words, Mother’s Days in silence, the hope for an embryo, the list of possible names, Leonardo if it was a boy, Aria if it was a girl, pregnancy tests thrown helplessly into the trash can, fights, the search for an egg donor, questions about genetic identity, letters from the bank, the waiting, the fears, the acceptance that maternity isn’t a question of chromosomes, the mortgage, the pregnancy, the birth, the euphoria, the happiness, the death.

Miserable beings, who, during their ragged infancy, ran barefoot in the mud of the crossings; shivering in winter near the quays, or seeking to warm themselves from the kitchens of M. Véfour, where you happen to be dining; scratching out, here and there, a crust of bread from the heaps of filth, and wiping it before eating; scraping in the gutter all day, with a rusty nail, in the hopes of finding a farthing; having no other amusement than the gratuitous sight of the king’s fête, and the executions — that other gratuitous sight: poor devils! whom hunger forces to theft, and theft to all the rest; children disinherited by their step-mother, the world; who are adopted by the house of correction, in their twelfth year, by the galleys at eighteen, and by the guillotine at forty! Unfortunate beings, whom, by means of a school and a workshop, you might have rendered good, moral, useful; and with whom you now know not what to do; flinging them away like a useless burthen, sometimes into the red antheaps of Toulon, sometimes into the silent cemetery of Clamart; cutting off life after taking away liberty.

As I became older, I was given many masks to wear. I could be a laborer laying railroad tracks across the continent, with long hair in a queue to be pulled by pranksters; a gardener trimming the shrubs while secretly planting a bomb; a saboteur before the day of infamy at Pearl Harbor, signaling the Imperial Fleet; a kamikaze pilot donning his headband somberly, screaming 'Banzai' on my way to my death; a peasant with a broad-brimmed straw hat in a rice paddy on the other side of the world, stooped over to toil in the water; an obedient servant in the parlor, a houseboy too dignified for my own good; a washerman in the basement laundry, removing stains using an ancient secret; a tyrant intent on imposing my despotism on the democratic world, opposed by the free and the brave; a party cadre alongside many others, all of us clad in coordinated Mao jackets; a sniper camouflaged in the trees of the jungle, training my gunsights on G.I. Joe; a child running with a body burning from napalm, captured in an unforgettable photo; an enemy shot in the head or slaughtered by the villageful; one of the grooms in a mass wedding of couples, having met my mate the day before through our cult leader; an orphan in the last airlift out of a collapsed capital, ready to be adopted into the good life; a black belt martial artist breaking cinderblocks with his head, in an advertisement for Ginsu brand knives with the slogan 'but wait--there's more' as the commercial segued to show another free gift; a chef serving up dog stew, a trick on the unsuspecting diner; a bad driver swerving into the next lane, exactly as could be expected; a horny exchange student here for a year, eager to date the blonde cheerleader; a tourist visiting, clicking away with his camera, posing my family in front of the monuments and statues; a ping pong champion, wearing white tube socks pulled up too high and batting the ball with a wicked spin; a violin prodigy impressing the audience at Carnegie Hall, before taking a polite bow; a teen computer scientist, ready to make millions on an initial public offering before the company stock crashes; a gangster in sunglasses and a tight suit, embroiled in a turf war with the Sicilian mob; an urban greengrocer selling lunch by the pound, rudely returning change over the counter to the black patrons; a businessman with a briefcase of cash bribing a congressman, a corrupting influence on the electoral process; a salaryman on my way to work, crammed into the commuter train and loyal to the company; a shady doctor, trained in a foreign tradition with anatomical diagrams of the human body mapping the flow of life energy through a multitude of colored points; a calculus graduate student with thick glasses and a bad haircut, serving as a teaching assistant with an incomprehensible accent, scribbling on the chalkboard; an automobile enthusiast who customizes an imported car with a supercharged engine and Japanese decals in the rear window, cruising the boulevard looking for a drag race; a illegal alien crowded into the cargo hold of a smuggler's ship, defying death only to crowd into a New York City tenement and work as a slave in a sweatshop. My mother and my girl cousins were Madame Butterfly from the mail order bride catalog, dying in their service to the masculinity of the West, and the dragon lady in a kimono, taking vengeance for her sisters. They became the television newscaster, look-alikes with their flawlessly permed hair. Through these indelible images, I grew up. But when I looked in the mirror, I could not believe my own reflection because it was not like what I saw around me. Over the years, the world opened up. It has become a dizzying kaleidoscope of cultural fragments, arranged and rearranged without plan or order.

The kid in the newspaper was named Stevie, and he was eight. I was thirty-nine and lived by myself in a house that I owned. For a short time our local newspaper featured an orphan every week. Later they would transition to adoptable pets, but for a while it was orphans, children your could foster and possibly adopt of everything worked out, the profiles were short, maybe two or three hundred words. This was what I knew: Stevie liked going to school. He made friends easily. He promised he would make his bed every morning. He hoped that if he were very good we could have his own dog, and if he were very, very good, his younger brother could be adopted with him. Stevie was Black. I knew nothing else. The picture of him was a little bigger than a postage stamp. He smiled. I studied his face at my breakfast table until something in me snapped. I paced around my house, carrying the folded newspaper. I had two bedrooms. I had a dog. I had so much more than plenty. In return he would make his bed, try his best in school. That was all he had to bargain with: himself. By the time Karl came for dinner after work I was nearly out of my mind. “I want to adopt him,” I said. Karl read the profile. He looked at the picture. “You want to be his mother?” “It’s not about being his mother. I mean, sure, if I’m his mother that’s fine, but it’s like seeing a kid waving from the window of a burning house, saying he’ll make his bed if someone will come and get him out. I can’t leave him there.” “We can do this,” Karl said. We can do this. I started to calm myself because Karl was calm. He was good at making things happen. I didn’t have to want children in order to want Stevie. In the morning I called the number in the newspaper. They took down my name and address. They told me they would send the preliminary paperwork. After the paperwork was reviewed, there would be a series of interviews and home visits. “When do I meet Stevie?” I asked. “Stevie?” “The boy in the newspaper.” I had already told her the reason I was calling. “Oh, it’s not like that,” the woman said. “It’s a very long process. We put you together with the child who will be your best match.” “So where’s Stevie?” She said she wasn’t sure. She thought that maybe someone had adopted him. It was a bait and switch, a well-written story: the bed, the dog, the brother. They knew how to bang on the floor to bring people like me out of the woodwork, people who said they would never come. I wrapped up the conversation. I didn’t want a child, I wanted Stevie. It all came down to a single flooding moment of clarity: he wouldn’t live with me, but I could now imagine that he was in a solid house with people who loved him. I put him in the safest chamber of my heart, he and his twin brother in twin beds, the dog asleep in Stevie’s arms. And there they stayed, going with me everywhere until I finally wrote a novel about them called Run. Not because I thought it would find them, but because they had become too much for me to carry. I had to write about them so that I could put them down.

Dear Spider web, Why won’t you let me go? I will not accept your silky web as my resting place. Your web might be soft, but there is nothing comfortable about you. You have my mind entangled with doubts. You have me feeling helpless as you tie down my hands and feet. Let me go! I am not your prey! Spider web, you captured me, and then you abandoned me in your web. You are just like my mother; she left Kace and me in her old and damaged cobweb. She selfishly left us to figure out life. Furthermore, just like you, she will not let us go. You covered me in your web to the point you made me invisible and empty inside. Partly because of you, people used a broom to swat me here and there because they see the webs all over me. They look at me as a nobody, an invasion, a pest, or a rodent who is trying to destroy their home. You confuse me because I know that I am not damaged and used, but there are many days I feel like I am no good for myself or anyone. Your web has cluttered my mind; I am disturbed mentally because I have never felt complete or good enough. I’ve been fighting so long to get out of your web—I am tired. However, I have come this far, and I am going to hold on a little while longer. When I hold on to your thin web tightly, something or someone uses the sharpest knife to cut it down. While it is swinging left and right, I try to jump and break free, but you catch me and wrap me back in your web again. I’ve been fighting for so long, and I will continue to fight because you cannot keep me here forever. I am creating thicker skin.

A story best told at speed. After finals, more exams, then the call to the bar, pupillage, a lucky invitation to prestigious chambers, some early success defending hopeless cases—how sensible it had seemed, to delay a child until her early thirties. And when those years came, they brought complex worthwhile cases, more success. Jack was also hesitant, arguing for holding back another year or two. Mid-thirties then, when he was teaching in Pittsburgh and she worked a fourteen-hour day, drifting deeper into family law as the idea of her own family receded, despite the visits of nephews and nieces. In the following years, the first rumors that she might be elected precociously to the bench and required to be on circuit. But the call didn’t come, not yet. And in her forties, there sprang up anxieties about elderly gravids and autism. Soon after, more young visitors to Gray’s Inn Square, noisy demanding great-nephews, great-nieces, reminded her how hard it would be to squeeze an infant into her kind of life. Then rueful thoughts of adoption, some tentative inquiries—and throughout the accelerating years that followed, occasional agonies of doubt, firm late-night decisions concerning surrogate mothers undone in the early-morning rush to work. And when at last, at nine thirty one morning at the Royal Courts of Justice, she was sworn in by the Lord Chief Justice and took her oath of allegiance and her Judicial Oath before two hundred of her bewigged colleagues, and she stood proudly before them in her robes, the subject of a witty speech, she knew the game was up; she belonged to the law as some women had once been brides of Christ.

One of the most astonishing and precious things about motherhood," writes Kathleen Norris, "is the brave way in which women consent to give birth to creatures who will one day die." I am not so brave. Far more frightening to me than the threat of interrupted plans or endless to-do lists is the thread of loving someone as intensely as a mother loves her child. To invite in to the universe a new life, knowing full well that no one can protect thatl ife from the currents of evil that pulse through our world and through our very bloodstreams, seems a grave and awesome task that is at once unspeakably selfish and miraculously good. I am frightened enough by how fervently I love Dan, by my absolute revolt against the possibility -- no, the inevitable reality -- that he will get hurt, that he will experience loss, and that one day he will die. I'm not sure my heart is big enough to wrap itself around another breakable soul. I was once waiting in an airport next to a woman whose six-year-old daughter suffered from a rare heart defect that could take her life at any moment. In spite of mounting medical bills and the pressures of raising both a child with special needs and another younger daughter, the woman said she and her husband planned to adopt a boy from Ethiopia later that year. "What made you want to grow your family in the midst of all this turmoil?" I asked. "Why did the Jews have children after the Holocaust?" she asked back. "Why do women keep trying after multiple miscarraiges? It's our way of shaking our fists at the future and saying, you know what?--we will be hopeful; things will get better; you can't scare us after all. Having children is, ultimately, an act of faith.

Do you ever find yourself reminiscing about the girl you used to be? I used to do it all the time, and depending on my mood – I’d either smile or cringe. I went through phases where, on the outside, I was the ‘everything’s gonna be okay’ type of girl. I comforted my friends and family. I was intelligent, confident, and strong, but in private, I hated myself. You see, I was adopted into what many consider the perfect family, and while I can say that I was raised in a loving home, there still wasn't enough love in the world that could’ve convinced me that I was enough. There wasn’t enough love in the world to make me believe I was loveable. Although my adoptive parents gave me all of their love, there wasn’t enough love in the world that could make me stop craving the love of my birth mother. It's taken me a very long time to accept myself. It’s taken years to win the war between who I am versus the crippling insecurities that made me hate myself. I’d love to be the perfect woman without flaws or insecurities, but this isn’t Barbie’s Dreamhouse. So, I apologize in advance for my inconsistency, at times. I apologize in advance for my mood swings. I apologize in advance for my immaturity. I apologize for my stupidity. I apologize for my moments of low self-esteem. I apologize for my lingering self-doubt. And I apologize for believing that I wasn’t good enough. I’m still a work in progress, and one day, I’ll even be confident enough to stop apologizing, but in the meantime, please bear with me. Growth doesn’t always happen in a straight line, nor does it happen overnight, so I thank you in advance for this difficult journey that we're about to embark on together, and I hope you can grow to love me as I’ve finally grown to love myself.

People are so soon gone; let us catch them. That man there, by the cabinet; he lives, you say, surrounded by china pots. Break one and you shatter a thousand pounds. And he loved a girl in Rome and she left him. Hence the pots, old junk found in lodging-houses or dug from the desert sands. And since beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful, and he is static, his life stagnates in a china sea. It is strange though; for once, as a young man, he sat on damp ground and drank rum with soldiers. One must be quick and add facts deftly, like toys to a tree, fixing them with a twist of the fingers. He stoops, how he stoops, even over an azalea. He stoops over the old woman even, because she wears diamonds in her ears, and, bundling about her estate in a pony carriage, directs who is to be helped, what tree felled, and who turned out tomorrow. (I have lived my life, I must tell you, all these years, and I am now past thirty, perilously, like a mountain goat, leaping from crag to crag; I do not settle long anywhere; I do not attach myself to one person in particular; but you will find that if I raise my arm, some figure at once breaks off and will come.) And that man is a judge; and that man is a millionaire, and that man, with the eyeglass, shot his governess “through the heart with an arrow when he was ten years old. Afterwards he rode through deserts with despatches, took part in revolutions and now collects materials for a history of his mother’s family, long settled in Norfolk. That little man with a blue chin has a right hand that is withered. But why? We do not know. That woman, you whisper discreetly, with the pearl pagodas hanging from her ears, was the pure flame who lit the life of one of our statesmen; now since his death she sees ghosts, tells fortunes, and has adopted a coffee-coloured youth whom she calls the Messiah.* That man with the drooping moustache, like a cavalry officer, lived a life of the utmost debauchery (it is all in some memoir) until one day he met a stranger in a train who converted him between Edinburgh and Carlisle by reading the Bible. Thus, in a few seconds, deftly, adroitly, we decipher the hieroglyphs written on other people’s faces. Here, in this room, are the abraded and battered shells cast on the shore.

On quitting Bretton, which I did a few weeks after Paulina’s departure—little thinking then I was never again to visit it; never more to tread its calm old streets—I betook myself home, having been absent six months. It will be conjectured that I was of course glad to return to the bosom of my kindred. Well! the amiable conjecture does no harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from saying nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the next eight years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a harbour still as glass—the steersman stretched on the little deck, his face up to heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long prayer. A great many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something in that fashion; why not I with the rest? Picture me then idle, basking, plump, and happy, stretched on a cushioned deck, warmed with constant sunshine, rocked by breezes indolently soft. However, it cannot be concealed that, in that case, I must somehow have fallen overboard, or that there must have been wreck at last. I too well remember a time—a long time—of cold, of danger, of contention. To this hour, when I have the nightmare, it repeats the rush and saltness of briny waves in my throat, and their icy pressure on my lungs. I even know there was a storm, and that not of one hour nor one day. For many days and nights neither sun nor stars appeared; we cast with our own hands the tackling out of the ship; a heavy tempest lay on us; all hope that we should be saved was taken away. In fine, the ship was lost, the crew perished. As far as I recollect, I complained to no one about these troubles. Indeed, to whom could I complain? Of Mrs. Bretton I had long lost sight. Impediments, raised by others, had, years ago, come in the way of our intercourse, and cut it off. Besides, time had brought changes for her, too: the handsome property of which she was left guardian for her son, and which had been chiefly invested in some joint-stock undertaking, had melted, it was said, to a fraction of its original amount. Graham, I learned from incidental rumours, had adopted a profession; both he and his mother were gone from Bretton, and were understood to be now in London. Thus, there remained no possibility of dependence on others; to myself alone could I look. I know not that I was of a self-reliant or active nature; but self-reliance and exertion were forced upon me by circumstances, as they are upon thousands besides; and when Miss Marchmont, a maiden lady of our neighbourhood, sent for me, I obeyed her behest, in the hope that she might assign me some task I could undertake.

In Separation, the second volume of his great trilogy on attachment, John Bowlby described what had been observed when ten small children in residential nurseries were reunited with their mothers after separations lasting from twelve days to twenty-one weeks. The separations were in every case due to family emergencies and the absence of other caregivers, and in no case due to any intent on the parents’ part to abandon the child. In the first few days following the mother's departure the children were anxious, looking everywhere for the missing parent. That phase was followed by apparent resignation, even depression on the part of the child, to be replaced by what seemed like the return of normalcy. The children would begin to play, react to caregivers, accept food and other nurturing. The true emotional cost of the trauma of loss became evident only when the mothers returned. On meeting the mother for the first time after the days or weeks away, every one of the ten children showed significant alienation. Two seemed not to recognize their mothers. The other eight turned away or even walked away from her. Most of them either cried or came close to tears; a number alternated between a tearful and an expressionless face. The withdrawal dynamic has been called “detachment” by John Bowlby. Such detachment has a defensive purpose. It has one meaning: so hurtful was it for me to experience your absence that to avoid such pain again, I will encase myself in a shell of hardened emotion, impervious to love — and therefore to pain. I never want to feel that hurt again. Bowlby also pointed out that the parent may be physically present but emotionally absent owing to stress, anxiety, depression, or preoccupation with other matters. From the point of view of the child, it hardly matters. His encoded reactions will be the same, because for him the real issue is not merely the parent's physical presence but her or his emotional accessibility. A child who suffers much insecurity in his relationship with his parents will adopt the invulnerability of defensive detachment as his primary way of being. When parents are the child's working attachment, their love and sense of responsibility will usually ensure that they do not force the child into adopting such desperate measures. Peers have no such awareness, no such compunctions, and no such responsibility. The threat of abandonment is ever present in peer-oriented interactions, and it is with emotional detachment that children automatically respond. No wonder, then, that cool is the governing ethic in peer culture, the ultimate virtue. Although the word cool has many meanings, it predominately connotes an air of invulnerability. Where peer orientation is intense, there is no sign of vulnerability in the talk, in the walk, in the dress, or in the attitudes.

American DEWAR FAMILY Cameron Dewar Ursula “Beep” Dewar, his sister Woody Dewar, his father Bella Dewar, his mother PESHKOV-JAKES FAMILY George Jakes Jacky Jakes, his mother Greg Peshkov, his father Lev Peshkov, his grandfather Marga, his grandmother MARQUAND FAMILY Verena Marquand Percy Marquand, her father Babe Lee, her mother CIA Florence Geary Tony Savino Tim Tedder, semiretired Keith Dorset OTHERS Maria Summers Joseph Hugo, FBI Larry Mawhinney, Pentagon Nelly Fordham, old flame of Greg Peshkov Dennis Wilson, aide to Bobby Kennedy Skip Dickerson, aide to Lyndon Johnson Leopold “Lee” Montgomery, reporter Herb Gould, television journalist on This Day Suzy Cannon, gossip reporter Frank Lindeman, television network owner REAL HISTORICAL CHARACTERS John F. Kennedy, thirty-fifth U.S. president Jackie, his wife Bobby Kennedy, his brother Dave Powers, assistant to President Kennedy Pierre Salinger, President Kennedy’s press officer Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Lyndon B. Johnson, thirty-sixth U.S. president Richard Nixon, thirty-seventh U.S. president Jimmy Carter, thirty-ninth U.S. president Ronald Reagan, fortieth U.S. president George H. W. Bush, forty-first U.S. president British LECKWITH-WILLIAMS FAMILY Dave Williams Evie Williams, his sister Daisy Williams, his mother Lloyd Williams, M.P., his father Eth Leckwith, Dave’s grandmother MURRAY FAMILY Jasper Murray Anna Murray, his sister Eva Murray, his mother MUSICIANS IN THE GUARDSMEN AND PLUM NELLIE Lenny, Dave Williams’s cousin Lew, drummer Buzz, bass player Geoffrey, lead guitarist OTHERS Earl Fitzherbert, called Fitz Sam Cakebread, friend of Jasper Murray Byron Chesterfield (real name Brian Chesnowitz), music agent Hank Remington (real name Harry Riley), pop star Eric Chapman, record company executive German FRANCK FAMILY Rebecca Hoffmann Carla Franck, Rebecca’s adoptive mother Werner Franck, Rebecca’s adoptive father Walli Franck, son of Carla Lili Franck, daughter of Werner and Carla Maud von Ulrich, née Fitzherbert, Carla’s mother Hans Hoffmann, Rebecca’s husband OTHERS Bernd Held, schoolteacher Karolin Koontz, folksinger Odo Vossler, clergyman REAL HISTORICAL PEOPLE Walter Ulbricht, first secretary of the Socialist Unity Party (Communist) Erich Honecker, Ulbricht’s successor Egon Krenz, successor to Honecker Polish Stanislaw “Staz” Pawlak, army officer Lidka, girlfriend of Cam Dewar Danuta Gorski, Solidarity activist REAL HISTORICAL PEOPLE Anna Walentynowicz, crane driver Lech Wałesa, leader of the trade union Solidarity General Jaruzelski, prime minister Russian DVORKIN-PESHKOV FAMILY Tanya Dvorkin, journalist Dimka Dvorkin, Kremlin aide, Tanya’s twin brother Anya Dvorkin, their mother Grigori Peshkov, their grandfather Katerina Peshkov, their grandmother Vladimir, always called Volodya, their uncle Zoya, Volodya’s wife Nina, Dimka’s girlfriend OTHERS Daniil Antonov, features editor at TASS Pyotr Opotkin, features editor in chief Vasili Yenkov, dissident Natalya Smotrov, official in the Foreign Ministry

We make decisions in our lives, sometimes foolish ones, sometimes damaging ones, but we always make those decisions with good intentions. We don’t set out to hurt people. We don’t set out to cause ripples in a stream that become tsunamis of destruction. We take children to doctors for medical needs but frequently don’t take our children for psychological help—or we do and then are blamed later in life for that decision, too. Life is nothing but choices and every choice ripples out and touches and transforms, for better or worse, everyone else in our lives.

But I can’t and won’t judge her. People aren’t perfect. Imperfect people can do terrible, horrible things to each other and yet still be worth loving and forgiving.

The only Hitler of Germany was one who adopted the way of atrocities and cruelties for a limited period; he was evil-minded, whereas every leader of Israel was and is characteristically similar to Hitler for several decades of victimising; despite that, they are not evil characters. The Western states eliminated Hitler, but those countries supported and perpetuated the leaders of Israel, and still, they remain on such distinctive policies; it is the worst hypocrisy in human history. Virtually, it will be a self-suicidal move of the Muslim world, especially the Arab States, as religiously, politically, morally, and principally, to recognize Israel, ignoring the Palestinians, in the presence of the United Nations resolutions. Indeed, Israel exists; however, it is an unreal reality as the concept and context of the real validity of Palestinians. Factually, recognition of Israel by the Muslim States and Arab dictators means a license of hegemony, allowing Israel to dominate the Muslim world. The Muslims of the world absolutely will never agree with it and dismiss such a move of Arab dictators. The tiny democracy of the world, Israel seems as an authority upon the United Nations since it does what it wants. Israel is not afraid nor frightened; its state is just the warmonger and the hate-sponsor within humanity. Israel is the creation of the West, supported by the West, and licensed to kill by the West; the Muslim rulers expect a fruitful solution from them; I realize it is an endless stupidity. Spirit of Palestine *** If you do not understand The international law that You constituted yourself If you do not obey and respect Your laws and resolutions We have the right to defend our land By our way, by all means, Whether you call it terrorism Or something else For us, It is the fight for freedom You cannot accept the truth We cannot accept the lies Truth always prevails We will never surrender Nor yield to the evil And genocide forces We are the spirit of Palestine Long live Palestine, Long live Palestine At every cost. Palestine Never Disappears *** They stole Palestine Our land and then our homes They threw us out At gunpoint For our determination And rights We throw the stones They trigger bullets The champions of human rights Watch that, Clapping and cheering As like it is a football match And the football referee is Israel However, Palestine will never disappear Never; never; never We will fight without fear Until we recover and have that Palestine is Crying *** Under the flames of the guns Palestine is crying The Arab world is cowardly silent, West and the rest of the world, Deliberately ignoring justice Even also they are criminally denying Whereas Palestinians are dying If there are no weapons: There will be neither terrible wars Nor criminal deaths, nor tensions Manufacture oxygen of life expectations It is a beautiful destination For all destinations I wish I could fragrance peace and love In the minds and hearts of two Generations of two real brothers. Day Of Mourning, Not Mother’s Day *** A lot of Mothers of Palestine are crying And burying their children, who became The victim of Israel’s cruelty Those mothers have no children To celebrate their Mother’s Day It is a Day of Mourning for those mothers Not Mother’s Day Oh, Palestine, cry, cry, not on Israel But on Muslims who are dead sleeping. Ahed Tamimi Of Palestine The Voice Of Freedom *** You can trigger bullets Upon those, Who stay determined You can shoot Or place under house arrest Hundreds of thousands As such Ahed Tamimi However, You cannot stop The voices, for the freedom And Self-determination You will hear In every second, minute Every hour, every day Until you understand And realize, Voices of the human rights

Suraj solar and allied industries, Wework galaxy, 43, Residency Road, Bangalore-560025. Mobile number : +91 808 850 7979 Introduction to Solar Rooftop in Bangalore Solar rooftop systems have emerged as a game-changing innovation in Bangalore's energy consumption, providing a green and sustainable alternative to conventional sources of power. Solar rooftops are gaining a lot of traction among residential, commercial, and industrial users in the city as it deals with rising energy demands and environmental concerns. This article examines the advantages, drawbacks, government initiatives, case studies, and prospects for the future of solar rooftops, which have had a profound effect on Bangalore's energy landscape. 1. Introduction to Bangalore's Solar Rooftops An Overview of Bangalore's Solar Rooftop Systems Ah, Bangalore! Home to tech whiz kids, filter coffee connoisseurs, and now the progressive pioneers who are embracing solar rooftops! The eco-friendly Batman of the energy industry, solar rooftop systems are perched atop buildings and convert sunlight into clean, renewable power. Installed on rooftops, these systems use solar panels to generate electricity, assisting in the reduction of reliance on conventional grid power. 2. Economic Benefits of Solar Rooftops for Energy Consumption Who doesn't love saving money while protecting the environment? The economic benefits of solar rooftops in Bangalore are significant. By producing your own power, you can slice those heavy energy bills and even bring in an additional money by selling overabundance influence back to the matrix. It's like having a solar side business on your roof! Impact on the Environment Let's be honest: Bangalore's air quality could use a break. When it comes to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollution, solar rooftops emerge as the cloaked crusaders. You are reducing your carbon footprint and contributing to a cleaner and greener Bangalore by using solar power. When the sun shines on your rooftop panels, it's like giving Mother Nature a high five. 3. Impact of Solar Rooftop in Bangalore Energy Landscape Reduction of Carbon Footprint Bangalore, with its vibrant culture and bustling IT hubs, can also be a hotbed for emissions. Sun powered roofs go about as the eco-heroes, checking carbon impressions and advancing manageability. The city has the potential to make a significant leap toward a more healthy environment and a brighter future for future generations by utilizing solar energy. Integration with Existing Energy Infrastructure The beauty of solar rooftops in Bangalore is that they seamlessly combine solar power with traditional grid energy. These frameworks can undoubtedly incorporate with the current energy foundation, making a more strong and dependable energy organization. It's like combining the best of both worlds to guarantee the city's bustling energy supply's stability and sustainability. 4. Adopting Solar Rooftops: Obstacles and Solutions Initial Cost and Return on Investment We understand that the initial cost of installing solar rooftops may appear to be the bad guy in this sustainability tale. However, rest assured! The return on investment for solar rooftops in Bangalore is brighter than a sunny day thanks to government subsidies, tax incentives, and lower panel prices. Consider it a long-term investment in the environment and your savings. Technical Considerations and Maintenance Although the process of maintaining solar rooftops may appear intimidating, it is not rocket science—rather, it is solar science! To keep your solar panels in top condition, all you need to do is clean them on a regular basis, keep an eye on how well the system is working, and do occasional maintenance checks. Navigating the technical aspects of solar rooftops has never been easier thanks to technological advancements and the assistance of local experts.

Tell me, why did it matter to you who won? I mean, even if you’d won, you still could have released me from the bargain. You could have said I didn’t have to spend those two days with you.” “I could have,” he acknowledged. “But after…after you told me about your father, I wanted you to have his horse back. Rava should have had more respect for his memory. She shouldn’t have taken him--them--away.” Tears stung my eyes, and I swallowed several times to loosen my throat. What a stupid reaction. “Thank you,” I murmured, and I felt his hand close around mine, giving it a squeeze. I sighed contentedly, letting myself enjoy the moment. “What was your father like?” “I don’t know,” he said offhandedly. “What do you mean, you don’t know?” As usual, my typical phrasing was somewhat coarse, driven by my curiosity, and I caught myself, adopting a more considerate tone. “Did he die when you were young?” “No, he’s still alive.” I turned my head to gape at him, greatly confused. “He left you?” “No.” “Then what?” I sat up again, close to exasperation; he just looked at me, bemused, my hand still in his. “Father’s don’t raise their children in Cokyri. They aren’t trusted with such an important responsibility. I never knew mine.” This was not an answer I could have foreseen, and I shifted uneasily, trying to figure out how to proceed. “I’m sorry,” I said lamely. He was quiet at first, his eyes fixed on the darkened sky as he pondered our different experiences. “I never felt sorry about it. My mother was a good woman--she and her maidens took care of me. But like I told you before, I had to work harder than you can imagine to achieve my military rank, and only because I’m a man. I can do everything Rava can do. I always could, but no one would see it, not even her. A struggle like that makes you question things.” “So now you wish you’d known your father?” Again, he reflected. “No. I wish I’d known yours.” I looked away, once more fighting tears. I didn’t understand how he could affect me so deeply. “I’m not sure my father would have been to your liking,” I finally said, meeting his eyes. “I found him brave for his willingness to fight, even when there was no more hope. You would probably have found him weak.” He sat up and gazed earnestly at me. “There is a way to accomplish things, but it’s rarely to declare a war, private or otherwise.” “Sometimes the war is not of your making,” I retorted. “You must fight, otherwise you’re a lamb. And lambs are slaughtered, Saadi.” His brows drew together, and we stared at each other for much longer than we should have, and I knew I had rattled him. Then he shook his head. “See those lights up there? They’re called stars.” I laughed. “I can take a hint. We should go back.” We caught and saddled our mounts, then took our time returning to the city, neither of us really wanting the day to end.

One of the most important resiliencies for adoptive parents of toddlers is nurturing their own sense of humor and playfulness. Laughter is medicine for the soul; it serves a restorative function; it helps people keep their perspective; and it even enhances attachment. One of my most prized possessions is a poem my daughter wrote for Mother’s Day when she was 11. In her poem, titled, “Why I Love My Mother,” she describes me as having “laughing eyes filled with love.” I can’t think of a better compliment.

The stages birth parents go through are very real and need to be understood. Many adoptive parents who make plans for some open contact through letters, etc., are gravely disappointed and feel betrayed when the birth mother does not write back. It may be that it is too painful for the birth mother at that particular time and that, like Susan, she can’t always respond on schedule. The initial period of grieving lasts roughly five to seven years. Remember that for the birth parents there are no rites of passage and no ceremonies that include one’s friends and family, that gather around them in the grieving process. For the most part their grieving is done alone. And this is true in open, semi-open, and closed adoptions. The best thing adoptive parents who hope for contact can do is to keep the lines of communication open. Adoptive parents are wise to continue sending letters and pictures, even if there is no response at the moment. Many birth parents spend the early period, after the surrender, as do people who have other kinds of posttraumatic stress. There is a period of emotional moratorium, and often there is no interest in opening up the intense pain of the initial loss, even in the planned open adoptions that are being done more frequently these days. In some instances, the adoptive parents understand the need for connections and are trying to make the relationship more open while the birth parents are holding back. This can be frustrating if adoptive parents do not know that this period of separation is a normal part of healing rites for many birth parents.

January 24: Stella Yusko writes to Arthur Miller asking if he and Marilyn might be interested in adopting a “healthy and beautiful baby, and the mother feels that you people would really make a good happy home for her, which she cannot do because of her other problems.

March 3: Associated Press columnist Bob Thomas reports Joan Crawford’s comments on Monroe’s appearance at a Photoplay awards dinner: “It was like a burlesque show. Someone should make her see the light; she should be told that the public likes provocative personalities but it also likes to know that underneath it all the actresses are ladies.” Marilyn replies via Louella Parsons’s column in the Herald Examiner: “What hurts me more is what Miss Crawford said, is that I have always admired her to be such a wonderful mother—to have adopted 4 children and have given them a family. I’m well-placed to know what it means not to have a house when you’re a child.

A Sun Herd patrol had found Lightfeather hiding in a tree a few days later. A bear had killed and eaten her mother, so she was alone. They’d brought her to Sun Herd’s territory, where Silvercloud took pity on her and adopted her. When the filly grew up and became pregnant with the black foal, many pegasi in Sun Herd wished Silvercloud had left Lightfeather to die in the woods. Lightfeather became an outsider, just like her colt was now. “I’m really hungry,” Bumblewind said again, groaning.

American DEWAR FAMILY Cameron Dewar Ursula “Beep” Dewar, his sister Woody Dewar, his father Bella Dewar, his mother PESHKOV-JAKES FAMILY George Jakes Jacky Jakes, his mother Greg Peshkov, his father Lev Peshkov, his grandfather Marga, his grandmother MARQUAND FAMILY Verena Marquand Percy Marquand, her father Babe Lee, her mother CIA Florence Geary Tony Savino Tim Tedder, semiretired Keith Dorset OTHERS Maria Summers Joseph Hugo, FBI Larry Mawhinney, Pentagon Nelly Fordham, old flame of Greg Peshkov Dennis Wilson, aide to Bobby Kennedy Skip Dickerson, aide to Lyndon Johnson Leopold “Lee” Montgomery, reporter Herb Gould, television journalist on This Day Suzy Cannon, gossip reporter Frank Lindeman, television network owner REAL HISTORICAL CHARACTERS John F. Kennedy, thirty-fifth U.S. president Jackie, his wife Bobby Kennedy, his brother Dave Powers, assistant to President Kennedy Pierre Salinger, President Kennedy’s press officer Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Lyndon B. Johnson, thirty-sixth U.S. president Richard Nixon, thirty-seventh U.S. president Jimmy Carter, thirty-ninth U.S. president Ronald Reagan, fortieth U.S. president George H. W. Bush, forty-first U.S. president British LECKWITH-WILLIAMS FAMILY Dave Williams Evie Williams, his sister Daisy Williams, his mother Lloyd Williams, M.P., his father Eth Leckwith, Dave’s grandmother MURRAY FAMILY Jasper Murray Anna Murray, his sister Eva Murray, his mother MUSICIANS IN THE GUARDSMEN AND PLUM NELLIE Lenny, Dave Williams’s cousin Lew, drummer Buzz, bass player Geoffrey, lead guitarist OTHERS Earl Fitzherbert, called Fitz Sam Cakebread, friend of Jasper Murray Byron Chesterfield (real name Brian Chesnowitz), music agent Hank Remington (real name Harry Riley), pop star Eric Chapman, record company executive German FRANCK FAMILY Rebecca Hoffmann Carla Franck, Rebecca’s adoptive mother Werner Franck, Rebecca’s adoptive father Walli Franck, son of Carla Lili Franck, daughter of Werner and Carla Maud von Ulrich, née Fitzherbert, Carla’s mother Hans Hoffmann, Rebecca’s husband OTHERS Bernd Held, schoolteacher Karolin Koontz, folksinger Odo Vossler, clergyman REAL HISTORICAL PEOPLE Walter Ulbricht, first secretary of the Socialist Unity Party (Communist) Erich Honecker, Ulbricht’s successor Egon Krenz, successor to Honecker Polish Stanislaw “Staz” Pawlak, army officer Lidka, girlfriend of Cam Dewar Danuta Gorski, Solidarity activist REAL HISTORICAL PEOPLE Anna Walentynowicz, crane driver Lech Wałesa, leader of the trade union Solidarity General Jaruzelski, prime minister Russian DVORKIN-PESHKOV FAMILY Tanya Dvorkin, journalist Dimka Dvorkin, Kremlin aide, Tanya’s twin brother Anya Dvorkin, their mother Grigori Peshkov, their grandfather Katerina Peshkov, their grandmother Vladimir, always called Volodya, their uncle Zoya, Volodya’s wife Nina, Dimka’s girlfriend OTHERS Daniil Antonov, features editor at TASS Pyotr Opotkin, features editor in chief Vasili Yenkov, dissident Natalya Smotrov, official in the Foreign Ministry Nik Smotrov, Natalya’s husband Yevgeny Filipov, aide to Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky Vera Pletner, Dimka’s secretary Valentin, Dimka’s friend Marshal Mikhail Pushnoy REAL HISTORICAL CHARACTERS Nikita Sergeyevitch Khrushchev, first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Andrei Gromyko, foreign minister under Khrushchev Rodion Malinovsky, defense minister under Khrushchev Alexei Kosygin, chairman of the Council of Ministers Leonid Brezhnev, Khrushchev’s successor Yuri Andropov, successor to Brezhnev Konstantin Chernenko, successor to Andropov Mikhail Gorbachev, successor to Chernenko Other Nations Paz Oliva, Cuban general Frederik Bíró, Hungarian politician Enok Andersen, Danish accountant

St. Lawrence River May 1705 Temperature 48 degrees “I don’t understand adoptions myself. I wouldn’t want to be a father to somebody else’s son. But the French and the Indians have run out of children. They love to pretend we’re their children.” They aren’t pretending, thought Mercy. Annisquam’s mother and father were not pretending. Annisquam is their son. “Do you know this boy Annisquam?” asked Joanna. “Where is he from?” Ebenezer shook his head. “Nobody will say and he isn’t allowed to talk to us. That doesn’t surprise me. I’m usually separated from the other captives. We become Indian quicker if we don’t have any English around us.” Joseph spoke up. Mercy had almost forgotten that Joseph was along. Since his encounter with Mr. Williams, Joseph had been unwilling to talk about family. As soon as a captive referred to the past, Joseph melted away. Of all the captives, Mercy thought, Joseph suffered the most from wrestling with past and present. “Have you become Indian?” said Joseph to Ebenezer. Ebenezer made a disgusted face. “Absolutely not. I get along with them, but I do not permit a thought in my head to be Indian. It’s different for me than it is for the three of you, though. Nobody in my Indian family attacked Deerfield. You and Mercy and Joanna deal with men who actually killed somebody in your family, but I’m just with Indians who bought me. It’s easier. I promise you, Joseph, I’m going home one day. They could adopt me a hundred times and I’d still be English. So how’s Kahnawake? I’ve never been there. Is it a trash heap like this?” “Kahnawake is a beautiful town,” said Mercy stiffly. Ebenezer Sheldon laughed. “Watch your step, Mercy. They’ve got you by the ankle. Probably planning your adoption next.” Joseph looked away. Joanna looked excited. Lord, thought Mercy. Lord, Lord, Lord.

There are times today when Rachel looks at Zach and sees an effusion, she sees him in colours of yellow and blue, sun and sky. She sees the yellow crew-neck jumper and blue jeans the boy of eight years old appeared in the day he came to Chelsea from the Coram Family via the two or three previous fosterers who returned him there, defeated, pronouncing him uncommunicative and maladroit in the extreme, animal, said one; unruly. So why this boy? For Katya the fractious? Of all the orphan boys in the world, why him? Of all potential mothers, why Katya? What did she see? Everyone has a part and a destiny. Rachel remembers the yellow jumper the boy rarely removed, even after the family shopping spree for a new wardrobe at Harrods followed by lunch in a restaurant with napkins large as small tablecloths, and heavy cutlery and wine for Katya and Lev and a pervasive daunting hush. Zach had never been to a restaurant before and chose spaghetti, because he knew what it was. He ate it with knife and fork. On the day he arrived in Chelsea, he stopped in the vestibule to slip his feet from lace-ups without undoing the bows, removing his shoes with institutional efficiency, left hand still held in Katya's right. Rachel sees that boy still, blue and yellow. Sky and sun.

May God who gives patience…and encouragement help you to live in complete harmony with each other.… —Romans 15:5 (TLB) HOLY SATURDAY: LIVING IN HARMONY Depending on which source you consult, Americans spend forty-five minutes to an hour each day waiting: waiting in lines, waiting for files to download, sitting in traffic…waiting. If you ever spy me waiting in traffic, I look patient. I am not. My demeanor masks a very angry man who is contemplating mayhem. I once sat in my car in a highway construction zone on a hot summer afternoon beside a flashing sign that read, SLOW DOWN! YOUR CURRENT SPEED IS 0 MILES AN HOUR. I thought the long wait might cause overheating and then a blown gasket—and I don’t mean the car. It takes a special kind of person to be given a life of unfathomable gifts (food, drink, leisure time, central air) and then complain about occasional delays in living that life. I could, for instance, spend that time enjoying music or praying or pondering my existence rather than pondering mayhem, but no. I have chosen to seethe. Meanwhile, somewhere a child waits for rice from the back of a UN truck. A mother waits for a husband missing in Afghanistan. A couple waits for word about an adoption. A young man in a faraway time waits for the welcome death to end His suffering, accompanied by nothing but two thieves and vinegar mixed with some gall. Lord, I realize that’s what I have: gall. To grumble with such pettiness takes a lot of gall. Perhaps I’ve found something else to ponder the next time I await Your return when I have lost sight of You. —Mark Collins Digging Deeper: Ps 27:14; Mi 7:7

The message of the miracles is the Miracle Worker himself. He wants you to know you are never alone. You are never without help, hope, or strength. You are stronger than you think because God is nearer than you might imagine. He wants you to know: I know everything about you (Ps. 139:1). I know when you sit down and when you rise up (Ps. 139:2). I’ve numbered the hairs on your head (Matt. 10:29–31). I’ve adopted you into my family (Rom. 8:15). Before you were the size of a freckle in your mother’s womb, I knew you (Jer. 1:4–5). You are my idea, and I have only good ideas (Eph. 1:11–12). You won’t live a day longer or less than I intend (Ps. 139:16). I love you as my own child (1 John 3:1). I will take care of you (Matt. 6:31–33). None of this love ’em and leave ’em stuff with me. I love you with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3). I can’t quit thinking about you (Ps. 139:17–18). You are my treasured possession (Ex. 19:5). Let’s do great things together (Jer. 33:3). Nothing will ever separate you from my love (Rom. 8:38–39).

He's a sweet boy, and actually very trainable, even if he is something of a natural disaster for the moment. He's the star of his puppy kindergarten class, and can sit, lie down, roll over, and high-five. But stay and heel are hard for him because he has so much playful puppy energy. He's also gaining about ten pounds a day, and I think maybe I should have named him Clifford, because I fear he's going to be bigger than my house by the end of the month." "Well, at least Volnay likes him." "Whatever else is wrong with him, Wayne was right about one thing. Volnay seems to be happier and perkier. She's helping train him, which I think is the only reason he hasn't eaten the entire neighborhood by now, and she has absolutely adopted him. Which is hilarious, because she is so alpha, and he is already bigger than she is. When he's full size, it is going to be pretty funny!

Martoglio was much loved in his adoptive city. The people of Catania identified with Martoglio’s characters in one way or another, they recognized their own weaknesses and ignorance in the people he created. In his poems they heard every day voices; they saw neighborhood women gossiping at their windows; they heard echoes of the street vendors’ voices, mothers calling children for supper, a lover urging his beloved to come out on her balcony. Martoglio is an embodiment of Sicily and Sicilian sensibilities. Pirandello was right when he said that Martoglio was, after Giovanni Meli, the most expressive poet of Sicily.

Madame Lorraine was a rich French woman who lived in an old mansion, which she inherited from her husband. The family had already had many possessions, however, they were ruined in the Revolution. For defending the monarchy, they lost their titles, lands and servants. Madame Lorraine's husband, the old Earl, died in the Reign of Terror, as did her children. The wife, however, had hidden the jewelry at the beginning of the revolution and had left in secret for Switzerland. After the restoration, she returned to France, but with few resources she had, she bought a house in Paris. She complained of loneliness and adopted a little orphan, named Juliette, who she used as a servant. When the girl complained about being overworked, as she had to take care of the entire house alone, her stepmother told her: “your complaints hurt me, you see, I lost everything and I only have you, your mother didn't want you, but I I adopted you and took care of you and you don’t even appreciate that.” The girl, then, victim of emotional blackmail, got used to serving, without complaining. The problem is that every day more and more was demanded – the girl never reached perfection, said Madame Lorraine: “look at the silverware, look at the floor, look at the walls, you will never be able to get married”. However, Madame Lorraine did not tell the girl that perfection is never achieved: it is just a resource to dominate the poor in spirit, who see in the light of their own craft a hope of transcendence. Another thing that Madame Lorraine had not taught the girl – even if the Revolution had taught humanity: that they were free. The girl then grew older and became an object of exploitation every day, her arms becoming weaker, her mind increasingly taken over by obedience. One day, the girl went to the market in the square, and hardly talked to anyone – Madame Lorraine told her that everyone wanted to abuse her and that she shouldn't trust anyone. That day, however, she was exhausted and stopped at a farmer's stand selling tomatoes and said to her: “young man, what's your name, I always see you running around here and you never talk to anyone”. She decided to talk to him: “I'm the old widow's daughter, she says that everyone wants to exploit me, that I shouldn't trust strangers”. The salesman, already aware of the girl's situation from the stories that were circulating in the village, said to her: “Isn't it just the opposite, girl, maybe you haven't learned a lie all your life and now you're trying harder and harder to keep this lie as if it were the truth – see, God made everyone free.” The girl then quickly returned to the house, but doubt had entered her heart and there she began to take root and grow. Until, one day, the old lady released the drop that would overflow her body and said to her: “Well, Juliette, you don't do anything right, look how my dresses are, you didn't sew them perfectly”. The girl then got up, looked the vixen in the eyes and said: “if it’s not good, do it yourself” and left. It is said that she married the farmer in the sale and, from that day on, she was the best wife in the world. Not because she did everything with great care, with an almost divine perfection, that she was modest or because she had freed herself from the shrew who exploited her, but simply because she recognized the value of freedom itself.

My name is Layla Bailey, and this is my biome.” I cut to the footage of my house, turning up the audio so that I can be heard explaining my habitat. I added today’s men in plastic suits to the very end, and I narrate over it. “These people and CPS are the apex predators of my ecosystem, and I am an endangered species. The last of my kind. But the Sierra Club doesn’t make posters out of kids like me.” I add three screenshots near the end. The first is the only picture of my mom I could find, in profile and wreathed in smoke. “This is my mother, Darlene Thompson. She was born in captivity and released into the wild without any skills to care for herself. She is missing. If you see her, do not attempt to approach her, but please contact animal control.” The second is of Andy. “This is Andrew Fisher Bailey, my little brother. He was taken into captivity two days ago by people he had never seen before. I don’t know his whereabouts, but I hope he’s safe. If you see him, remember he is friendly but skittish. He is better off in captivity than in the wild.” The last one is my most recent report card, accessed on the school website by inputting the username and password I created for my mom last year. “This is me, Layla Louise Bailey. I was born in the wild and cannot be domesticated. However, I’m not yet fully capable of caring for myself, either. I have no money and not enough skills. What I have is a 4.0 and really low standards. I’ll do chores. I’ll be quiet. If you’ve got a garage or a laundry room I could sleep in, I am mostly housebroken. I just want to finish school, adopt my little brother, and go to college.

Several years ago I visited a church in a nearby city. The pastor was known as a godly man and a prayer warrior. As we spoke about life in general, he said, “We’re not supposed to enjoy life, are we?” To him it was a rhetorical question; unfortunately most Christians hold this same view. They believe in Christ; He is their savior. They love Him with all their heart. Their future home is in heaven, they attend church each Sunday and most mid- week services. They endeavor to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They witness to friends and family, yet to them, life is something to endure. They are like the small orphan boy adopted by a well-to-do family from a poor orphanage. The child reveled in the luxury of his own room. Sleeping in such a wonderful bed was a dream come true. He awoke the next morning to the sun streaming in his open window. The songs of birds welcomed him to a beautiful summer day. As he came down to breakfast, he saw a place was set for him at the large table in the dining room. Fine china and silverware gleamed in the light of the expensive chandelier. At his plate set a large glass of milk filled to the brim. At the orphanage each child would drink from the glass only so far, then pass it on. This continued until the glass was empty. The glass was then refilled and passed to the next child. With big eyes the little child looked at his new mother. “Please, ma’am, how deeply may I drink?” With tears in her eyes, his mother said “Drink it all son, it’s all for you.” I believe God has given us the cup of life filled to the brim and overflowing. God says, “Drink it all, my child, it’s all for you.” Many Christians believe life is drudgery. Therefore they miss the real pleasures God has intended for His children. His word promises us abundant life. Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” We can choose to view everything as a miracle from God. Will there be sorrows? Of course. Will we suffer difficult setbacks? Undoubtedly. Are there enemies of Christians and the Lord? Surely. Does this mean God has changed His mind or abandoned us? No. In this book we will discuss ways of enjoying living on God’s blessings. You can indeed “live life to the fullest.

I understand the deep need of seeing one's face reflected. But a session can quickly turn awkward when a client dismisses the idea of adoption. Like it's the day-old loaf of bread. Useful but unappetizing. Sure to bring up the trigger of my birth. All of the questions that remain in the shadow of my lost mother. Do you want me? No. Obviously not. Numerous reasons. Yes, I know. Perfectly understandable. You did the best you could with the best you had at the time. Or so we like to say. Let's finally speak the truth. You didn't want me. There's another family as evidence. You didn't want to redefine, explain, transform. You walked as far as you could, then returned home with a body that held the remembrance of me.

They [Joan’s adopted twin daughters] tell people they had a marvelous childhood. I hope they did. I tried to give them that — because it’s really all that a patent can do. A parent has to guide, advise, educate, and love them. If they’re sure of the love, they’ll accept the guidance. I think that children benefit in all sorts of ways when they have mothers who have their own fascinating jobs. It’s good for them to know that mother is involved in other things besides smothering them with love. They respect that. When children are neglected it’s usually because their mothers are so bored and discontent that they fill their days with golf, bridge, and matinees and live the children to fend for themselves. A working woman loves coming home and making special time for her children. But few husbands understand the full range of her responsibilities.

Stupid dog, do you realize you have actually LITERALLY bitten the hand that feeds you?" Schatzi looks at me with a withering stare, arching her bushy eyebrows haughtily, and then turns her back to me. I stick out my tongue at her back, and go to the kitchen to freshen her water bowl. Damnable creature requires fresh water a zillion times a day. God forbid a fleck of dust is dancing on the surface, or it has gone two degrees beyond cool, I get the laser look of death. Once there was a dead fly in it, and she looked in the bowl, crossed the room, looked me dead in the eye, and squatted and peed on my shoes. I usually call her Shitzi or Nazi. I suppose I'm lucky she deigns to drink tap water. Our bare tolerance of each other is mutual, and affection between us is nil. The haughty little hellbeast was my sole inheritance from my grandmother who passed away two years ago. A cold, exacting woman who raised me in my mother's near-complete absence, Annelyn Stroudt insisted on my calling her Grand-mère, despite the fact that she put the manic in Germanic, ancestry-wise. But apparently when her grandparents schlepped here mother from Berlin to Chicago, they took a year in Paris first, and adopted many things Française. So Grand-mère it was. Grand-mère Annelyn also insisted on dressing for dinner, formal manners in every situation, letterpress stationary, and physical affection saved for the endless string of purebred miniature schnauzers she bought one after the other, and never offered to the granddaughter who also lived under her roof. Her clear disappointment in me must have rubbed off on Schatzi, who, despite having lived with me since Grand-mère died neatly and quietly in her sleep at the respectable age of eighty-nine, has never seen me as anything but a source of food, and a firm hand at the end of the leash. She dotes on Grant, but he sneaks her nibbles when he cooks, and coos to her in flawless French. Sometimes I wonder if the spirit of Grand-mère transferred into the dog upon death, and if the chilly indifference to me is just a manifestation of my grandmother's continued disapproval from beyond the grave. Schatzi wanders over to her bowl, sniffs it, sneers at me one last time for good measure, shakes her head to ensure her ears are in place, like a society matron checking her coif, and settles down to drink.

I have been told by many that their life is wonderful, that life’s a game, but it’s not fair, I break the rules, so I don’t care! That it is thrilling to be part of the freaking world of butt holes. I got news for you; I did want all that. I have been tooled, that dying you see the light too, along with the flashing by of your stupid pathetic life. Yet, at least I had a stupid pathetic life. Just like my great-grandma Nevaeh Natalie, grandmother Jaylynn, and my freaked-up mother Kristen, oh, and also my dad, and mom said- ‘she was born on May 12, 2001.’ She had me later on in life to another freakier she’s even more freaked up than my step-monster, after Brandon my real dad passed from something that I cannot protonate, I don’t want to talk about it- finding out how she left him, for someone else other than him, which she said she would happen or never- ever do. He ended it… Besides, that was it… I am not saying more; I do not want to… I don’t freaking have to. Freak that crap in the butt! Yet sometimes, I feel like such a steep child, yet in a way that is just what I am. However, my daddy loves me anyway, yet my little sis is their biological child. I was adopted before they realized that freaking one another in the old-school hallways would not work for them, anyway, it would not be long until she gets knocked up, with my pain in the butt sister Kellie. When she dropped out. I never really knew my real dad; my dad was always the one that was everything to me. Yet my mom is the monster, and I the mutant, (E-ugh! She said- ‘When she saw me as a baby girl in the nursery.’) However, she felt that way about me since day one, and I feel the same, damn- yes, the same way the same damn way. It was a new day… that fell to me… to me if you think about it; I have always been falling. Honestly, I thought that someday, ‘I would do wonder and crap cucumbers.’ Never truly pondering my last moments on this gray-green dying plant, we call earth. Looking over those visions from my past, my mind seems rather dreadful, nasty, and bleak. Just plan sadly really. Lonely in my memories, I felt that nearly if not all things would have improved if it was just covered up, covered over, and forgotten about completely in sixth grade. A failure to recall if you do well. That would be awesome.

Dear Earth, I hear you whispering in my ear. The crisp breeze is telling me a story, and I am so intrigued. The breeze and the gentle wind are telling me that you all are lucky. I agree with them because you have a mother who cares deeply about you so much! You have four seasons, and Mother Nature takes her time to prepare you for the changes to come in such a gentle and comfortable way. I imagine her smiling as she gently pushes the leaves as they dance in the wind. She caresses the leaves while they slowly turn different colors as they change, falling calmly. Fall harvest prepares you for the winter days ahead as you peacefully sleep. Spring awakens you from your well-needed rest. You joyfully bloom with so much grace while the bees playfully enjoy the flowers and the birds sing as the sun rises. By the time summer comes, you are wide awake, enjoying the extended daylight. As fall peacefully tiptoes in, you prepare yourself for a new and prosperous year to come. Unlike you, all four seasons in my life are always heavier, year after year. Every day of my life is filled with uncertainties. I am free-falling, not knowing where I am going to end up. Although everything is closing in on me, I keep going. Most times, it is hard, but I try to keep a little hope and press on. However, when things do not work out accordingly, I replace hope with a higher perspective of fear and uncertainty. As I admire the soul of the earth and the Grandfather Tree, I am confident that I can try to believe again. We shall see. Longing to be the soul of the earth.

For some time, an arbitrary line in the sand was drawn at the end of the first trimester as the demarcation marking the beginning of "life". Of course, advances in medical technology continued to force those who stood on that line to retreat further and further toward the beginning of gestation. For instance, it has been established that a fetus has brain waves which can be measured by EEG only 40 days after conception, and merely 18 days after conception, the fetus has a measurable heart beat. In fact, they were getting so close to the beginning of gestation, i.e., conception, that the PC pro-abortion genderists then had to adopt the more ephemeral "viability" position. Of course, according to their definition of "viability", comatose patients would not be considered human being because, in some ways, a fetus is actually more "viable" than someone who is comatose. As obstetrical and gynecological medicine continued its inevitable advance, revealing more and more about the nature of a human fetus, the pro-abortion forces continued their retreat until now they do not even discuss the fetus at all. As with all politically correct positions, if a fact gets in the way, it is simply changed or ignored. Unfortunately for the pro-abortion genderists, the fetus is a fact, a fact which is itself usually the result of "choices". Furthermore, the simple scientific fact is that at the moment of conception, the embryo is not a part of the mother's body. At that point and forever more it is a genetically distinct being with its own genetic code that is completely and totally different from every other human being who has ever lived or ever will live, including the mother. So here is the first instance of PC genderism crashing into scientific fact. It also seems ironic that while more and more law enforcement agencies in this country are now turning to DNA identification in criminal investigations and our courts are now admitting such identification as evidence in criminal prosecution, the rights of a fetus, which has its own, distinct DNA code at the moment of conception, are still not legally recognized in all cases. Now they are recognized in some cases, for there have been instances of people being prosecuted for two murders when they have killed pregnant women. There are also cases where mothers who have given birth to babies who are addicted to illegal drugs have been prosecuted, but there are no consistent standards or guidelines. It is also a macabre irony that in this country it is illegal to destroy the egg of an American bald eagle, but the government uses our tax dollars to destroy human embryos and fetuses.

I understood that this sister of mine was going to live somewhere else, away from us...This information did not make me thing of the baby as less mine. She was my sister, like my brother was my brother and my mother was my mother. The adoptive parents' claim on my developing sister did not negate mine, she was not a kingdom or a territory or a thing with a deed; she was a person. This baby girl would be both my sister and these other people's daughter, and my mom's daughter. there would be moments when one claim took focus-- as right now this baby girl was more Ours than Theirs, and one day she would be more Theirs than Ours, but none of those connections could completely erase the others. It would be easier, perhaps, if they could, if after she was gone we could forget this baby ever belonged to us. But that's not how people work.

I was told once that to lose a child to adoption is like losing a child to death. But it isn’t. It’s worse. Death is final. You grieve, accept and eventually move on. It is irreversible. When a baby is taken for adoption and placed with another mother, the grief is far harder to bear. I would always know that somewhere out there was my son. A little boy growing up in a new family. He would be unaware of me but not a day would go by without me thinking about him. Death had to be easier than that.

What is the condition of your soul?  Are you embarrassed by your sin?  Do you adopt a false persona presuming that Jesus will only accept you if you are perfect?  Nothing is further from the truth.  Do not hesitate to come to our Lord with all your weaknesses, struggles and sins.  Do not worry about what He will think or say.  Come to Him. If you trust Him, your humble act of offering Him your sinful self will refresh His soul.

Amy always tried to maintain some semblance of dignity in front of me. Even so, I never met the same Amy more than once. On some days she behaved like a small child, sucking her thumb, talking in a baby voice and sitting on my knee; at other times she'd adopt the aggressive, butch act, the Rizzo character - the girl who had 'out-Jaggered Jagger'. The more vulnerable she felt, the more pronounced that persona would become. I think she brought her characters out as coping mechanisms, to get her through anxious moments or stressful situations. In all honesty there was rarely a time at Camden Square when Amy was a whole person. Rather, she continued to be this fragmented girl, a series of creations I suppose I'd become accustomed to.