special needs – Lux, Libertas

I started this blog in the fall of 2009 so that our friends and family could be a part of our journey to adopt our precious Sofija. The last five years have been one heckuva journey! We had no clue what we were getting ourselves into. It was probably better that way.

Sofija is amazing.

Sofija is beautiful.

Sofija is gifted, and athletic.

Sofija is the queen of selfies (Sorry, Kim Kardashian. She’s got you beat.)

Sofija is also very, very HARD.

Every single bad thing that can come from a child beginning her life in a neglectful institutional setting… she’s got it. She’s broken in a thousand ways. I have many friends with adopted and biological children who have disabilities that say, “I wouldn’t change a thing about my child.” You will not hear me say those words. I would give up a limb or one of my senses if it would heal my child.

One of the many things Sofija struggles with is a total lack of rational fears. She has plenty of IRrational fears. But when it comes to understanding the dangers of this world… she hasn’t a clue. We have tried and tried to make her understand that she simply cannot run down the middle of the street or leave our house without us. We’ve put extra locks and alarms on the doors. Last Saturday night we grasped just how epically our efforts have failed.

We moved Sofija’s bed into our room a year and a half ago after she repeatedly got up during the night and put herself into dangerous situations or did fun things like pouring an entire jar of honey and bottle of ketchup into her bed… at the same time.

On Saturday night, after her bath, Sofija asked to play in her room. Every 5-10 minutes I checked on her. I always do. At 10pm I called her name and asked her what she was doing. She replied, “I’m still playing.” At 10:05 I called her name and told her it was time for bed. She didn’t respond. Before I got to her door I had a sinking feeling in my gut. It was too quiet. She wasn’t there. As I walked away from her room I noticed that the door to the garage was open. Walking into the garage I saw that the door from our garage to the back yard was open. There was no need to search the rest of the house. She was gone. I didn’t think to call 911. I just took off down the street in my socks. My husband took off in the opposite direction. I made it around our block, ran back in the house, grabbed the car keys, and told my son to call 911. I drove down our street with my windows down, screaming her name, and looking for any sign that she was at someone’s house. Two blocks from home I passed an unmarked cop car that was driving slowly with a search light on. I jumped in front of his car and fell apart. He asked me to please calm down and began describing Sofija to me. It turns out that one of our neighbors had seen Sofija sprinting down the road in her pajamas and glitter boots (that are two sizes too small – they were in a donation bag in the garage). The neighbor called the police. Within minutes Fairfax county search and rescue had seven police cruisers and a helicopter searching for my daughter. The policeman that I jumped in front of followed me back to our house and I listened as calls of “Sofija sightings” continued to come in on his radio. She ran from our house to 7eleven (about a mile) and when the clerk wouldn’t let her get a slurpee she ran to Safeway (a block from 7eleven) in search of ice cream cake. A police car followed her from 7eleven to Safeway and four cars cornered her at Safeway. My husband was driving around the neighborhood when an officer called from the Safeway parking lot asking for a family member because “She’s very aggressive.” EIGHT cops could not get her in the back of a police car. Her Daddy went and got her and brought her home, mad as a spring bear, because she “didn’t get a slurpee OR ice cream cake and the police lights hurt her eyes.”

I didn’t sleep Saturday night. Or Sunday night. Or much of any night since.

Sunday was spent installing new alarms and keyed chain locks. And then, Sunday night, after her bath, she put on socks and shoes and asked if she could play in her room “with the window open.”

What? The? Hell?

Seriously?!

This sinking feeling that I’m going to lose my child to an open window or unlocked door has got to be as close to hell as I ever want to come. I want peace. I need peace. My child needs a miracle.

We’ve done everything we can think of to keep her safe. She’s sleeping in our room with every door double-locked and alarms on all the doors and windows. ~The irony has not escaped me that most people install alarms and locks to keep bad people out and we had to install them to keep a precious someone in.~ Sofija is now registered with the county as a “flight risk” and the search and rescue team have assured us that they will do everything in their power to get her home should she escape again. I’m printing postcards for our neighbors and all the local businesses with her picture and our contact information. If it was legal to microchip her, we would do it.

All that’s left is hope and prayer. If you think of us, pray for us. Pray for her safety. Pray for her healing. Pray for our peace.

Romans 5:2-5 NLT

Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment…

I’m physically feeling better today. I honestly expected to have painful caffeine and sugar withdrawals for a week or so. Thus far, I have had a dull headache that seems to appear at the times of day when I’ve previously consumed large amounts of caffeine, but I’m finding that by eating a piece of fruit or a handful of nuts, it goes away. The emotional and spiritual pain is probably about the same as yesterday though.

Today I walked through some big stuff. I don’t feel free to share all the details, but I had a realization that every single obstacle that exists in my relationship with my oldest daughter is based on some of my mother-wounds that have never been dealt with. Since I lost my Mom more than five years ago, I just have to let those wounds be healed without any real conversations. Maybe that’s for the better though. I can see clearly that my Mom did the very best she could and that she made choices concerning me and my sister with nothing but the best of intentions. Without saying much more on that matter, my prayer is that my relationship with my daughter is about to reach a whole new level.

The other big lesson today came once again from the sermon on the mount. This time it was on loving people.

Matthew 5:43-48 You have heard people say, “Love your neighbors and hate your enemies.” But I tell you to love your enemies and pray for anyone who mistreats you. Then you will be acting like your Father in heaven. He makes the sun rise on both good and bad people. And he sends rain for the ones who do right and for the ones who do wrong. If you love only those people who love you, will God reward you for that? Even tax collectors love their friends. If you greet only your friends, what’s so great about that? Don’t even unbelievers do that? But you must always act like your Father in heaven.

While I take pride (yea, yea, I’m working on the pride thing too) in the fact that I truly deeply love people, I had to come to terms today with the fact that I have a much harder time loving some people than loving other people.

There have been several VERY RECENT occasions for me to pounce on people for not seeing my two little stimmers (autistic blessings) as equal to every other child on the planet. The minute someone treats one of them differently or denies them any right that a typical child would have, words like “discrimination”, “segregation”, and “isolation” jump to my mind. I’m not a huge fan of the ACLU, but when those words start running through my head I wish I had a number for their complaints hot-line on speed dial.

Today I had a big realization. It sucks to admit it, but I’ve displayed all three of those ugly and unacceptable words towards people in the VERY RECENT past. The sun rises and shines for each and every one of us. The rain falls for each and every one of us. Salvation is available for each and every one of us. His grace is available for each and every one of us. His love is available for each and every one of us. The realization of just how hard it is for me to show that kind of love and grace to some people is just painful. I’m a mess. I’m glad God doesn’t give up on me because when I think of just how often I fail to act like Him, it’s more than a little humbling. I need the kind of unfailing grace that ONLY He can give, more than I can probably even grasp.

Tomorrow’s to-do list is going to look a little different than the one from the last three days. Tomorrow I am challenging myself to greet every person I meet as if they were a close friend. I’m sure I just opened up an invitation for every nasty person in the DC metro area to cross my path. To them I say, “Bring it, Stringbean! Show me what you got!”