România deţine o bucata de inima mea

Going to Romania had a huge impact on my life. When I got home I missed it dearly but week after week life moved on. But lately I have been especially longing to go back and visit my kids. I wonder if they would even remember me or at least recognize me. It has really hit me hard lately how much I love those kids and how badly I want the best for them. I am not sure if it is because my friend Rachel just got back from Romania, or if it is because Clint served his mission there, or maybe it is just my female hormones getting to me...either way I decided to help cope with these feelings that I wanted to go back again and share with you 5 of my kids that I worked with and loved as much as I love my own self.

Claudia: She was 2 when I worked with her and I believe she is no 3 years old. She is one of the sweetest kids I worked with. Whenever Rhett and I walked to the door at their apartment we could hear her, and Mihaela, jumping by the door yelling "Buna, Buna" (hello) in anticipation of our arrival. Then of course she greeted us with a huge hug and pup (kiss). She was always so good at sharing and when another kid was sad she would stand there looking as if trying to figure out what to do in order to make them happy. She loves dogs and singing. She was one of the few kids that did not show any signs of disabilities or attachment disorders. Claudia was a bright light!

This is Ghiorcel, or Bobo as we called him. He has autism and when we first arrived in Romania and started to work with him he was not very friendly. He would avoid eye contact and did not care to play with anyone else besides himself and the only noises we heard out of him was crying or screaming. He never spoke any words. Through a lot of work, and I was not alone Rhett did a lot, Bobo was singing along to children's songs in romanian, he would look at me and smile and occasionally would join in with the other kids and the games we played. It was incredible to see the progress we made with him. Bobo made my heart melt every time he laughed.

Mihaela was a firecracker! We had a lot of good and A LOT of bad times together. She suffered from attachment disorder which resulted in her having a bad temper and not dealing well with her emotions in general. More often then I liked I had to take her to "pat" (bed) for a timeout...by the time I got her to her bed I had spit on my face, hair pulled out and soon to be bruises on my arm from her biting me. It may confuse you why I loved this girl so much. After a couple of weeks of dealing with her tantrums and how she treated the other kids we had a breakthrough. One day as I was carrying her to her bed after she had hit one of the other kids something was different and I just squeezed her so tight into a hug, I started singing to her and then rocking her. The attempts to bite, spit and pull my hair lessened then stopped as she put her face into my shoulder and cried and cried. Then the crying stopped and she looked at me and kissed me on the cheek. I wish this story ended with her not having tantrums anymore and her being nice to the other kids, it doesn't, but our relationship was different from that day on. I loved her for all her mistakes and for all her accomplishments.

Here is good ol' Marian!!! This is the kid my mom wanted to adopt so bad and I really think she would have if it was allowed. He just had a sweet spirit about him and was so spunky all the time. He called any female "mama". He was in the hospital the whole time I was in Romania. Whenever I walked around the corner I would see him stand up in his crib and cry out "mama, mama" and he was so ready for me to play with him. The day I had to say good-bye to him was so hard. The Nurse would not let me hold him because she knew he would start to cry when I left and they would rather avoid that. I gave him a toy dog that he could play with (he LOVES dogs) and he was so happy about it. Then there was the last moment I spent with him. I was singing Christmas Songs with the Missionaries and a few other people from our group in Romanian and we came to the hallway where Marian was at....as we sang people and children came out of their rooms to watch and all of a sudden I feel a little hand grab on to mine and I look down to see Marian's big eyes looking up at me with a smile.

RADU is a very special kid. He has a lot of health issues; down syndrome along with heart problems which results in him having to eat out of a feeding tube and lay around in a crib all day. We spent our time together singing songs, tickling him and he had this little sun pillow thing that he loved. I would hold it above his head and attack his stomach with it just to hear his precious laugh in response. His laugh was so real. I think that to him it was the one thing that not only made him happy but reminded him that he is alive and there. His laugh was music to my ears and no matter how tired I was or how bad of a day I may have had (e.g. the gypsies stealing my wallet) holding Radu, singing with him and laughing with him was bound to life my spirits.


For those of you who actually were persistent to get through this post Thank You. Really this post was for me, a way to cope with some of my feelings right now. And knowing that some of you may have read this and cared about what I wrote and about these kids that I love brings some comfort to my reminiscent feelings right now.