A Letter to Daniel

These thoughts originated on October 20th, Daniel's fourth birthday, 

but just now have found their way to cyberspace and your hearts! Enjoy!

 The first picture we ever saw of you:  "our Daniel"

My dearest Daniel,

      Today is your fourth birthday! Wow! Four years ago today, what was I doing? I don’t know. I certainly know that I had no idea that my son was being born, but Jesus sure did! Thank the Lord! Oh dear Daniel, what was that day like? Where were you born? I don't even know that! I can nearly guarantee that your birth didn’t take place in a government clinic, much less a private clinic and forget the possibility of a hospital! Most likely your birth took place in the home where your mother was living, hostage to her own mother and her step-father, your own father, who is also your grandfather! This world is nuts, but I am so glad that Jesus makes some sense out of our nonsense! And I sure am glad that you being part of our family was one way of God making sense out of a senseless world!  

     Was your mother alone? Did your grandmother attend to her? Did your father/grandfather smile?

Daniel, did your mom have any idea that her precious little boy had only half a heart? Were you precious to her or a cruel reminder of the incest she had suffered time and time again? Were your fingernails and lips blue when you were born like they are now? How did you even manage to catch your first breath? How? You may not have been attended to by any doctor and probably not even by a nurse, but you sure were attended to by the angels themselves! Your life is proof of that! 

     Oh, Daniel, I have read blog entry after blog entry of babies born with your same principal heart defect, Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. Words cannot describe the difference between their births and yours! Teams of doctors, surgeons, specialists, neonatal nurses, IV towers, medications, breathing machines and every tube, wire and connection imaginable were at hand for that crucial moment of passage from womb to world. Their parents had read about the defect and prayed for months. As their babies were born, they were whisked away from their mother’s arms into the expert’s hands and knowledge. You were delivered into the hands of God himself who has kept you breathing and your enlarged, half-heart beating until today…four years later.  

     You were not whisked away from your mother’s arms, those hands willingly handed you over! Within two weeks of birth those babies underwent their first surgeries to create new connections in their chests in order to bypass their defects. When you were two weeks old, what was your life like?  I don’t know much, but I do know what I saw when I met you. At nearly two years old you were deathly afraid of chickens and dogs, the result of sitting on dirt floors and being repeatedly threatened and accosted by those animals. The first night I put on your pajamas and rubbed lotion into your little feet, I was shocked by the thick, elephant-like skin covering your ankles and the sides of your feet as a result of pulling yourself along the ground to get where you wanted to go, since you didn’t walk until you were nearly two!

      How you love hearing “your story” about Hermana (Sister) Maria! The phone call: “I have a little boy who needs a family, would you be willing to be his family?” “Of course!” was our response without any need for deliberation or "weighing the costs".  

Missionaries Maria and John and their baby Hannah with Daniel.  Daniel lived with them for two or so months.

     The first meeting: seeing you in the same infamous white crib that had stared at us from those first pictures we had ever seen of you, wanting to run and hold you, but not wanting to scare you out of your wits at this big white lady barreling towards you!  

The white crib picture

     The next morning, after having spent the night in a hotel away from you, we walked into the living room and I gathered you up in my arms. I quickly pulled out a change of clothing and a clean diaper to get you cleaned up and ready for the first day of the rest of our lives together. As my hand rested on your chest, panic consumed me and shouted at me to leave that house running with you in my arms to the nearest cardiologist as your heart felt like it was going to pop right out of your chest it was beating so hard! But, sanity came over me and I simply changed your diaper and hugged you.

      Then, a moment that is forever engraved on my heart and in my mind: Maria had already told me that for the month that you lived with them, she would ask you, “Where is mommy?” You would look around absently and point into the empty space around you, directionless. Well, Daniel, that morning, you were sitting on my lap, after having spent no more than a total of an hour together, when Maria walked into the living room and asked the usual question: “Where’s mommy?” You promptly turned out and pointed your precious little finger right at my chest! She and I were speechless and my heart lept for joy! You were mine, truly mine! You knew it and I knew it! We both had caught on to what Jesus knew all along – Danny was just for us! 

  The "Mommy Moment"

     Just a few hours later, we both stood outside a wooden shack and I met your birth mother for the first time. She reached her arms out to carry you and you turned towards me, grabbed my neck and hung on for dear life! I don’t know what was going through your little mind, but it took you less than half a day to figure out who mommy was!

Daniel and birth mother

      Daniel, I don’t know how many more birthdays we will have together. I know that getting to this one was a miracle and that every single day we witness more miracles as you continue here with us. Every night, the last thing I do before going to bed is go into your room, reach down and rest my hand on your chest. I have to hunt for David’s heart, but not yours! One night, in the dark, I reached down and thought: “Wow! Daniel’s heart beat is a lot less strong than normal, maybe Jesus has fully healed him!” Then I realized that in the dark I had laid my hand on your back instead of on your chest and I was feeling your heart beat through your back! So, I now make sure I find your chest first, feel your heart beat and always pray: “Lord keep his heart beating until morning. (As if I keep your heart beating during the day:-) OK, Lord, so keep it beating until it is your will that it beat no more.”

      He’s getting an incredible place ready for you and as soon as that last coat of paint is on your mansion, you will be going home! Only Jesus knows when that will be. For now, we loved watching you blow out that number 4 birthday candle and, Lord willing, will watch you blow out many more birthday candles, oh precious one!

Love,

Mama