It’s October 27, 1981 in Mountain Home, Arkansas.
My road to recovery began at our table when the visiting minister, whom I hadn’t seen since I was fourteen, asked me if I remembered when he picked me up at our house on Hall Ridge Road in the woods near Noel, Missouri, to take me to my temporary foster home at Cullen and Martha Adair’s house in Grove, Oklahoma on March 30, 1962.
Blinded by tears I relived that evening when I left my mother after I packed my clothes in a brown paper bag.
I didn’t look back as I got into the car with Brother Fred Webb.
It was an easy adjustment living with the family who had two adopted Native American children, Ann and Chuck.
I was in awe. It was comforting to share meals around a table with this caring family. Hugs were new to me and given freely, not to mention hot baths, clean clothes, a warm bed and being tucked into bed at night.
Everyone at church was also so kind to me.
I bonded easily to my new family, blinded to what was ahead.
To have a Donna Reed style mother who laughed and hummed and a dad with a non-stop sense of humor was a fairy tale to me.
I didn’t realize how much I’d fallen in love with this family until the day arrived on May 30, 1962 for me to leave for the orphanage.
During breakfast my eyes became fixed upon the clock. Counting down the hours and then the minutes my security slipped away.
Reality didn’t hit me until we arrived at the orphanage near Tulsa, Oklahoma, one hundred miles away.
As we walked to the house, I heard her screaming inside.
Then she appeared at the door with her plastic smile and steely gray eyes!
I sobbed “please don’t leave me here!”
But the decision was made.
I found the housemother to be as devoid of love as the cinder blocks from which the dormitory style house was built!
At night I sobbed with my head under the pillow because crying was not allowed.
On Sunday I wore the blue gingham jumper that Martha had just finished making for me.
As we were leaving the bus I spotted the Adair family standing nearby. I ran to them as my housemother tried to restrain me saying I couldn’t have visitors during my three month period of adjustment.
Breaking loose I ran to them.
I sat with them in church but the grief started all over again when I returned to the home.
I never accepted the fact that I wouldn’t get to go live with the Adairs but I knew intellectually that “all things work together for good to them that love the Lord” and that faith sustained me but never stopped me from laying in bed reliving their hugs again and again.
I escaped into memories.
To be given love until we are addicted and then have it jerked away is so painful.
This may be a tool God uses to till our hearts, to shape us into what He wants us to be even though the growth process is very difficult.
On the last night of our revival in 1981 our eleven year old adopted daughter, Robin, was baptized by Brother Webb, the same minister who had baptized me shortly before I left my home in 1962.
This is one more of those “God Wink” moments I cherish!
I wonder who I would be today if Fred Webb, from Hatley, Mississippi, hadn’t taken the time to ask me what I remembered so many years before. Even though my life has been painful I wouldn’t trade what I’ve been through if I had to lose the joy I feel today!
I want to be real!.
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