AARP Member
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Background
Name: Deb
Birthday: June 28
Gender: Female
Status:
Divorced
Ethnicity:
Caucasian
Location:
Texas
United States
Texas
United States
Quote:
"Life's a BEACH. I love the smell of the Ocean in the morning."
"Life's a BEACH. I love the smell of the Ocean in the morning."
Can you be haunted by the present?The Child Surrogate
When I was a young girl around, 13 or14 I guess, I wanted a child so badly that I asked my mother to have another child so I could take care of it, like a mommy. Of course my mother would not have done so even if she could which I found out later she had made sure I was the last of four for her and my father.
I think what started me thinking about becoming a mother, was a little girl that stayed with her grand and great grandmothers that lived across the street from us. I used to have much affection for the great lady of the house who I called Grandma. I spent as much time as possible with her even before the baby came along. I would go over to their house as soon as got off the school bus until my parents or her daughter and son-in-law would get home from work. During the summer I would spend all day over there playing and keeping company with her and later the little girl. I would help feed and change her when she was a baby, which made me feel like an adult and the beginning of a kind of bond the likes of which I would never have again.
They named the little girl Shannon. She was the cutest little thing, from the time she was just a baby she had the sweetest smile for me and was always anxious for me to hold her. When she got a little bigger, and grew hair it was blonde and her eyes were as clear and blue as the sky above on a fresh spring day, the same as her mother’s, whom, I had seen once or twice before they left the baby to stay with the grandparents,. I grew to love Shannon and she loved me.
I remember there were several occasions when the neighbors called our house to have my mother send me over in the middle of the night to calm Shannon down and get her back to sleep. I remember she had a good set of lungs on her, because we could hear her crying all the way over to our house. That was when I found out that baby’s had nightmares too. I can’t imagine what a tiny little baby could be having a night mare about but it must have been scary. Shannon would wake-up and start crying for me, by name, or as close as she could say it at her age.
That was my first taste of what a mother must feel like. It was like a sword to my heart, every time my mom would come and get me up to go over and help with Shannon, never knowing if there was something seriously wrong or if it was just another bad dream I would hurry over without a second thought about changing out of my pajamas into something more acceptable. At the same time, it gave me such a warm feeling to know that Shannon loved me so much that she could not feel safe until I was there to hold her. This was a very heady experience for a teenage girl and the feelings I had at those times were almost overwhelming.
I can’t remember the whole story as to why her Mother and Father were not there or why they didn’t take Shannon with them but I remember thinking what a shame they were missing all these years with this beautiful, loving child and hoping, they were regretting every moment of it. At the same time I felt something akin to hate toward them for abandoning her. A few years went by, Shannon was 4 or 5 when the parents came back and claimed this beautiful child that meant the world to me. After that I was only able to see her on the occasional weekend and then a few years later they moved away to another state and I rarely saw Shannon again and when I did our treasured bond was brittle and strained after the return of her true mother.
To this day, those times are remembered with feelings of love and loss. As God would have it, for whatever reason, I was never able to be a mother to children of my own, no matter how hard my husband and I tried to conceive. Since then, I have lived my life trying, to be the best aunt to my nieces and nephews as well as a friend to the children and young people I cross paths with. If you have children, treasure them, if not, treasure the ones that are not yours. Children are our gifts from God.
deb dobs
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Added: May 4, 2009
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