An open letter to Jade's Birth Mother....

I sat with my baby girl as she started to drift back to sleep after one of her nightmares and studied the fetchers of her face.  The small button nose, the beautiful almond shaped eyes, the small scar she has on her cheek.  My mind drifted like it often does to someone a million miles away.  Someone I think of every time Jade looks at me and says “I love you soo much mommy.”  It was funny that today we were at a bbq and one of the children, one who has known us for a while asked where Gabbie had gone. My husband had stopped by and taken her home for a bath and bed after a long day and that left me, Amber and Jade to stay and enjoy ourselves.  Jade was busy having fun swimming as I watched her and one of the little girls asked where Jade’s mom was.  I said I was her mom.  But she then asked, no her other mom.  I sat and had to think for a second how to answer this question.  For Jade she never asks about her, and we have our own story and time we talk about her, but I have never had to answer a child’s question yet as to where her mom was.  I just explained that she couldn’t take care of her and asked for parents who could.  The real story is too sad.  I explained that China asked us to be her parents and we were more than happy to give her the love and home she needed.   Now at 4 in the morning, as I sat there staring at her, I wished for a way to tell her about the child she will never have the chance to know.  And then thought of this…

Dear Birth Mother,

You are one of the bravest women I will never have the chance to know.  The only clue I have to your existence is the beautiful little girl who call me mommy.  5 years ago, you gave birth to a baby girl.  One you must have loved because you kept her with you for a month and left her to be found with money to care for her.  I often wonder if you waited and watched that someone found her quickly all the while in agony listening to her cries and wanting to run to hold her close one last time.  I’m sure from time to time you think of her and wonder how she is.  I know this letter will never find you although from one mother to another I wish there was a way it could.  I want to ease your fears and tell you about this amazing child you gave birth to.  The one who 4 years ago came into my life and changed it forever.

I will never know the name you gave her or if the day we celebrate her birthday is in fact that day.  I will never know what it felt like to feel her move the first time or nurse her.  Those are the few memories you will have to cherish of her.  I often wonder if you checked the paper for her finding ad to see if she was okay or where she was, even know you could not speak up in fear you would be punished. This letter is my way of telling you about her more, so that you know how she is and that she is loved.

The orphanage named her Rulan, and cared for her for over a year while they looked for parents for her. In that time she grew and found her love of music.  When we adopted her she was 16 months old, scared to be with strange looking people who spoke funny and didn’t know what she liked. We named her Jade Mei Rulan. Mei Mei for short. The one thing that connected us was music.  That first night on the TV was music and she would move her head from side to side and shack her hands gently to the rhythm.  It took her 3 days but finally she relaxed and accepted me as her mother.

She is 5 now and so full of life.  Her smile brings me out of my bad days.  She loves to sing and dance.  She is so smart.  She went to her first Broadway play and sung all the songs from the show she knew.   She can hear a song and only after the third time can sing it word for word.  She loves to snuggle and hug.  She is a flirt.  We cannot go anywhere without her finding a little boy to sit and play with.  She has an older sister, a gigi as you would say. They are the best of friends.  She had such a big heart.  If someone is sad she is the first one to hug them.  Have I mentioned how smart she is?  She can add and subtract.  She loves to read and always wants to know how to spell something or what does that mean.  She will be starting school this fall.  She is scared but excited to go to learn and make new friends.

We talk about you often.  We pray for you at night.  And tonight as I tried to help her to go back to sleep, I asked her if she saw that her and I looked different.  She said yes but not really.  I don’t see that we do.  I forget sometimes that I didn’t have the privilege to give birth to her.  She was born from my heart as we say in her story. 

I wanted you to know, mother to mother, how I feel about you.  There are no words I will ever be able to think of to say how grateful I am to you.  You have given me the most beautiful gift anyone ever could have.  I am so honored to be her mother and to give her the love that you wanted to.  To hear her call me mommy and to see the life in her eyes as she swings on a swing letting her hair fly around her and hearing her laugh is priceless.  I truly wish there was a way to share that with you.  I see you in her.  Though we will never meet, I see your face in hers and know that she was loved once by you and still is although she is so far away.  And one day I hope for you to meet her.  So that both her and I can tell you thank you.

For now, I promise you that she will continue to be loved and cared for.  That she will go to school and become whatever she wants to be, although I think she may be a singer or on Broadway someday.  I will always love her as my own, and protect her as you would have.  She will grow to be a strong independent loving woman, who is so grateful to us both for the life we have given her.  Yours by her birth and mine by my love and guidance.  She will know she has truly had the best of both worlds and the love of two women who never met but both loved her as our daughter.  

Peace, Love, & Hope~JC

Six Sentence Sunday "Autumn Wind"

     Luis grabbed the camera from Kevin and ordered that the digitals be pulled up on the screen.  He was prepared to put this young punk in his place. But what he saw was a different story all together.  Instead of the normal dry expressions and look, there was life.  The girl’s cheeks were rosy and their expressions were playful.  He sneered and looked at Kevin. Straighten his back and shaking what little hair he had left. “Tomorrow, 1 pm to review your shots and conclude the interview.” He snapped, and then clicking his heels like something out of the Wizard of Oz, he walked out of the room in a huff.

Zen

Today is a fresh new start.  In a way I'm closing the chapter of one part of my life and moving on to another.  There are other chapters that need to be closed but I have to start small.  In all honestly I didn't want to close this chapter, but sometimes things get to the point that you have to.  Things have been said and feelings hurt but this is what it finally came down to. 

Now I need to get myself to focus on other things I need to change.  I was told I have changed in the past year.  I know I have, you can't go through what I have and not.  But now is the time to shift the focus and put it on myself so I can be a better person.  I can't let what people say and do have such an effect on me anymore.  It just throws me off balance.  I need to find myself again and work from there. 

It's a little scary, I wont lie.  But I am looking forward in the changes that will come.  I will lose friends, but the real ones will remain.  True friends stand by you no matter what.  I'm seeing that now. What is important is that I'm a stronger person for my children and I show them not to let anything or anyone hold them down.  That you should find happiness and not settle for what you think is what everyone wants.  To trust your gut and if something doesn't feel right, walk away before it is too late. But most important, never regret what you have gone through or the choices you made.  Those choices are lessons that you grow from.

 You can't live in the "What If?".  I have been trying to do that and can't anymore.  You are only left wondering if the chance you had with someone is the only one you get.  For me, I'm realizing that now.  As much as I wonder if there ever will be another chance, I have to wake up and see the light.  The chance I though may be there is gone.  Again, time to move on.  Time to find peace in my life again.

Peace, Love, &Hope~JC

Six Sentence Sunday "Summer Rain"

Climbing in to bed next to her, he looked into her eyes.  “Are you sure?” He softly kissed her. 

Chloe took her purity ring off her pinky, and taking his hand, placed it in his palm and closed his fingers around it. “I’m giving myself to you, my love.  I have never wanted anything more.”

“Give me your hand.” He said softly and reached for her left hand.  He took off the ring he had given her earlier and in its place, he slipped his ring on her finger.  “Someday I’m going to marry you and this will be real.  But for tonight, pretend it’s real.  That you’re my bride and this is our wedding night.” He requested as he put the promise ring on top of his so it wouldn’t slip off.  Chloe put her hand to his face and kissed his as her reply. 

Being a Mom

Mother’s Day…

Those two words have always been important to me.  I know we still have two days until Mother’s Day, but today is my mom’s birthday and well, I wanted to do this today. 

As a child, when we are at school, we prepare for this day in many ways.  We put our little hands on colored paper with a poem or we plant a flower in a paper cup.  Make noodle art or even dare I say a picture of our “Moms”.  As we grow we start to miss the meaning and opt for a card, or mumble it to them as we rush out the door with friends.  And sometimes when it is too late, we realize just how important this woman is or the role they played in making us who we are.

My mother, who is still very much alive, taught me so many life lessons.   Ones that she may have not known it at the time, but have stayed with me forever.   After my parents divorced, she fell apart.  But then it kicked in.  That “I need to be strong for my children” drive most all mothers have.  She always gave and went without so that we could be happy and have what we needed.  She made mistakes along the way, but hey, we are all only human and that’s how we learn and teach our own children.  She cut the strings with me early, (well, I yanked them free) and let me learn on my own from my mistakes.  And so created in more than one way…Who I am.

I can remember early on when playing with my dolls, the one thing I had wanted to be was a mom.  There was one time as a teen I had prayed to be a mom and then a few times I had prayed that I wasn't.  But I was blessed in a way.  I have been able to experience becoming a mother in two different ways.  I had trouble getting pregnant, well, staying pregnant, hence why I never was able to be a teen mom.  (Again, in some ways great, in one way bad but that’s not what this is about)  When it finally happened, I was 26.  I remember feeling her move for the first time and thinking “Oh my God, I will never be the same again.”  And then as my pregnancy got harder and I had problems and was put on bed rest, I thought of how I didn’t care if I lived through this, as long as my child was safe and would live.  And as it was, on December 4, 1997 my first child was born.  I can’t explain the feelings.  I held the most beautiful baby girl in my arms and could not believe I had done this.  I had made it through and now I am a mother.  Something that became only all too real the first night home as I walked this child trying to make her go back to sleep if only for an hour so I could.  I finally said out loud, “When is your mother coming to get you.”  Reality slap, I was her mother and I was there and I would lose more than one night’s sleep for this child if need be just so she could feel safe and loved.

Then after trying to have another child years later and suffering miscarriages, it was that baby girl who came to me and played a song called “I want a Mom” from the Rug Rats movie.  I had thought of adoption before and had tried to talk to my husband but this made it all the more real for me.  And so, we started the process.  On April 29^th, 2008, we got that long awaited call.  Five months later we boarded a plane to China and on September 16, 2008, my deliver room was a small conference room in China, where I became a mother again to a scared little girl who sucked her thumbs so bad, they were bleeding.  It took a few days for her to be sure but one afternoon 3 days later as I rocked her in my arms listening to a play list I had made for bed for her, she lifted her head and looked at me, finally making eye contact.  She let out a sigh and then putting her little head on my shoulder, fell fast asleep.  Later that day, I got the first smile out of her.

Now as her birthday falls on Mother’s day this year, I think of the woman who gave her life.  Who made the choice to leave her for us to find.  Who I am sure thinks of her and wonders how she is.  Someday I wish I could meet her and thank her for the gift she has given me that I could not give myself.  I hope someday to tell this woman how much a miracle this little girl is and how she has touched so many lives.  I want them to be able to meet and see that the choice she made as hard as it way, was the right one and that the little girl she wanted a better life for, had grown into the most amazing woman.  I know this first hand, because, I am watching it with my oldest and now my youngest.

But there is one more person I forgot.  The little girl I was asked to care for.  I know our time is getting shorter and soon she will be going back.  But for a year now, I have been her “Mommy” too.  And as I get ready to let her go back to her real mother, I pray the she will remember me and the love I had for her as well.  I will always pray for her safety and honestly as hard as this year has been, I will always look at her time with me as a blessing.

So Happy Mother’s Day to all the MOM’s out there.  The ones who give so much to a child or children and love them unconditionally, kiss the boo boos and calm the fears.  Make the difficult choices so that their children can have what then need in life.  Enjoy your day and count those little blessings no matter how much at times you may be pulling your hair out or breaking up fights.  In the end, they are still the sweet little faces we kiss good night and that God for blessing us with.

Peace, Love, and Hope~JC

My Dinner with Ares

Okay so as you know I have been known to do some really good book reviews.  And I can’t tell you how excited I am about my very good friend D. X. Luc new book “Touch of the Gods~ The Wager” that has just come out!  Imagine my surprise when she asked that instead of doing a “review” that I step outside of the box and do an interview with one of the characters.  I was so excited thinking that I could be interviewing Vanessa and ask her about her new life as a goddess or even her sister Willa who I don’t know I just feel a connection with. But then there is also the very loving and hot Hephaestus, who really I wouldn’t mind being touched by or his son who is also cupid, Eros. So reaching into D.X.’s goodie bag, I pull out a name and cringe.  ARES god of War and the biggest slime ball known to man.  Girls think of your worst boyfriend or a blind date.  Then times it by 100, and you get Ares!  But D.X. assures me it won’t be that bad, so I go a nearby cafe I am told to meet him at and…wait.  (Already not liking this after what I hear the guy’s does there.)

So I am sitting here waiting looking over my questions that are sure to stump the so called God of War when outside there is a loud roar of an engine and all I see is a mass of gray smoke that has now clouded this beautiful May day.  Then suddenly through the smoke comes the tall mysterious biker clad in the blackest leather, so dark it was darker then the darkest night.  His runs his fingers through is thick black hair to give it that bed head look as his gaze falls on me.  I can’t see his eyes through the mirrored sunglasses but I can only imagine what thought this huge hunk of a man has in store for me.  Clenching his cigar in his teeth, he smiles this sinister smile that let me know right away, I am in BIG trouble.

     He smells of a mixture of gun powder and dirt mixed with dare I say Axe body spray?  Standing before me I can’t help but notice how he towers over me and that with his glasses off, he is trying to undress me with his eyes. 

“You must be Ares; D.X. told me you were coming to meet me.  Have a seat.” I motion and he chuckles at me.  He pulls out the chair and turns it around so that he can straddle it.  I know he can hear the shakiness of my voices and I know it amuses him.

“So let’s get started shall we.”  I want to get this done suddenly as quickly as possible before he has the chance to smell my fear, or is it already too late?

Me: Have you read the book?

A: Only the parts with me in it

Me: What do you think about how the book played out?

A: I figured it would end that way. Mortals aren't perfect, right?

Me: Okay this isn’t going as I expected so let try this… What would you say your biggest asset is?

A: (Chuckling) Most would say my ego, but when you're blessed like me, the large “ego” makes sense.

Me: A little conceded aren’t we. How do you feel about being thought of as a villain so to speak?

A: Foolish mortal I'm war! What you'd expect? Snuggle Fresh the bear?

Me: Fine you want to play that, do you feel you were cheated out of your wager?  That they got the best of you and used an unfair advantage?

A: Whatever you saw on the Muse News concerning that incident with my brother is all false!

Me:  Wait, so you’re not afraid of scorpions?

A: NEXT QUESTION!

Okay I got the better of him with that one.

Me: How do you feel about Vanessa now?

A: Vanessa? Hmmm already forgot about her.

Me: So, do you think you and your brother will ever share that brotherly bond?  You know like other famous brothers?

A: Ha! Don't make me laugh.

Me: If you had it to do over again, what would you do different?

A: (smoke from the cigar encircling his head) Beat my bro's ass on Olympus before he left.

Me: Nice!  Okay lets mix things up a bit. What is your idea of a first date?

A: (Blowing the smoke at me now) Me on top, bottom, her on her knees. Fun times.

Me: Ah, yeah okay. Are you a boxer or brief man, or is commando the way to go?

A: (The grin on his face right now, god help me I’m really getting scared but in a good way.) Why don't you come and take a peek. I promise not to bite. Hard.

Me: Okay let’s change the subject.  So are you and the goddess of love still an item or are the rumors true that she might want to go back to Heph?

A: Who said Aphrodite and I were a thing? Not I? Was it Himeros? If that dirty bastard of a son told that lie, I'll extend his death sentence.

Me: They were seen having dinner together, what are your feelings on that?

A: What? WHAT?! That dirty stupid.... I mean, who cares? I don't.

Good I frazzled him for once.

Me: And are you a mamma’s boy?

A: No. Next question.

Me: (Laughing) Does the god of War ever have ED?

A: (A little put off by that) Never. War is never brought down.

Me: If you were gay, who would be your main man?

A: (clearly nervous by this question) That one time meant nothing! I'm Greek and things were different in the past.

Me: If your brother was here right now what would you say to him?

A: Bum leg getting you down, bro? Ha ha!

Me: That’s…just mean.  Okay last question, anything you want the world to know before we end this interview?

A: Never think peace is the answer to war. She's my daughter and pretty much a daddy's girl so won't mess with my work.

Me: On that note, we are going to end stop, now.  It has been, a um pleaser?  If you’ll excuse me, I need to use the Ladies Room, thank you for this lovely interview.”

A:  Your quiet welcome my dear.  You go ahead; I’ll be there in a minute!

Okay whatever he means by that I have no clue, but be sure to go to Amazon and get “Touch of the Gods~ The Wager” First book in the God/Goddess Series by D.X. Luc.  I’m suddenly going to get the hell out of here and take a shower.  War suck!

When love and war makes a little wager, what could possibly go wrong?

I am Hephaestus. God of inventions, blacksmiths, and volcanoes. Sounds like I'm awesome right? Well, I'm not. In fact, I'm the loser of Olympus and a new bachelor to boot. Living the single life had been great until a decade passed and if my divorce from the Goddess of Love wasn't bad enough, I was still being rejected by the other women of my home.

Because of an incessant need to make me a pawn in his game, my brother, Ares convinces Eros to make a little bet. A wager that puts my lack of love life to the test. Sent to Earth, I'm skeptical, when suddenly I lose myself in the sensual scent and beauty of the full bodied Vanessa. She is my everything, my perfection.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0080S7PS4

Six Sentence Sunday "Summer Rain"

     He held her in his arms and looked into her eyes. The heals she wore made her just about eye level with him and it was easier to see them sparkly as she looked at him. “You two really don’t do that do you?” He had to ask her. 

     Chloe giggled. “Why?”

    “Because Kevin is right, that is kinda hot.” He kissed her nose.

     Chloe looked at him and touched his lips with her fingers.  “The only lips I want to kiss are these.” Softly she kissed him

Lost

Interesting title don't you think?  Lately I feel like my life is spiraling out of control.   Family issues and such have made it almost imposable to pull myself out of this depression that is setting in.  Writing right now is almost non existent because I can't concentrate to even focus on it and when I do, it comes out dark and forced.  I use to be so good at hiding everything and not letting people see just  how bad things really were.  Lately I'm not so good at it.  I realize that alot of us do just that.  We hide behind blank smiles only to hide the real pain and unhappiness we feel inside.

For me, I feel lost.  I wont go into why or what is really going on, just that I'm lost and no matter how many of my friends rally to my side, I feel alone.  See I have always been the strong one.  Everyone relies on me when things get bad.  I seem to get people through when a things happen, that now the strength I though I had, is now lost with me.  And the one person I thought I could rely  on to be my strength can't be.  I'm not sure if its because this person doesn't want to or that they need me to just do it myself or doesn't know how to, but they just are not really there.

I have come to question who I am now and how have I been that strong person when, at night, when the house is quiet, I cry myself to sleep just wishing things were different.  I realize that in my stories, the passion and emotion I put forth is what I'm searching for. 

Now I'm at that crossroad.  Do I continue and take the path that is so easy to just lock away everything and let these feelings stay hidden, or do I finally face them and take the road off the beaten trail and try to see if someone will listen to me with out laughing at my mear suggestion of what I need.  I have been laughed at so much when I say how I feel because no one really thinks that I'm serious. That I seem to have it all together so why all the sudden am I even suggesting I want a little more. 

There is a song that Michael Buble sings called "Lost".  I listen to that song over an over and wish someone would tell me, I'm not lost.  Right now, I think, I really need to try and find my way.

Peace, Love & Happiness~JC