bella Donna

Each spring I go down to Mexico as a leader with my high school youth group. We work at a little orphanage in the hills of San Antonio, Baja California. One of the neatest aspects of the trip is that we get to build relationships with the orphanage kids who are there year after year. Last year a little two year old girl chose me to hold her each day. This year she did the same thing. I don’t know that she remembered me, but I remembered her. This year she was able to tell me her name. Donna. As I held her in my arms she would gaze up at my face, her hand on my cheek and say, “Te amo,” which is “I love you.”

It warmed my heart to hold that little girl in my arms. Yet I recognized that she has some definite attachment issues. I think of my own nieces and nephews at that age and how long it would take them to let a stranger hold them, while she had no hesitation in lifting her chubby arms to me. What truly broke my heart happened one day in the dining area of the orphanage. Donna had tripped and was crying. But she wasn’t crying for anyone. She wasn’t calling for her mama. She wasn’t calling for anyone. She was just crying. I picked her up and thought how if my niece, Bella, was hurt she would cry for her mom. But Donna doesn’t have a mom to cry for.

What does that do to a little girl or a little boy? I think of my own mom and how much she has shaped the woman I am today. What would my life look like if she hadn’t been there for me when I was three? Or if she left when I was fifteen? It completely breaks my already broken heart.

You are my first memory
You taught me to walk, to ride a bike
Each night you tucked me in tight
Rubbed my back and sang me to sleep
You laugh with me, hold me, and weep when I weep
You held my hand the first day of school (and the second and third)
And have always encouraged me ‘til my fears were assured
Thank you for reading “Tilly’s House” again and again
For teaching me to find joy even in the mundane
For making me brush my teeth
And trying to make me comb my hair
You raised us six to love and to share
You’ve always encouraged my dreams
And put up with all my wanderlust schemes
You showed me that individuality is something to be celebrated
And that each of us has a purpose for being created
Your life and love has pointed me to the Creator
I can think of no other task that could be greater
You are the most beautiful woman I have ever known
Wherever you are is where I call home
Thanks for always listening
Even at one in the morning when I was wired ‘cause I slept in ‘til noon
You are my ideal
And I hope to one day be
The kind of Godly woman and mother that you’ve been to me