[Dean Thoreau]

My son john was removed from his birth parents when he was 11 months old...for severe neglect and abuse...he weighed less at 11 months of age then when he was born....

He was hsopitalized then placed in a foster home......with 11 other children...when he turned 2 he was still very sickly and a doctor thought...he would test him for HIV....sure enough he was positive....
he was then removed from the foster home and placed with me for adoption. at the age of 2 3/4..

at the age of 7 he died....

I had the opportunity to meet john's birth parents at the funeral home.....(I had asked my adoption agency to notify the birth parents that he had died and said they could come to the funeral home if they desired..they were both incarcerated..so special arrangements were made and i decided i wanted to meet these horrible horrendous people..that gave john AIDs, that abused him,,,that starved him..did all those things...that ended up resulting in his very premature death....


I was not exactly sure what I was going to do when i saw them...prison guards and police there or not...in my mind i planned on ripping them to shreds....verbally, physically and shaking them till i got a answer out of them that explained WHY.....How...WHY...and after i got the answers i figured i would just rip them from limb to limb ....

Well in walked two tiny frail people,with handcuffs on...,who were very scared..who were both obviously not well, the guards etc allowed them to come into the room where john's body casket was...and gave us some privacy...

these two people who i hated, despised desired to just rip apart with my bare hands were in the same room as i...
they looked at me...i motioned ot them the direction of johns casket and they walked over knelt down and with handcuffs blessed themselves and viewed their birth child..... spent a few moments and then his birth mom came over to me and said...

"Im sorry your son died."

I was a bit taken back by the comment...the birth father came over and said the same thing.
then the three of us sat down and talked. for a while...
i did not kill them
i did not beat them
and after that day i could not hate them...

There are some things that will never have answers.....because the people involved truly do not know the answers....no I did not ask them Why did u abuse him.....and neither fo them offered an explanation because is there any explanation other then SICKNESS ....that would explain it....

There is nothing an 11 month old child could do to deserve abuse, starvation....so there is no answer why......other than sickness..not physcical sickness but severe emotional illness..



I did forgive them
I also thank them because yes I thanked them.... due to their carelessness and unhealthy habits they contracted a disease that was passed on to john in utero....
yes they did a horrible thing from the time he was born until he was 11 months old.....

But, in selfishness I must say..Thank You....my life was changed by the fact that he came into my life.
My life was touched in such a remarkable way by those almost 5 years that he lived on this earth and called me mom.
My heart became fuller and I shall never forget or stop missing my son john... did his birth parents love him....yes...they did....could they care for themselves or him NO they could not...
were they capable of caring for themselves or him when he was removed..no they were not...
it was not because they had aids it is and was because they were SICK...they had numerous sicknesses AIDS was the least of them;
they had the sickness of addiciton, the sickness of emotinal instability, the sickeness of poverty, the sickeness of inability to disern right from wrong...the sickness of the inability to control their own behavior....
Those things require a great deal of medical attention...and those sicknesses do not allow one to be capable of caring for a baby or a child.

See where everyone gets hung up is on the " love" isuue.

love exists..it is the sicknesses that clouds the love from being seen.

When you say a woman takes the "easy" way out when a child is placed for adoption....if that is how you convince yourself and contend with the anger you have regarding your birth parent.

It is ok to be angry at them for...choosing to give you life.....
but please remember you deserve to be alive!

It is ok to be angry at them for abusing you,....
but please remember you deserved and still deserve to be free of abuse.

It is ok to be angry at them cause you question their love...
but please remember you deserved and do deserve to be loved.

it is ok to feel anyway you need to feel and do feel...
but please remember you deserve the right not to use that as an excuse to not be the best person you can possibly be!