Part One
Part Two


I have been through those stages. I am now at the stage of acceptance. I understand I am not going to be able to have the relationship with my daughter that I tried so hard to achieve. Of course I still have hope that someday we can start to build a mother/daughter relationship. But nothing will ever replace what I lost... or what she lost. And I can’t wake up each day any more and tell myself this will be the day she figures it out. I can’t live like that anymore. My hope is tempered with reality… too darn much reality.


The last thing I ever want to do is take away a parent’s hope. But me hiding in a corner with my story will not change someone else’s story that is unfolding the same way. That doesn’t mean EVERYONE’S story unfolds that way… just that some do.


In her 1997 book, The Limits of Hope, Ann Kimble Loux gives a sad but truthful account of adopting two very young, seriously abused sisters. Reviews of the book read much like the comments on my blogs… some understand the message and the messenger, some hate the message but don't kill the messenger, and some shoot the messenger to avoid even contemplating the message. I haven’t read the book for awhile (but fully related to it when I first read it) so it would be wise for me to reread it at this stage of my journey with Amy. But even if Ann was not the best parent, and even if she didn’t address her own baggage as much as she might, or even if you find another bunch of reasons why it is OK to shoot the messenger… her story is still one of troubled kids not getting better. It happens.

I have another child that did get better. I often write about her as well. Perhaps six months from now when I am not faced daily with the reality of living with Amy, I’ll be talking about entirely different things. But right now, this weekend, last week, last month, and last year (and years and years before that) I have lived with a child who didn’t get better. For whatever reason. And that is my reality.