Tomorrow, it will be 11 years, and a Sunday it was on that year too.  Sherod and I flew to Mexico City early in the morning.  There are so many memories, joyful and heartbreaking, of that day.  The one we’ve struggled with the longest is the memory of leaving Hogar y Futuro that Sunday morning.  Maria was in Sherod’s arms and I was walking alongside.  Literally, we had dozens of little children like Maria clinging to us, our hands, our arms, our legs, begging to get to go home with us too.  And we couldn’t.

When we visited BARC, Maria’s new home, a couple of weeks ago, we found out that many of the people that live there have no families, no contact with anyone beyond those walls.  We were warned that we are going to have a whole bunch of new members of the family who will be as happy and excited to see us and be with us as Maria when we come visit.  It occurred to me that in that strange and lovely way of time, we are being given a chance to say the yes now that we were not able to say to the little ones we left behind in Mexico.  It’s like Garth Brooks sings, “our life it’s better left to chance. I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance.”