My Very Favorite Birthday Gift

It will be my birthday in a few minutes. Twenty one years ago today Pete and I took LaNelle and Peter (18 months and five months) to visit my Mom and Gramps in Chicago, Illinois. Little did we know that we had a daughter there, waiting for us. My birthday is always doubly special to me because it was on my birthday in 1986 that we met Heather. She was just barely 13 and she had braces and short spiky hair. She was such a tiny little thing and she grabbed my heart immediately. I remember being restless and unable to sleep that night. For some reason unknown to me then, I cried that night after everyone was asleep. My heart was so tender towards this little motherless girl. She had helped LaNelle wrap a present for me and she cried when Jim made her leave that night. I think her tears just broke my heart. We left a few days later and all the way to New York (to visit Pete's mom) I thought about Heather and wondered why she meant so much to me. I think Pete thought I'd gone a lttle crazy (not a far trip for me, actually!). She came to visit us in Charlotte that summer. We took her to Tybee Island and she called my Dad " Father Tom" but with her accent, he thought she was saying "Father Time". She liked to drink milk but she called it "mulk" and we teased her. When she asked if she could walk to the beach by herself while we parked the van, Pete wondered why. I told him teenagers were often embarrassed by being seen with families. He looked surprised and said, "She sprayed her hair green and she has on combat boots and she's embarrassed to be seen with me?" I looked at him with his faded shorty short swim trunks, athletic socks to the knee and boat shoes and replied, "Yeah, well I'm embarrassed by both of you!" She was a swimmer and taught2 year old LaNelle to swim that summer. Pete's adoration of Heather was not as immediate as mine. He was kind to her and welcomed her to our home mainly because he knew it made me so happy. (It took Pete two years to accept the Gospel after he started reading the Book of Mormon. He ponders and holds himself back but once he's converted, they come no more dedicated than he. It was like that with Heather. )When she left to return to Chicago, it was as if my heart had been ripped out. I knew then that somehow, someday, Heather would be part of our family. And so she is!! By the time she came for good, Pete's heart was as captivated as mine. There is nothing he would not do for her or any of our children. I remember when her appendix ruptured and he about went insane trying to get to the hospital. He had a HUGE project going "live" at work and it was impossible for him to leave but he did. He just left. Immediately. There are many many people who do not understand how she became our daughter or how we could love so completely a child we did not have until she was a teenager. For years I was defensive and tried to make people understand. I would get so angry when well meaning people (even family at times) would say things like "your foster daughter" or "you are more like an aunt and uncle, right?" It was Pete who told me years ago, "Look. Ignore them. She is our oldest daughter. In my heart and yours, she is and always will be our daughter. Heavenly Father gave her to us just as he did the other 4 (this was pre-twins) and it isn't necessary that anyone other than Heather and our other children understand that. We are a family now and for eternity and that is all that is important!" As always, he was right.

So many memories! Heather teaching the kids to swim and Andrew embarrassing her, Heather driving Pete's old Chevette and calling it her "vette", Heather about killing some neighbor kids because she thought they were hurting Peter, Heather bringing me Peter when he was limp and blue and crying with me as we worked to save him, Heather taking Patti to school with her, Heather taking my Dillard's card and five year old LaNelle shopping and buying her a coordinated outfit for her first day of kindergarten, and then 8 years later taking her own credit cards and teenage LaNelle shopping after fussing at me first for not realizing LaNelle had no clothes, Heather at Christmas pretending she liked the hideous clothes I picked out for her, Heather freaking out at Hardees in Bishopville after Andrew..., and on and on and on...

She is beautiful, smart, kind and generous. She's also tough. Her brothers and sisters know that if they have a battle to fight, Heather will be there fighting with them (and for them if they let her even is she doesn't agree with their "side"). And when she hurts, they are devastated. I turn to her for support at every crisis and she is rock solid. She is the perfect big sister and daughter and I cannot imagine life without our precious girl!!! Especially since that would mean life without Kalib...the most amazing little boy to ever be born!

Heather was the most precious perfect birthday gift I ever received or ever could receive and I thank my Heavenly Father for her often but especially every year on October 24th!