We lost a child in our family today, she was only six years old. My husband's adopted sister, a full-blooded Lakota Sioux. She was put into foster care upon her birth, and luckily found our family. She did not have to endure being shuffled from foster home to foster home because she needed so much special care. This little girl was one of the sweetest and happiest I have ever met. Always smiling, always playful. As my daughter said, "At least she lived long enough to learn to do a somersault."*
The pathetic female that gave birth to her was a drug addict. She did so much garbage while she was pregnant, that her child was born with her insides on the outside of her body. Her first experience in this world was a surgery to save her life. Her life has been riddled with health problems, these issues have increased dramatically in the last two years. She's had tubes coming out of her body for most of her life, has frequently needed feeding tubes. Constantly getting infections. For the last year or so she has been in and out of comas; had issues with her ammonia levels jumping and her potassium levels dropping. Seizures had also come to besiege her. Recently she got an infection that moved in and attacked her liver and kidneys, basically killing them. In desperate need of a transplant, but not clear of infection and therefore ineligible. The doctors did their best for her, but her poor little body couldn't take anymore.
The fact that the thing that did this to her is still wandering this earth having never spent a day in jail, and probably still doing drugs infuriates me. This creature robbed a child of any choices or even the ability to ever be healthy. I will not refer to her as human, because anyone that can do such a thing isn't.
All this is made harder because we are 1200 miles away, and cannot be there to say goodbye or for our family. She will be remembered and loved by us always. I am glad that in her life, she knew unconditional love; and her parents and two of her siblings were able to be with her as she departed from this world.
*My daughter is very torn up over this. We just lost my grandpa in May, and less than three months later she loses an aunt that was also a playmate and friend. I know she will be fine, she knew of her aunt's bad health. She knows that her aunt isn't in pain anymore and was surrounded by family at the end. Her pain doubles my own.
