Today I offer the introduction to a re-release of a book which deals with a subject that I am quite passionate about: bullying.

Bullied as a child, I am well aware of the damage to a child's self-esteem, feelings of security and safety, and joy in life.  The time of my travail lasted from age seven to eleven, finally ending when I fought back.

One can only imagine my feelings when my son began to experience the same problem, not because, like me, he was poor, ill fed and dressed, but for the simple reason that, like the author, he was born...different.  Christopher was born with a moderately severe clefting of the lip, gums and hard and soft palates.

His bullying began in first grade.  Thankfully, his teacher was one who could not abide such behavior.  Unfortunately, my son's art teacher could not claim the same intolerance to bullying.  Although he won a state award for his artwork, she flunked him, and was heard saying to another teacher, "I can't stand looking at that deformed mouth," and affecting a dramatic shudder.

In middle school, my son was again bullied because of his clefting, and once again, a teacher was also involved.

Disgusting, unconscionable, unbelievable! But it exists.

In The Snake Pit: Jr. High Can be Torture,  the author touches on this subject, and in a style that I can only compare to The Laramie Project, chronicles the life of a young girl who is bullied simply because she looks different.  Pay attention!  This book should be in every school, and most definitely should be made into a documentary.

The Snake Pit: Jr. High can be Torture Synopsis:

Cinda doesn't look like other twelve-year-old girls. A facial defect, and the surgery to correct it, has left her face scarred and disfigured. When she walks into Hargrove Junior High for the first time, Cinda knows the other kids won't see how smart she is, or what a good friend she could be. The other kids will see her as a monster, and her life will be torture.

The school cafeteria, or The Snake Pit, as the kids call it, is the prime location for bullying. One pretty girl in particular takes an instant dislike to Cinda. Day after day she is pushed, tripped, and laughed at. Not all the other kids bully her, but only one tries to help.

Charlene Carsten is Cinda's only friend. She tries to stop the bullying, but the other kids won't listen. She tries to tell the Principal, but he only sees what he wants to. She tries to tell the teachers, but they all say the same thing, “kids will be kids.”

When Cinda falls victim to a vicious prank at a school dance, it sets off a series of events that will change the lives of everyone involved.

Order your copy here, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NJCKFCO/,ask your library to carry it, and definitely ask your school to include this book in their curriculum.

Courage Smells Like a Hospital

 

We walk into Children's Hospital holding hands.  You are terrified.  You have already endured numerous operations, but at age eight, this is the first one you have faced with some idea of what is happening.

You are trembling.

Minutes seem like hours.  They test your oxygen level, take your blood pressure, ask a million questions.  I have kept as much of this as possible from you, but you sense my distress.  I have told you that you will have an operation.  I will not lie to you, but you guess that I haven't given you the entire story.

You cling to me.

The smell is all-pervasive.  It is an antiseptic smell, an indefinable "no smell”: cleaning fluids, anesthesia, rubbing alcohol, all mixed into one.  It almost hurts to breathe it in, like too clean air invading my lungs, leaving them empty.   I know you will remember it.  In the future, something will trigger the memory of it and you will relive the terror of today.
They take us to pre-op.  Here the smell is more definable: sharp, astringent – like sandpaper as it rakes past my nostrils.
You look at me, and your eyes well with unshed tears.  You know that this is one of the "biggies."  They will take a large portion of bone from your tiny hip and replace the missing bone in your upper gum line: the alveolar ridge.  You sense that it will hurt.

You are afraid.

The smell is starting to make me ill.  Or is it fear?  Once again, I will be turning you, my baby, my little love, over to strangers.

They will cut.

The anesthesiologist arrives and takes your hand.  You look at me with glistening, tear filled eyes, and smile.  Your back straightens.  Your chin lifts and just as those big double doors swing shut, you raise your hand and sign, "I love you."


Copyright 2010 Debra Shiveley Welch
Excerpt from Son of My Soul - The Adoption of Christopher
Library of Congress Copyright 2014 Debra Shiveley Welch 

Operation Smile Donations Being Matched Dollar for Dollar!

Every year, Operation Smile rescues thousands of children ravaged by deformities from lives of despair and rejection while strengthening healthcare systems. Only our combined support makes this possible.

I hope you'll help me bring hope to even more children and their communities.

Operation Smile donations are being matched! Help me repair another child. Go here to donate! http://goo.gl/byrK87

Every spring, Chris and I order butterfly caterpillars. We have an inexpensive, one gallon aquarium, where we keep them safe and snug, while they munch themselves to ten times their size, finally go into chrysalis, and then - the butterfly.

Usually, everything goes very well. We watch them with awe...eagerly awaiting the beautiful painted lady butterfly that we know will emerge. They hatch...they dry their wings ... and then Chris, oh so carefully, places them on his finger, gently releasing them outside. He always says, "Goodbye my baby. Be happy! Be safe!"

This year, things didn't turn out the way we'd hoped. We got our five caterpillars, and gave them a snug, safe "womb" in which to develop. We watched them with delight as they grew and grew, finally making that long journey up the sides of their jars to the lid, where they formed their "J" to go into the chrysalis stage. With anticipation, we awaited the hatching, eager to see those beautiful orange and black wings spread out in flight. But, something went wrong.

Two butterflies were born with mangled, twisted wings. They couldn't fly. I waited a day, giving them sugar water, to see if the process was just taking longer than usual. Things didn't improve. Finally, I took them out into the bright sunlight, thinking that God's healing sun would dry their little wings. That's when I noticed they didn't have all of their legs. Sadly, I told Chris to put them in the rose garden and leave them, hoping he wouldn't be there to see the inevitable: a bird swooping down to capture them to feed her young. Such is the way of nature I reasoned. It's the only way.

As Chris was dutifully taking them down to place them by the roses, totally innocent of what I was asking him to do to his beloved butterflies, it occurred to me: nature doesn't HAVE to be this way. They don't have to be "perfect" in the literal sense of the word. If they couldn't pollinate and procreate, their right to exist wasn't automatically negated. They could just be themselves, giving pleasure to a six-year-old little boy who loved them, and was willing to turn them loose simply for their own good.

Yes, their wings were mangled, and they flopped when they tried to walk, but they had their own beauty, their own value, their own perfection.

Chris and I are keeping the butterflies until they die a natural death. I know it will be hard for Chris when they die. He wont' be able to look for them next spring, thinking that every painted lady he sees is his beloved Sam or Lou, but he will learn a very valuable lesson, and I'm pleased to learn it with him.

You see, Chris is adopted. My husband and I were the seventh couple called. Chris was headed for Children's Services because he wasn't "perfect." He was born with a moderately severe unilateral clefting of the lip, gum, and hard and soft palates. While he was carrying his butterflies down to the rose garden, I suddenly thought – what if we had not been contacted, and Chris had not come home to me? I would not be here, in this garden, enjoying the unique beauty and perfection of my son. I would not know of his goodness, his sweetness, his gentleness, and my life would not be as full and rich as it has become.

I called Chris to me, and oh so carefully, we returned Sam and Lou to their "womb" for safe keeping. Within their imperfection dwelt perfection; their existence, a lesson so gratefully learned. I looked at my son, and saw him smile. I think that he understood long before I did.

Debra Shiveley Welch

©2007

A Face Only a Mother Could Love?

Recently I read an email from a young mother of a one month old baby born with cleft lip and palate. Her tearful post recounted a scene in her local grocery store earlier that day. As I read her account of what had taken place, I remembered a similar incident which happened to me and my son, and the anger began to build.

First, let me say that we mothers of children born with craniofacial anomalies are as proud and in love with our babies as any other mother. With today's sonograms and diagnostics, a mother often knows quite early in the pregnancy that her child will be born cleft affected. She has time during the pregnancy to mourn the loss of the child she envisioned and to accept that the baby she will bear will not be "perfect." And so, as she labors to bring forth her child, like most mothers giving birth, she is mainly concerned with birthing a living, healthy baby.

To those of us who adopt, our image of our little one changes many times with each attempt and failure at adoption until, finally, our baby is placed in our arms. When we first look into the face of our child, we see just that - our child. So it was with me when I first beheld my Christopher. To me, he was so beautiful, and I couldn't wait to show him off.

I remember the day I took my son to the grocery store to introduce him to my friends there. I had been shopping at this particular store for many years and the employees and customers had gone through each adoption attempt and failure with me. I had received a call from the manager congratulating my husband and me on our good fortune and was told that everyone at the store was anxious to finally meet the "Kroger Baby." I placed my two-week old son in the protective seat attached to the grocery cart and wheeled Chris and cart through the doors. I did not push the cart down the isles; I strutted behind it. I was a mother! Look at what I have! We did it! Isn't he beautiful! Isn't he wonderful! Isn't he glorious! Look! Already you can see how smart he is! Isn't he the most gorgeous baby you've ever seen?

Soon we were surrounded by stock clerks, baggers, the managers and shoppers with whom I often talked to in the store. There were smiles, clapping of hands, tears. All exclaimed over their joy in our happiness and insisted on holding or kissing my new son. My triumph was complete.

Slowly the crowd began to disburse as people returned to their duties. One of the managers was just turning to leave when a voice broke the spell:

"What'd you bring that thing out of the house for! Haven't you got more sense then to make decent folks look at that thing?"

I was frozen to the spot where I had stopped to face the speaker. Mouth open, eyes wide in disbelief, I stared at what appeared to be a normal, middle-aged woman whose eyes glared with loathing upon my beautiful son. There was a gasp, a stirring and, still speechless, I watched the manager and two clerks escort the woman out of the store with the admonition to never return.

The faithfulness of my friends helped, but the pain of coming face to face with such ignorance and hate cut deep. Immediately I realized that my son, my sweet baby, would suffer because of people like this woman and my heart broke. Years later, I still felt the wound from that encounter and now, here before me, was the anguished account of a mother who had suffered from the same cruelty:

"He said, 'Why didn't you abort that monster! Get him out of here!' Why would someone say that about my baby? Why would he do that?"

The wound in my heart reopened and bled as the memory of the anger and hurt I had felt resurfaced. I could feel her pain, her misery, her grief. How could people be so blind to the beauty of a child? Couldn't they see the large, beautiful eyes, the tiny, starlike hands, the soft baby skin, the fine, delicate curls? What was wrong with them that they could not see the glory of a new life?

I sat back from my keyboard. The tears were now flowing as they had the day it happened to me and Chris. I searched for words of comfort. I desperately needed to ease her pain, to tell her it was all right. But how can you tell a mother that things will be fine when you know the world is full of such meanness, prejudice and hate? What words can change the hard fact that many people cannot see loveliness unless it conforms to society's definition of beauty?

I began to compose an answer to her post and felt my anger slowly dissolve into sadness and even pity: sadness for the people who allow fear and bigotry to rule their lives; pity for the man blind enough to be unable to see the beauty of a newborn life; pity for the woman who, years ago, displayed her own stupidity and a fear so consuming that she could attack an infant.

I wrote to the young mother and told her of these things. I knew that soon her pain and sorrow would be replaced with determination and courage: determination to teach her son that he is beautiful, that true beauty cannot be defined in clumsy, grammatical terms and that ignorance is a sickness. And courage - the courage to face that ignorance and say "You are wrong!" and try to educate the victims of that pernicious sickness.

Finally, I shared with her the quote that I wrote and placed on the adoption site I ran which encourages the adoption of children with craniofacial anomalies:

"The Perfect Child is the One in Your Arms."

She agreed.

©2006 Debra Shiveley Welch

Warning: All poems/articles/works by the author are protected by copyright laws against the risk of plagiarism. To safeguard the author, a regular search of the Internet is provided to ensure this law has not been broken! Any Website/Blog/Forum which displays Debra's work MUST have received her permission to do so.

Courage Smells Like a Hospital

We walk into Children's Hospital holding hands. You are terrified. You have already endured numerous operations, but at age eight, this is the first one you have faced with some idea of what is happening.

You are trembling.

Minutes seem like hours. They test your oxygen level, take your blood pressure, ask a million questions. I have kept as much of this as possible from you, but you sense my distress. I have told you that you will have an operation. I will not lie to you, but you intuit that I haven't given you the entire story.

You cling to me.

The smell is all pervasive. It is an antiseptic smell, an indefinable "no smell": cleaning fluids, anesthetic, rubbing alcohol, all mixed into one. It almost hurts to breathe it in, like too clean air invading my lungs, leaving them empty. I know you will remember it. In future, something will trigger the memory of it, and you will relive the terror of today.

They take us to pre-op. Here the smell is more definable: sharp, astringent -- like sandpaper as it rakes past my nostrils.

You look at me and your eyes well with unshed tears. You know that this is one of the "biggies." They will take a large portion of bone from your tiny hip and replace the missing bone in you upper gum line: the alveolar ridge. You sense that it will hurt.

You are afraid.

The smell is starting to make me ill. Or is it fear? Once again I will be turning you, my baby, my little love, over to strangers.

They will cut.

The anesthesiologist arrives and takes your hand. You look at me with glistening, tear filled eyes, and smile. Your back straightens. Your chin lifts and just as those big, double doors swing shut, you raise your hand and sign, "I love you."

Excerpt from Son of My Soul - The Adoption of Christopher ISBN: 1894936930 Debra Shiveley Welch, Saga Books  http://goo.gl/MWKYrB

©2007Debra Shiveley Welch

Warning: All poems/articles/works by the author are protected by copyright laws against the risk of plagiarism. To safeguard the author, a regular search of the Internet is provided to ensure this law has not been broken! Any Website/Blog/Forum which displays Debra's work MUST have received her permission to do so. (Permission to adopt statement given by its creator, Debbie Stevens.)

Cedar Woman

Cedar Woman is finally out after two years of intensive research, and a lot of fun in the writing. Launching a book is like raising a child in many ways: you have great hopes, are very proud, and worry about how it will survive out there in the big, wide world.

Paramount in my creating Cedar Woman was the wish to, not only write a book that my readers will enjoy reading again and again, but the desire to represent The People, the Lakota Sioux, with all respect, and with absolute truth to the best of my ability. I also wanted to show that their customs, beliefs and desires are universal in many ways, and deserve the respect any people deserve. To be able to write about these things intelligently, and with honor, I had to immerse myself into their culture as much as possible.

My sister, Julie Spotted Eagle Horse Martineau, was invaluable in the process of researching and understanding The People as far as their culture, beliefs and ceremonies were concerned. She spent endless hours on the phone with me and wrote many emails explaining everything from, what it is like to be struck by lightning, to how to build a sweat lodge.

With Julie’s help, I also learned a lot of the Lakota language. I’ve always loved listening to and learning new languages, and speak some Spanish and read a little French. Now I was learning yet another, word-by-word, and enjoying the flavor of the words of the Lakota Plains Native American, or NdN as The People prefer.

I had personally been through an Hunkapi, or Making of Relatives Ceremony, a Naming Ceremony, Sweat Lodge and Wopila or Thank You ceremony, and could draw from those experiences, but living in Central Ohio as I do, I needed to get to know my heroine, Lena Cedar Woman as well as I knew myself.

To get started, I set up character sheets. To make them come alive to my readers, my characters had to be living, breathing people to me.

On each sheet I wrote the character's name, appearance (hair, eye color, height, build), when and where they were born and when key things happened to them. Also included were likes, dislikes, any hobbies, quirks, basic personality, etc. They were ongoing reference sheets. That is, when something key happened to them, I added what it was, and when, and any other information I would need to be able to refer back to it.

I based my characters on people I knew or knew of. For instance, Michael Young Bear was based, physically, on Christopher Reeve, and Lena Cedar Woman on my cousin Vicki. I described Vicki to a tee when describing Lena, except for her anomaly, which I can’t divulge here. :-)

Logan was based on my sister Julie’s son Logan and my son Chris, rolled in to one, and Sonny Glass was based on the wonderful actor, whom I’ve had a crush on most of my life, Clint Walker.

Locations were taken from places I’d been. For instance, Lena’s condo is the condo I lived in before I married. Her house in Westerville is my house. Restaurants and apartments are all from buildings that I am familiar with from my childhood until now.

Then came the outline. It wasn’t carved in stone, but it gave me a road map. I also inserted dates on the outline because it can be so easy to get lost and mess up your dates, ages, etc.

Once the book began to take shape, I got a writing partner – a woman who was willing to invest a lot of time with me discussing the project: the characters, for instance, what they would wear, how they felt, how they would react to something or someone: like gossip, without consequences. Since I help her with her projects, this makes for a very comfortable relationship since we know each other’s writing styles intimately.

Research begun, characters created and documented, a few hours on the phone with my writing partner, outline written, I began to write. (I write sequentially as a general rule.)

As I finished each chapter, my partner read it, looking for typos, punctuation, spelling, grammatical errors, and as the story progressed, continuity. Did I forget to check one of my references pages and mess up a date? Did I decide to change the age of a character in chapter four and forget to go back and change it in chapters one - three? That sort of thing.

I remember the first time I read Barbara Taylor Bradford's Hold The Dream, the sequel to A Woman of Substance - one of my favorite books. I was a little disappointed when I read, "being identical twins," when referring to Paula's babies. Either this was a major brain burp, or at one point in writing the book, Ms. Bradford had the children as both boys or both girls. Somewhere she apparently changed her mind, making one a boy and one a girl, and forgot to change the identical twin reference. It taught me a valuable lesson and it is one of the reasons I have a writing partner. Had I been Ms. Bradford's, the mistake would have been caught. Okay, well one can dream, can't they!

Once the book was completed, I again edited, and then I edited, and then I....edited. When that was completed, I found three volunteers to read the book. Their reward being that they don't have to buy the book to enter the raffle and win prizes which is coming up in March.

One looks simply for punctuation, one for spelling and grammar and one for continuity and ambiguity. (I know what I was saying, does the reader?)

Before I began writing, and then half way through the book, I traveled to powwows, where Native Americans of different tribes gather to celebrate their culture, dance and beliefs, with my sister, Julie Spotted Eagle Horse, or Spot as her friends call her. Stepping into the arena to dance was very intimidating. I don’t like being the center of attention, yet there I was, dancing unfamiliar steps, while at the same time, trying to show deep respect. It was a good time, and I learned a lot. I made many new friends with whom I remain in touch, experienced new foods, admired endless adorable babies, and witnessed the devotion the dancers have, not only for the style of dance they have chosen, such as hoop, jingle and traditional, for instance, but their regalia as well, which includes patterns and beading handed down for generations.

When finished, I was proud of my creation. I truly believe that I wrote something which is good and true, respectful and admiring. It is truly a good representation of a people whom I admire with all of my heart.

Still, the heart of Cedar Woman is about Lena Cedar Woman, her trials and sorrows, her triumphs and joys, and her ability to stand up to tragedy, move forward, and change the lives and fortunes of the people she loves.

It is, at heart, a romance: Cedar Woman’s love for her parents, her mentor, her career and her half-side – her true love. I believe that I have instilled some sweetness, along with the strength that Cedar Woman possesses, and I know that I have proven that Mitakuye Oyasin: We Are All Related.

Christopher's Final Surgery

Chris sailed through his fifth and final surgery this last Monday. The first night was rough but he stuck it out with calm and bravado.

They opened his nose completely, broke it, aligned the septum after removing part of it, used the excess to replace missing cartilage, lined up his septum, which was slung to the left, centered his nose with his cupid's bow and sewed it into place.

The staff in Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio was beyond fantastic in their care of my 18-year-old boy. In fact, each and every one asked for information to come and see him play at a local restaurant near where we live.

Today he took a walk around our lake, made himself a tasty lunch and is now watching the Toy Story special on ABC Family Channel. He is out of pain, his nose looks beautiful and he is anticipating returning to the restaurant where he plays backup for a talented singer/song writer and beginning his job with an upscale Japanese restaurant where he will be personally trained by the owner. Life is good.

It's funny how Children's Hospital has been a part of a major portion of my life. At two months and then at four, I was admitted with a fractured skull, age four years found me again admitted with fourth degree burns and age nine for neurological study. Age 15 found me practically living there with my friend, Patsy, one of the few female hemophiliacs at that time and age 16 saw me visiting her the final time a few days before she died.

That last evening, as I was leaving the hospital, a sound made me glance to my left. In a small room sat a nurse feeding a baby. What caught my eye was the fact that the baby was sitting upright. I looked again. The infant, hungrily eating, had a hole where his or her mouth should have been. I remember saying a quick prayer and thinking I hope that baby has a mother who loves it. Now I realize that what I had witnessed was a nurse feeding a baby born with cleft lip and palate. God had given me a glance into my future.

It is odd when I reflect back on my 50 plus years journey with Children’s hospital. It began with my healing, followed by the death of my friend. Within the tragedy of losing Patsy lay a promise: a promise of a sweet babe who would need a home.

We seldom realize that we are witnessing what is to come. It wasn’t until we got the call that a beautiful baby boy, born with cleft lip and palate, was looking for a family, that I realized my blessing and I knew, I just knew that he was meant to be mine. I knew that it was destiny that made me visit Children’s that last, fateful night: I was meant to say goodbye to my dear friend who I thought would be a part of my life for many years to come and I was meant to witness something that would help me a full 24 years later.

Perchance my odyssey with Children's ends here: Chris' final surgery. An era has passed; a chapter has closed. Perhaps, when my sweet son moves on to make his own life and create his own family, I will return to Children’s…this time as a volunteer instead of a patient, visitor, or parent. Life is good.