Stories that Matter
Life
Dabney is My Mom by Dabney Hedegard
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An Adoption Story by Erin MacPherson
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God’s Grace, Our Little Girl By Sherry Kyle
It Isn’t Always “Happily Ever After” by Marlayne Giron
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An Interview with Author Eric WIlson
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A Heart, Not an Outcome by Amanda Dykes
One Adoptee's Story – LJ Jacobs
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Entrusted by Jennifer AlLee – Birthmother
| 8 Comments
I Had To Find My Mother To Find Myself by Catherine Leggitt
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Yours, Mine, Ours And Somebody Else's by Margie Mijares
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I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. Maybe you’re familiar with the mantra? It’s easy to say. Easy to repeat. And easy to convince yourself of. Because if you say something enough times, eventually you begin to believe it. Even if it’s not true. So last week I wrote about change, and how I was going…
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“You gain strength,courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” — Eleanor Roosevelt. So we…
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Happy Mother’s Day to all the amazing Moms I know and love. Those with us and those who have gone before us. This day is hard for some of us, I know. I miss my Mom too. But I’m grateful for the memories. Grateful for the legacy she left us. And grateful that I got…
read more...Not on the rocks. Not with a splash. Maybe a twist, that’d be fun. But don’t water it down. Write what you want to say, write from you heart, and write, for the love of everything, like you mean it. If you don’t mean it, don’t waste your reader’s time, or yours. After 20 something…
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Can I be honest? Groups scare me a little. Anything larger than my husband and I, and two other couples is just a bit out of my comfort zone. Even when our group of eight, all close and fun friends, gets together, the house is just a bit too loud. And that’s kind of funny…
read more...Words fail me. Lately. When I try to sum up what this thing is that I do and why I do it and why I can’t not do it and why some days the words won’t come . . . words fail me. And the question rattles hard in my head. Is it . .…
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Sharing some thoughts on writing, and life. So I’m asked this a lot. Mostly in author interviews, occasionally in an email from an aspiring author who just wants a break, wants her words to be seen, heard. “What’s the magic formula?” I’d tell you if I knew. Honest. So this is the part I could…
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The stories make me sad. So terribly sad. And angry. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve seen them too. All over social media. The hashtag #MeToo Sometimes no story at all. Sometimes more than we may want to know. But they’re all connected. Women. Women who have in some way, been violated. Been…
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Thirty one years. Today. I stood before him in a long white gown that cost more than my father wanted to spend, but he bought it for me anyway, because it was the one and he was ‘the one’ and my Dad would have bought me the moon if I said I wanted it. I stood…
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That was a text I got from my daughter a few hours into labour. “Is it supposed to hurt this much?” I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t. Because, yes. It is. And it does. And it will continue to. With every challenge that comes with being a parent. Being a mother or father or…
read more...Dabney is My Mom by Dabney Hedegard
Four little words rocked my world.
As I sat down to dinner and reread my place card, I felt a second pair of eyes watching me.
Almond-shaped eyes, to be exact.
Ansley’s little body hugged close to the corner of the wall as she said, “Do you like it, Mommy. What I wrote?”
How could I not.
I held out my arms and welcomed her in, engulfing her slender frame. We had had numerous conversations about her adoption from China. In my heart of hearts, I believed an open dialogue was the best avenue about this topic.
However, when many late night tears and deep moans of anguish were followed by all the why questions, I started second-guessing this theory.
“Why didn’t my birth mother want me?
“Do you think I look like her?”
“Do you think I’ll see her one day in heaven?”
This last question always got me, because Ansley never prayed to meet her parents on earth. Nightly, she repeated the same request for their salvation so they could make it to eternity.
Her God-given gift I believe is discernment. This child can read me better than anyone else. It turns out, she can read others, too.
One day we were in Target and a woman we knew from church walked over to say hello. Ansley took one look at her and said, “You don’t go to our church anymore, do you?”
My mommy-alert went off, wanting right then and there to cup my fingers over her lips and back away. I already knew the answer to this awkward question. Ansley was right.
We’re still working on discretion.
Months passed, and we had a string of nights filled with “why” questions. I left the room and let Jason take over. Even though she was only an eight-year-old child, her words pierced my soul.
We’d prayed for her, chosen her, loved her…yet our conversations surrounded the mystique of the unknown. I got it. I’d want these answers, too. Wouldn’t everyone?
That night Jason explained how it’d be best for a little while if Ansley only talked to him about this topic.
And that was it for months.
No word.
No tears.
She carried on being her silly self.
Until three nights ago when she rocked my world.
And again this morning when she wrote this:
“Dear Mommy, I love you with all of my heart. I will never let go of you!
20 Reason I love My Mom.
1) she fed me
2) took me in
3) takes care of me
4) loves us
5) equals us
7) cinsadive heart
8) takes us places
9) home schooled us 
10) crys with me
11) takes care for us
12) does things nice when she doesn’t want to
13) funny
14) loves the things we give her
15) shares with us
16) trains us
17) reads to us
18) let’s us stay up
19) gives us freedom
20) cooks for us”
Well. I paused at the last point. My cooking abilities have always been questionable.
I folded the place card and 20-point note into my journal.
Dabney is my mom, I repeated in my mind. And Ansley will forever be my kid.
Author, speaker, and professional patient who calls West Palm Beach home, Dabney Hedegard is the Headmistress of The Hedegard Academy. She loves writing, jogging, and chasing kids. Her memoir, She’ll Never Make it Through the Night: The nine lives of Dabney releases July 2013 (Tyndale House Publishers). You can find her playing around at www.dabneyland.com
