I have struggled greatly, questioning my decesion to post this letter. Dasha (or alina) was a five year old girl with Down Syndrome I have known of for about two years. She was transferred to a mental instituion 2 months ago. The death rate in that institution is over 80 percent in the first year. I also struggled with which forum to post this letter. Because Dasha was a social orphan, and because an adoption was her only chance to be saved I will post it here under adoption. Here is my letter to Dasha, much to late.
To Sweet Dasha:
I wonder if anyone grieves for you as I do. If their eyes welled at the thought of your loss. Sweet Dasha I never knew you. I knew of you, had known of you for months, but you were just picture, an image, a thought. You weren�t mine and my arms never wrapped themselves around you to protect you from all this bad stuff angel. And I look back now wondering what battles needed to be fought for you to be saved, homed, loved. Did I not email the right family for you sweet Alina? If we had raised money, a full grant, would be in your forever home now instead of forever gone?
Word didn�t reach me until this week. I didn�t even know you had been transferred to that horrible place. Others tell me that maybe this was meant to be angel, that this was your time and their own faith guides them to these words. But when I have been alone these last few days I can�t help but think how wrong this is. There is nothing right about your death especially the timing. You were barely five. Barely. There is no faith in me deep enough to allow me to justify your death.
I will not attach your picture to these words, the image that has imprinted itself on my own heart. There are two reasons for this sweet Dasha. One, no picture can capture your spirit and while the image may invoke the kind of anger your death deserves, it would only be the kind of guilty anger that would last in only temporal forms. This kind of attack and release battle is not the kind that will do you justice Alina. Secondly, while I would never claim you as my own, I find that picture to be so very personal, as though you have gifted me with your beauty.
You have not escaped my thoughts since I have received that email, with that simple, nonchalant sentence. (Dasha, the girl you inquired about, past away two weeks ago.) Two weeks.
Perhaps you are wondering why I write this now, I do this because I find myself wondering if anyone ever expressed how precious you were? Were you loved once, held in a way that made you feel safe in pain you endured? Has anyone ever kissed at 2:15 AM on October 5th just to celebrate the fact that you were born? The gift you are to this world. How could they not? I wonder more so if there are others who loved you from a far, who have kissed your picture upon hearing of this loss, and who have mourned the loss of a girl they never knew.
I find myself seeking excuses. Why did I wait to do this in your death instead of in your life? I could have written to you then Dasha, sent you blankets, clothes, toys. Had trusted friends deliver these goods and hold you for me. I could have asked them to hold the phone to your ear so I could read to you a letter so you could hear the sound of someone who cherished your life. When I think of the emails I received about you, about how the women who cared for you called you a �no hope� it breaks my heart. Did they say these words in front of you? This world that so promotes distance swallowed me whole. I allowed myself to love you from a distance and in silence.
When I think of your last night my heart wants to picture you peaceful. In a clean crib, fast asleep lips curled into a smile as your mind wonders to whatever it is that dreamt for sweet angel. There would be toys strapped to the side of the crib, the kind with lights and noise and a mobile above your head. Your tummy would be full. Your heart content.
My mind doesn�t often allow these thoughts, instead I think of the pictures I have seen of places like these. Places called �institutions� but more accurately jails or death camps. I place your face in these images. A boy with downs syndrome (like you) bound tightly in some kind of cloth, unable to move is torso, his leg tied upward to the top rail of his crib so you can only imagine the lack of blood to that limb. Was that you? Were you so restrained you couldn�t even live anymore Dasha? Did you hurt? Cry? Scream? � Were you scared Dasha?
Lastly I am consumed with the thought of what�s left. I hope they buried you. That there were flowers and music and women who mourned you as a mother would. This is only an ideal, I wonder truly if you were even buried, what happened to your angelic body?
I will not ask you to forgive the world for what its done to you Dasha, I will not even ask you to forgive me for my own blindness and inaction. My heart has broken for you, and you are forever etched into my being. Know that while you may have been forgotten in life, you will never be forgotten in death.
With much love, to a forgotten angel.
Mindy
