Human Kindness, it's Overflowing.

I am so sorry. I feel like I've been writing a lot of depressing posts lately.

My heart is feeling a lot right now. I think it's hard to feel so much at once. Today I need to talk about something that won't be easy to read about. Some people would say it's silly or even self-indulgent to get caught up in stories of suffering. But sometimes they just find us. And my counter-thought has always been, yes, it's almost like asking for suffering, to grieve for people who I have no direct connection to. But how honest is it to pass over their stories, their lives and experiences? We grieve, reading of these things. How do you think the people going through it feel? How does a baby, who comes into this world from a warm, nurturing environment with fresh eyes and a heart open to love and soak up nurturing like a thirsty sponge, feel when his world provides pain, fear, and coldness.

Today I'm grieving for Kyle.

Kyle is a beautiful baby boy, born only a little while ago. He was brought to live in a baby home, sponsored by a nonprofit organization so that he could be cared for and nurtured until a family was found who wanted him. And a family did--they saw his picture and wanted him. They fell in love with him. He happened to have been born in Russia and they happened to be Americans, but they knew he was theirs and they wanted, badly, to bring him home and love him.

They waited as paperwork took time, as court procedures took time. They finally got to visit him. They took lots of pictures and held him. And then, because of some bad press focused on scarce-minority cases where American parents abused or abandoned their adopted children from Russia, Russia decided to ban any more adoptions to America. Including adoptions that were in process. Including baby Kyle.

He was taken from his baby home, where there was warmth and food and some nurturing attention, and put in a mental institution. Because he has Down's Syndrome, that's where he was put.

Here's a picture of Kyle that his parents took of him when they visited, and a photo they were sent at some point after he'd been in the institution for a while.

The caption is an angry one. IT adds to my sadness. But these parents, imagine how they feel. And imagine what Kyle felt when suddenly, he had nobody smiling at him anymore, nobody feeding him, nobody protecting him. He was starved, and beaten. And day before yesterday, he passed away.

He's in a better place now. But I look at the beauitful baby to the left and can't help but feel Heavenly Father wanted something different for him. The baby to the left reminds me of my own little baby boy. Those eyes, that expression, exactly. The baby to the right, I can't think of without feeling like my heart is bleeding into my chest.

And this song is how I feel sometimes, when I try to figure out, to comprehend, how people can do things like this, or even allow such things to happen.



Kyle's story catches at me and rips me apart because I see baby Chumba in his eyes. The way I saw Jaws and Loli in Bella's and MayMay's faces the first time I saw their pictures. But this happens to thousands of small babies and children everyday. And I think it's going to rain today.