1st Birthday

Her little girl was turning a year old soon.

August 1, 2001
That night Tara was on top of the world and she didn't know why. But she felt this tremendous surge of energy and happiness unlike she'd known in her life, she was pretty sure.

Maybe it was just the full moon, which always affected her. But she felt actually thrilled about the adoption. She put up new pix of MacKenzie and her apartment looked great. She could actually watch a show about adoption and be unemotional.

She wrote a poem for MacKenzie and sent it to her for her 1st birthday with a card:

Number One

Your laughter
they just ache to hear
your skin like silk
a baby's breath.
Your smile a whisper
to our hearts
awakening us
to your sweet spirit.
Your soul
a flower
opening up
Each day a grand
experience.
Your birthday wishes
wrapped in pink
blowing kisses
waving goodbye
I visited the playground today
and smiling, remembered
our time together.
The way your tiny arms
flailed about
my arms against yours,
the sun's bright hue.
Not long ago you were
so tiny,
growing inside me
waiting to sprout.
And now you crawl,
you stand, you play,
each day's your own
amusement park.

For the first time in a long time, Tara didn't want to go to bed because of happiness and an excitement she couldn't name. This time it wasn't because of insomnia or fear of nightmares. She just wanted to play all night.

It was as if MacKenzie's spirit was right there. And it was, really.

It didn't matter at that moment that Tara and Chelsea couldn't agree on Tara not continuing to send Chelsea emails from her APs.

For this moment Tara was at peace no matter how long it lasted.

August 2, 2001
Tara was up at 6:00 a.m., an hour and a half early. She went and emailed the scanned new pix of MacKenzie to friends and family. She always got great responses.

Tara's old boss and the birth mom, who had lived at Gladney with her, posted her story on the online birth mom support group: