Thanks Be to God!!! And--thank you, Mom!!! - Part One

Hello, everyone,

 I will admit to holding the big news for Part Two in order to make people read Part One. I needed to. I'm totally honest in every post, without the slightest embellishment, and must admit to that compelling need to let people know of every miracle I owe to the extraordinary family I was given. 

No, I'm not trying to make a case for canonization. I have no doubts that my Mom was already canonized directly by God in His glory. But I cannot remain silent about some things that I witnessed, some things I can swear to with my hand on the Holy Bible. Only a few days before falling into a semi-comma, my Mom was suffering from excruciating pain and unbearable thirst as liquids had been banned by doctor's orders in order to prevent fluids from clogging her airways. Yet, amidst her terrible suffering she did pray for four children whose lives were at stake--four children she didn't know, and yet four children she was deeply concerned about just because they were kids trying to hold on to life. 

For all those of you who may have guessed who I'm referring to, yes, you're right. I'm talking about Selah, Nikita, Cheyenne, and Chloe. For all those who don't have the least idea, I'm only giving out first names and some very basic non-identifying information. I myself don't even know any more. Selah is a precious girl with special needs who had been in a near-drowning accident, and was in a comma for a long time with no response at all. Nikita is the son of an adoption facilitator in Eastern Europe. He had suffered very severe head trauma and it looked like he would never recover. Little Cheyenne had been the victim of child abuse and per the words of someone who knows the family very well she was "almost gone," and it seemed it was "only a matter of when." Chloe was, and is, battling leukemia. I clearly remember my Mom's words, "I'll pray for the four of them. It is my time now--but it is not their time. Those little ones need to live." 

Nikita was the first one to surprise everyone by being able to talk and walk again. It was a true miracle as he had been operated on in an under-staffed and under-equipped hospital. Cheyenne was the second miracle. After it looked like there was nothing else to be done, currently it's a matter of working towards full recovery. Selah took longer to respond. The very same day when my Mom passed to Eternity I don't know how I found myself thinking about Selah. It was perhaps a defense mechanism in order to try to cope with my own terrible, extreme, unberable grief. I was standing in our kitchen. I looked out of our window far into the woods--and saw my Mom smiling with that tender, loving, caring, compassionate smile of hers. Will you judge me wrong if I admit to having prayed for Selah at that moment--but mostly thinking that I wanted to prove the power of my Mom's intercession for her? Perhaps I should keep that to myself and not tell it to anyone--but I want to be totally honest so that all of you can totally believe me. When a couple of weeks after Selah's mother posted about the little girls' limbs getting stiffer I felt really discouraged. I guess my faith was not that strong as it should have been. I understood those symptoms as an indication that there was nothing else to expect. But I was wrong!!! Selah started improving and having very promisory reactions that now allow doctors to change their death perspective into a recovery one. From what I know about Chloe, she's doing well and is back to dancing. 

On October 1 at 7:30 a.m., exactly one month after my Mom's passing to Eternity, amidst the morning rush to get Thomas, Nicholas, and Stephen ready for the school buses, I felt I had to check my e-mail--and I did find what I was looking for: a message from the Toni Vladimirova, the Bulgarian attorney who is processing the adoptions of Maximilian and Philip (most of you who read my posts know her very well already) stating that the judge who had been assigned to hear our case was a very kind, adoption-friendly one, who had not asked for any additional paperwork.

Part Two 

Introducing Maximilian Joseph GODONE-MARESCA and Philip Daniel GODONE-MARESCA

Please don't laugh if I say that I had asked Toni to only give us a rough idea as to the date of the court hearing without giving us the exact date.  The anxiety would be a little more bearable that way.

Well, let's shout it out once and for all: As of October 23, 2012, Maximilian and Philip officially became Godone-Maresca's in the full sense of the word. They are my parents' grandsons, my children's brothers, and my sons!!! 

Because Maximilian had turned 10 last August already, the judge had requested his presence in the courtroom. Toni told me that he did amazingly well. He told the judge in full both his current and his new names, said that Philip and he would be going to U.S., and also said that he loves his family very much.

After court, Toni would tell him that she was going to e-mail me and asked him whether there was anything he might want to tell me. Maximilian replied, "Please tell mom that I love her."  

Christmas 2009

December 2011 with Thomas and Nicholas

Christmas 2011. We cannot imagine Christmas 2012 without her being physically with us.

Smiling at Nicholas only a few days before her hospitalization last March. Can you see the love in her eyes and her smile?

Kissing Maximilian and Philip's pictures after coming back from hospital with the congestive heart failure diagnosis