AGXStarseed
Well-Known Member
(Not written by me. Click the source link to see photos of their reunion)
The headline from 2003 reveals a family in pain. "Mom fights to get back young son who's been in seven foster homes."
Marietta Sandoval lost that fight and gave up her rights to Jesus, who was born in Milwaukee when Marietta was just 14 years old.
She said goodbye to him for what she thought was the last time and wrote a letter for when he would be old enough to understand. "I will always love you. I tried my hardest to get you back but I failed. I'll miss you. I hope you look for me later. Don't think that I didn't want you cause I really do, but I want you to be good for your new family."
"I'm sorry," she signed off.
That new family is Bonnie and Patrick Sallinen of West Bend. She's a retired hairdresser and he drives for UPS. They adopted 3-year-old Jesus and renamed him Chase on Oct. 28, 2003. They also have a son, Max, 21, and a daughter, Mia, 13, who is also adopted.
New adoptive parents back then were encouraged not to communicate with the birth mother, Bonnie said. But in recent years, that thinking has changed. Last year, she and her husband took a class that opened their hearts to feeling empathy for the young woman who lost her child.
"I can't imagine not seeing your kid for this long," Bonnie said. "When you look back, she didn't have a chance. She was 14."
So she found Marietta on Facebook last May and the two women began communicating. Now 32, Marietta lived then in Menominee, Mich., and has since moved to Appleton. She is a single mom with three sons: Ismael, 14, who was a baby when Marietta was fighting to keep Jesus; Noah, 8; and Dallas-Cash, 1.
Chase also started texting and speaking on the phone with his birth mother. He has Asperger syndrome, meaning he struggles with social cues. He listens more than he talks.
Bonnie invited Marietta, whom she had never met in person, to come to her home and see Chase. They agreed on a date, Dec. 29, Chase's 18th birthday.
When Marietta walked in the front door, these two moms who love the same boy embraced and sobbed. "It's happening!" I heard Marietta say. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
Then she saw Chase coming down the stairs. She hugged this young man, her son, whom she last had seen as a toddler. She wished him a happy birthday and presented a few gifts, including the kind of pizza she heard he likes now.
"I never forgot about you. I'm so sorry," she said.
"It's OK," Chase responded.
We all sat down. Marietta looked at the photos and keepsakes she had sent with Jesus when he went away — a baby ring on a chain, a lock of his brother Ismael's hair, a soccer jersey from Mexico. She showed Chase his birth name tattoed on her ankle and back of her neck. She examined a scar on his forehead and said he had run into a heat radiator as a child.
"I used to celebrate your birthdays all by myself all the time and just think of you," she told her son, recalling him as a happy child who liked the Ricky Martin song, "Livin' la Vida Loca."
She mentioned the man, 10 years older than her, who impregnated her. He signed away any rights to the child and escaped prosecution for having sex with a minor. "You know why I named you Jesus? Because your dad's name was Angel, and you had to be better than him," she said.
Bonnie said she invited me to witness this reunion because the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a long article in June 2003 about Marietta's struggle to keep Jesus. Bonnie wanted to share the good outcome for this boy who had such a tough start in life. He soon will graduate from high school, and he's working as a checker at Pick 'n Save in West Bend.
The story, written by Jamaal Abdul-Alim, tells how advocates for the child expressed a belief that Marietta and her family were too dysfunctional and dangerous for Jesus. The young mother and her grandmother seemed to confirm that impression when they appeared on Maury Povich's trashy TV show for a segment called "my teen is out of control."
But the system did its own harm to the boy by placing him in six foster homes with poorly matched caregivers over a two-year period before finally finding the solid Sallinen family. Marietta didn't help her cause when she ran away with Jesus from one of the foster homes.
Marietta, her family and a group called the Welfare Warriors held a series of protests and made a poster that said, "Bring Jesus home!"
But in August 2003, Marietta signed away her parental rights to Jesus. She feared that if she resisted further, she might lose baby Ismael, too. She made a clay handprint of the boy to keep.
At her reunion with Chase last month, Marietta expressed no bitterness over the way things turned out. "I wouldn't go back. I'm glad he lived here. He lived a good life here."
Chase looked happy and ready for this intense experience. "It's been a long time, a very long time. It's 15 years of waiting," he told me.
The reunion is not so much the ending of this story as another beginning. Although it wasn't part of the plan, Chase returned that day to Appleton with Marietta to meet his half-brothers and stay overnight.
For Bonnie, it felt strange to let him go, "a small glimpse into what it may feel like for a bio-parent when their child is taken away by someone they don't know and a place they know nothing about," she said.
But she also believes we're witnessing healing for both Marietta and Chase.
In a birthday card to her lost and now found son, Marietta wrote a note that speaks to the enormity of this restored human connection:
"So much to say, not enough paper."
Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or [email protected]. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl
Source (with photos): Stingl: Mom reunited with son she was forced to give up 15 years ago
The headline from 2003 reveals a family in pain. "Mom fights to get back young son who's been in seven foster homes."
Marietta Sandoval lost that fight and gave up her rights to Jesus, who was born in Milwaukee when Marietta was just 14 years old.
She said goodbye to him for what she thought was the last time and wrote a letter for when he would be old enough to understand. "I will always love you. I tried my hardest to get you back but I failed. I'll miss you. I hope you look for me later. Don't think that I didn't want you cause I really do, but I want you to be good for your new family."
"I'm sorry," she signed off.
That new family is Bonnie and Patrick Sallinen of West Bend. She's a retired hairdresser and he drives for UPS. They adopted 3-year-old Jesus and renamed him Chase on Oct. 28, 2003. They also have a son, Max, 21, and a daughter, Mia, 13, who is also adopted.
New adoptive parents back then were encouraged not to communicate with the birth mother, Bonnie said. But in recent years, that thinking has changed. Last year, she and her husband took a class that opened their hearts to feeling empathy for the young woman who lost her child.
"I can't imagine not seeing your kid for this long," Bonnie said. "When you look back, she didn't have a chance. She was 14."
So she found Marietta on Facebook last May and the two women began communicating. Now 32, Marietta lived then in Menominee, Mich., and has since moved to Appleton. She is a single mom with three sons: Ismael, 14, who was a baby when Marietta was fighting to keep Jesus; Noah, 8; and Dallas-Cash, 1.
Chase also started texting and speaking on the phone with his birth mother. He has Asperger syndrome, meaning he struggles with social cues. He listens more than he talks.
Bonnie invited Marietta, whom she had never met in person, to come to her home and see Chase. They agreed on a date, Dec. 29, Chase's 18th birthday.
When Marietta walked in the front door, these two moms who love the same boy embraced and sobbed. "It's happening!" I heard Marietta say. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
Then she saw Chase coming down the stairs. She hugged this young man, her son, whom she last had seen as a toddler. She wished him a happy birthday and presented a few gifts, including the kind of pizza she heard he likes now.
"I never forgot about you. I'm so sorry," she said.
"It's OK," Chase responded.
We all sat down. Marietta looked at the photos and keepsakes she had sent with Jesus when he went away — a baby ring on a chain, a lock of his brother Ismael's hair, a soccer jersey from Mexico. She showed Chase his birth name tattoed on her ankle and back of her neck. She examined a scar on his forehead and said he had run into a heat radiator as a child.
"I used to celebrate your birthdays all by myself all the time and just think of you," she told her son, recalling him as a happy child who liked the Ricky Martin song, "Livin' la Vida Loca."
She mentioned the man, 10 years older than her, who impregnated her. He signed away any rights to the child and escaped prosecution for having sex with a minor. "You know why I named you Jesus? Because your dad's name was Angel, and you had to be better than him," she said.
Bonnie said she invited me to witness this reunion because the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a long article in June 2003 about Marietta's struggle to keep Jesus. Bonnie wanted to share the good outcome for this boy who had such a tough start in life. He soon will graduate from high school, and he's working as a checker at Pick 'n Save in West Bend.
The story, written by Jamaal Abdul-Alim, tells how advocates for the child expressed a belief that Marietta and her family were too dysfunctional and dangerous for Jesus. The young mother and her grandmother seemed to confirm that impression when they appeared on Maury Povich's trashy TV show for a segment called "my teen is out of control."
But the system did its own harm to the boy by placing him in six foster homes with poorly matched caregivers over a two-year period before finally finding the solid Sallinen family. Marietta didn't help her cause when she ran away with Jesus from one of the foster homes.
Marietta, her family and a group called the Welfare Warriors held a series of protests and made a poster that said, "Bring Jesus home!"
But in August 2003, Marietta signed away her parental rights to Jesus. She feared that if she resisted further, she might lose baby Ismael, too. She made a clay handprint of the boy to keep.
At her reunion with Chase last month, Marietta expressed no bitterness over the way things turned out. "I wouldn't go back. I'm glad he lived here. He lived a good life here."
Chase looked happy and ready for this intense experience. "It's been a long time, a very long time. It's 15 years of waiting," he told me.
The reunion is not so much the ending of this story as another beginning. Although it wasn't part of the plan, Chase returned that day to Appleton with Marietta to meet his half-brothers and stay overnight.
For Bonnie, it felt strange to let him go, "a small glimpse into what it may feel like for a bio-parent when their child is taken away by someone they don't know and a place they know nothing about," she said.
But she also believes we're witnessing healing for both Marietta and Chase.
In a birthday card to her lost and now found son, Marietta wrote a note that speaks to the enormity of this restored human connection:
"So much to say, not enough paper."
Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or [email protected]. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl
Source (with photos): Stingl: Mom reunited with son she was forced to give up 15 years ago
