Someone Else's Miracle....Decision Portrait Series

(Decision Portrait Series, Someone Else's Miracle. 25" x 19", unframed; 31" x 25", framed. Xylene photo transfer on tea-stained muslin. Hand beading and embroidery. Lightly red penciled lips. Stitched words: Gave Up a Child for Adoption. Click on image to enlarge.)

For well over fifteen years I framed photos and child's artwork for at least six or seven different mothers who told me that their child was adopted, a totally wonderful "miracle". Tears leaked out of the corners of their eyes when they brought in one-year old birthday pictures and recounted the "gift" of first holding the baby just the year before. It was always a pleasure....always a miracle. I never really thought about how difficult it must have been for the birth mother....making a "miracle" come true, making a decision like this.

Bittersweet.

The rest of this story: I know the fabulously talented artist who made this decision years ago. I've known her for many of the year since the '80s hair style. She's now the mother of a teenager who just recently got married. She is again a mother of a beautiful infant boy. Even more, she is a Facebook friend with the young man she once gave up! The miracle has come full circle.