Draft 1 - Incomplete

October 19, 1979

"Oh, look! Red hair," said the petite, dark-haired woman staring through the hospital glass into the nursery staring at the small baby. "The kids will be close in age, and they will look like they belong together. Rufy will be so happy to have a playmate, "said the man. They stood close together staring at what would soon be their daughter feeling all the joy and excitement a new baby brings to a family.

"Uhhh, what is that nurse doing?" They both watched with unbelieving eyes as the nurse took off the baby's diaper and held the baby up for inspection. "Well, I guess we know for sure," the man chuckled, "Have you picked out a name?" "Yes. Wendy Jean."

"When did they say we could take her home?" "After the family signs their approval of our arrangement. We're going to meet with the mediator in an hour to finalize the papers." "Did you ever think we would be able to get another one?" she asked tremulously. "God gives good gifts to those who ask."

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That was my humble beginning in the city of Tarzana, California. Tressa and Jim met in 1978 and had been dating for a few weeks when Tressa discovered she was pregnant. She didn't tell Jim right away because she knew he planned to leave with the Army soon, and anyway, he wasn't ready to settle down to raise a family.

Tressa was part of a large, Jewish family who had very strict beliefs about pregnancy before marriage. She knew she wasn't in a position to take care of a child and wasn't about to cause upheaval in her family's life by asking for help.. so she started searching out the adoption alternative by asking a woman in a Baptist church for help.

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My house was perfect. The grass was perpetually green and trimmed with lots of greenery and large trees nicely landscaped in front of the house. The stucco was beige and the trim a dark brown. We had a fancy door leading into the visiting room. I was not allowed in the visiting room because that was where the nice furniture, decorations, and the piano were kept. Across from the visiting room, passing across a hallway underneath an elegant archway is the family area. There were french doors that we never used that looked out on the front lawn. I used to lay on my big Panda pillow there. That was my favorite place. My pillow was just Panda's face, about three feet in diameter. He has very worn light brown fur around his eyes and nose that was very rough to the touch, and the dark brown fur covering the rest of his face was still extra soft and plushy. I loved rubbing my fingers over his felt nose that poked out and was in danger of falling off. His eyes were a sad, dull brown. I spent hours cuddling up on Panda, pouring all my love and hugs into him, hoping that one day his eyes would sparkle.

I remember the rest of the house as being pretty large, but it is probably just the remembrances of a child. The hallway I mentioned, that split the visiting room and the family room, was actually quite long. I measured it once. If I recall correctly, it was about 40 feet in length... a pretty narrow hallway. There was just one curve, but most of the hall was that straight part that I measured. My brother and I shared a room, just off that hallway, until I was 9 years old, when it was turned into a pink room with a canopy bed. Before that decorative change, it was a horrific yellow and orange 70s combination with animals on the wallpaper that my mother picked out when bringing her babies home. Also off the hallway, the next door down from my bedroom was a small bathroom for my brother and I to share. At the very end of the hall was my parents room. I wasn't allowed in my parents' room unless I knocked and asked permission to enter. Turning the corner of the hallway, my dad's office was the next doorway and if you went straight instead of going through the door, you walked right into the laundry room and out the door into the backyard. The kitchen was probably the hub of our home. My mom was in there quite a bit and it was quite a momentous room... it had been remodeled and turned into a huge, spacious kitchen with barstools and a large, walk-in pantry. You could get to the kitchen through a swinging door from our family room or from the laundry room where the outside door was on one wall and the kitchen door was on the next wall. So, that was my home for the first 10 years of my life.
The memories in my first house are like those old photographs that are an orangy-yellow tinge. I don't have many memories, but the ones I do don't feel real anymore. My earliest memory in that house, I was sick.. about three years old. I was in my Daddy's office that had dark brown paneling covering the walls. It felt like a cave because it was so dark all the time, even with the window shades open. I was told to lie down and sleep so I could feel better, but I was upset because I didn't want to be alone. I don't remember why I was in the office or why I couldn't sleep in my own room, but that's how it was. My Daddy covered me with a brown and tan bear blanket and lay down next to me... and he fell asleep.
Until I was six, I only had one brother. He is older than me and was my best friend. People often mistook us for twins because we were both fair-skinned and had red hair and freckles. He was given a family name... my Dad's name and his Dad's name. I thought it was funny that my brother's name means "red hair." My Mommy told me she named me after her grandma. Her grandma's name was Winifred, but she had been very close to her and wanted me to be a namesake for her. One of my parents friends called me Freddy just for fun. My middle name was for my grandmother, Mommy's Mom.

We had a game where my Mommy dressed me in her fancy coat with the fur collar and put lipstick on my lips and blush on my cheeks. My hair didn't need any fixing, she said, because I had curly curly hair. She sent me to Daddy's office with messages for him like, "Hey, foxy woxy." Then Daddy would send me back to Mommy with the message, "You're the bees knees." Relaying messages was fun for a while, but it started to get uncomfortable because it seemed like Mommy and Daddy were sending messages for different reasons than just to play with me.

My favorite thing was to play outside. All the neighbors were a lot older, even than Mommy and Daddy. They all doted on me because my brother and I were the only children on the street. One lady, four houses down from ours, was really old, like maybe in her 80s. She was like a grandma. Her house had bricks on the outside and plants and palm trees grew all around it so that it hid from everyone else. It felt like her house was in the middle of a jungle all by itself. Inside some of the bushes was a huge rock. It stood as tall as my chest. I liked to climb on top of the rock and peek inside her window. Inside that window was her kitchen. She would often be sitting at her table drinking coffee and wave at me. I wished I could stay on her rock and just hide for a while, but my Mommy said I needed to leave her alone and give her privacy.
In our own backyard, my Mommy had a long line of rose bushes. They were all different colors. Some were red, some pink and yellow. My favorite ones, though, were those with two colors.. a deep rich pink and white around the trim. My Mommy said that if I took care of the bushes all the flowers would be mine. I watered them every day and as soon as the bud began to open, I used the scissors to cut them off and made flower deliveries to all the neighbors. The prettiest ones I saved to give to my favorite neighbors. They all really liked getting flowers, but Mommy said that when she looked out her kitchen window now, there are no flowers for her to look at. I guessed it could be a good thing because she didn't really sound very upset about it.