I have a foster daughter, Stephanie. I have mentioned her before. We had her a while and we were very happy. Then, one day the police showed up with a social worker and a court order demanding we surrender the child. Her mother had been trying to get her back and finally found the court's soft spot. We were making her go to church. Well, you place a child with a pastor and his family, you kind of expect that the child would be going to church. But in the enlightened times in 1987, this was a form of child abuse. In the home of her mother and stepfather she had been sexually molested by her stepfather and his brothers starting at age eight. But taking her to church was so much worse.

Sorry. It still gets me.

Anyway, Steph was just about to turn sixteen. The court decreed that we could not communicate until she turned eighteen. We completely lost track of her. But, on her eighteenth birthday she walked into my office. A huge smile on that radiantly beautiful face. Truly a very welcome sight. And she was truly very pregnant.

We talked. At seventeen she had run away from the situation at home. She hitched rides to Florida. On the way she got a ride with a trucker who raped her. Once in Florida she went to a shelter to seek refuge. She was put into counseling and there she was told that she needed to get back with us because we had been the rock in her life. It was also at the refuge that she met John, who was there because of drug abuse. He was from her hometown, so he offered to take her home since he was being released. And that was how she was able to walk into my office, pregnant, on her eighteenth birthday. 

John's parents put her up. In a short while she delivered Anastasia. Like all babies, she was not very attractive until some time went by. Stephanie and John soon married, which did not make me very happy. John had issues. However, I will give him this; he took a child conceived in violence by another man and raised her as his own. They later had two more children and John turned out to be a great Dad.

In time, John's parents moved to Pennsylvania, from whence they had come. John and Steph followed with the two older girls. Number three was born in PA. Steph went to nursing school and earned her RN. The kids were healthy and happy. And we saw each other often. Anastasi (commonly called Anna) particularly liked me. She would crawl into my lap as a toddler. Later, as a young teen of around thirteen, the three girls and Adam and I were walking across a fast-flowing stream, just playing. But Anna was nervous, and without hesitation, she took my hand. Whenever we were all together, she would take a seat next to me. At a restaurant she would tell me what to order. Precious times.

Until she was sixteen. We had gone to Pennsylvania for John's father's funeral. Anna avoided us completely. I thought, well, she is sixteen. This is the way of it. But Marsha suspected that our beautiful Anna was using drugs. Sadly, Marsha was right. The other girls were always excited to see us, but Anna never talked to either of us again. In fact, we never actually saw her again. She wouldn't come to Ohio with her parents, she bolted when we went there. She was, I believe, ashamed. 

The drugs increased. Her manner of getting the money for the drugs was not very nice. She stole, she begged, she sold her body. She couldn't even go to John's funeral because she was in jail. Steph tried, but Anna was on a bad, bad slide.

Here a while back she was diagnosed with Krohn's. She finally let Steph help her and moved in with her Mom. But friends were bringing her drugs and she continued to use. The medicine for the Krohns and the drugs did not mix well. Anna died on July 22, 2023 early in the morning. She was 33. Stephanie called while I was enroute to Ohio on my move. Given my circumstance, I was unable to go. Steph was disappointed, but we cannot do everything, and she understands.  

Grief is always with us. But Anna was one who brought grief to her family for years. She always thought she was invincible. But, no. 

I had witnessed to Anna but based on her life choices she had rejected the Gospel. But I would like to think that at the end, as life slipped away, she made a decision for Christ. The human part of me doubts it. But still....

Keep an eye on your loved ones. Look for the signs. Anyone using thinks they can handle it. But ruin will come. So sad.