"whether only you knew what I know," begins a heartbreaking open letter from a mother who was shamed in the aisles of Target by a woman who believed she was "spoiling" her daughter by carrying her around the store in a sling instead of pushing her in a cart. Kelly Dirkes continues her letter to the woman by explaining that her daughter was adopted and for the first 10 months of her life was totally alone, surrounded by the bars of a sterile, or metal crib with nothing and no one to comfort her.whether you only knew what her face looked like the moment her orphanage caregiver handed her to me to cradle for the very first time - fleeting moments of serenity commingled with sheer terror. No one had ever held her that way before,and she had no concept what she was supposed to do.
whether you only knew that she would lay in her crib after waking and never cry - because up until now, no one would respond.
whether you only knew that that baby in the carrier is heartbreakingly "independent" - and how we will spend minutes, and hours,days, weeks, or months,and years trying to override the allotment of her brain that screams "trauma" and "not secure."Dirkes's letter continues, and though it's addressed to this one woman, and its message should speak to every single person out there: you don't always know what someone is going through.
Read the rest of her heartbreaking letter above.
Source: popsugar.com