Hello All,

I apologize for taking 5 days to thank you all for keeping Rachel and I in your thoughts last Thursday evening during our first visit. I am grateful for your time and consciousness regarding, what proved to be, perhaps the most painful and challenging event of my motherhood.

I have since worked through the event and am in a much better place as to how to proceed along with just how specifically to hold Rachel through this. It is my wish that the following information be used to clarify just how Rachel needs us all: She needs our love, courage and faith that even now, all is well.  Thank you for receiving the following with the best intentions for the final outcome and for grace in healing for Rachel.

When I arrived at visitation Rachel refused to make eye contact, keeping her focus and head down in her coloring book. For the first 10 minutes or so we colored in silence. I brought a bin of projects and special things I’ve collected over the past several weeks, things that would comply with the “no touch” guidelines. Rachel shrugged her shoulders and grunted “uh-huhs,” and shook and nodded her head to communicate for most of the 1 hour and 40 minutes that we had together.

I shared with her my vision board for 2010 and invited her to create one like she did to bring her puppy ‘Racko’ into her life last spring. She listened intently as I reminded her that she wanted a puppy so bad and I didn’t know how it could happen or what kind of dog would be best. Also, I reminded her that Racko found us, and we found him within about 1 month from the time she finished her collage of puppies and vision board.

…I think I noticed a tiny twinkle in her eye at that moment. The following things lit her up and she actually smiled or giggled noticeably:

-Video footage of Racko

-photos of Racko from my phone

-drawing an upside down smiley face of Terra on the envelope of the birthday card we never managed to send back in September, complete with a nappy little fro.

She first talked to me when I asked her, “guess what Tracy told me?” Rachel replied with “she’s having another baby?” with eyes wide with amazement. She then proceeded to count on her fingers how many that will be. A little inside joke which I was grateful for because it intrigued Rachel enough to speak.

Rachel didn’t eat anything that I brought, and acted uninterested in almost everything I brought except for a few things. To my great relief, she chose to take the following items with her to Nancy’s:

-the two dollar golden coins from “the Full Moon Fairy and the Blue Moon Fairy,”

-her dear friend Lielani’s little character which she knitted Rachel,

-her chapter book Bayala from her Grandma Sue which her cousin Anya and her each got a copy of this summer,

-the Christmas photo collage from her Uncle Eric, Aunt Megan and cousins Anya and Tess,

-the golden chocolate coins from her Nana Kathy in Germany.

She answered me when I asked about Santa. She shared that Santa came to her in Hawaii and that she went surfing and rode the board the first time all the way into the shore, but that in general surfing was “scary.”

There are other subtle details which I will reserve for one on one conversations.

Overall, I have been doubly reassured from my attorney that the visit actually went incredibly well considering the circumstances, and length of alienation.

I can say that I’m so grateful for what little knowledge of child psychology I’ve gleamed over the years. I used everything I could recall in the moments.

I feel energized and focused with what my next steps are. Thank you for your continued care and concern. And double thanks for the 20 or so of you that responded with a specific commitment to pause during our time and send us both love, light, prayers, breath, meditations.  Whatever it all was, THANK YOU!  I can’t imagine having to go through that without all your support. I used every ounce of it.

I am entitled to see Rachel again Thursday the 4th of February. However at this time it is not confirmed.

Blessings to you all and please continue to hold the vision of Rachel and I reunited permanently with Love and Joy in 2010.

Frankie