As an adopted child she refused to let anyone tell her that her birth parents were not coming back for her someday.

She had put up her walls around her heart and no one was going to ever penetrate them and make her lose her focus of one day going back home to her family.

At night she would lay awake and toss and turn in her bed. Fighting sleep to hang on to valuable memories that she refused to share with anyone.

Day after day she fell in to darker moods and living with her became a task for those around her.

She had two supportive adoptive parents and one adoptive aunt who thought the sun rose and set on her little face.

She was showered with attention and spoiled rotten. Aunt Tracey called her "Stinker Butt." We will not tell you how she earned that nickname but it fit her well.

Uncle Bobby called her "Little Princess." He too would rent movies and curl up with a bag of popcorn and candy on the couch and snuggle her up and watch movies.

Later as each person faded from her life and she became older. Her depression became worse. Now people had to prove they loved her. Saying it or showing it by how they treated her meant almost nothing.

Her anger and her right to freedom seemed to be the driving force behind her mood swings. No one was ever going to tell her what to do or when to do it. She was her own boss.

This drove her adoptive parents to their wits end. Not knowing how else to help her they kept her going to therapy. Hoping in some way that would ease her pain. But she avoided dealing with her issues there too.

We tried to find her birth mom and managed to get her on the phone twice. She talked to the other siblings but when it came down to this child she said "She had to go." Then hung up the phone before this little girl could talk to her.

The therapist did not know how to explain this to the child and it seemed to anger her even more.

When the birth father was released from prison she arranged to meet him through a family dinner.

The adoptive parents made dinner and invited him and his current girlfriend to come and meet their children and talk with them. This would be the first time in several years that they would have contact with their birth father.

In open adoptions sometimes the birth parents just do not take or make time to visit and communicate with the children. This was very true in this adoption case.

The dinner went over well and the kids brought out photo albums of all the things they had done over the lost years. The birth father began to cry and it seemed like this would be a good reunion. Or at least a new beginning.

After about four weeks without contact. He called again to check on the children. He wanted to come up and spend a weekend with them.

The adoptive father did not like the idea. However the adoptive mom decided to allow this visit. On behalf of the kids.

That weekend turned out to be horrid. The birth father got drunk and the children were devastated. The memory bracelet his little girl had given him to cherish was left laying in the mud near where the car was parked.

The adoptive mom hurried to pick up and hide the bracelet before her daughter saw what had happened to it. She had made this with so much love and anticipation to give it to her dad. She did not want her daughter to be hurt by his disrespect of her beautiful handmade gift.

Six weeks after this visit. The birth father stole a van and went joy riding with a few drinking buddies. He hit another car with a woman and a child in it. No one was hurt. (By the grace of God) But this sent the birth father back to jail.

The adoptive parents changed their phone number to stop the prison calls from disrupting everyone's lives. Until this day no more contact has been made by letters or anything.

This little girl has lost all courage of ever knowing her birth family now. Could it be things like this that can push a person over the edge just a little?

I certainly think so... because April had never run away from home until this happened to us. This little girl is my "April." I still have the memory bracelet covered with mud. I can not bare to throw it away. But I can not bare for her to ever know that this is just one more lost moment and memory to a sad drunken man.

We wonder why children have issues. People wonder why dad and I have never given up on our April. It is because we love her so very much and no matter what she does we know one day she too will know we love her. We will be there for her until our last earthly breath. She is our daughter.