( DSWD continues to push for ADOPTION all yearound and as the nation celebrates the NATIONAL CHILDREN’S MONTH, here is a true and fitting story.)
“Parenthood requires love, not DNA, so a saying goes”
For the Riveras (not their real family name), having one more member to the family could bring complete happiness to the family. The two sons, specially, when they were, then, in College felt something was missing – a little princess !
A physician, the now 64-year-old matriarch, Lolita Rivera, told her story about how she got the seven-and-a-half-year-old girl in pink, standing up and cuddling close to her while speaking in front of about 15 prospective adoptive couples during the recent Adoption and Foster Care Forum of the DSWD!
Arabella was still a baby when she became part of the Rivera’s family. Through a patient of the lady physician, who is a social worker, the latter was eventually introduced to the DSWD’s Reception and Study Center for Children (RSCC) at Pawing, Palo.
“The RSCC is a 24-hour residential facility that provides social work interventions to children zero to six years old. It provides protection and rehabilitation services through temporary residential care to neglected, abandoned, abused and exploited children and those with special needs such as children at risk and children who are in need of alternative family care.”
Sharing her experiences with Arabella, mom Loly told that the girl is an achiever of a highly – esteemed school in one of the cities of Eastern Visayas. She is now in Grade I.
“Arabella is a certified Rivera,” the proud mother told us. “She is smart,” mom Loly added. Fact is, Arabella got Silver Award for English and Bronze Award for Math under the Kumon program, sometime ago.
The darling of the family, like a saying goes – “I do not want to be treated like a princess, I just want to be loved,“ but the Rivera’s do regard her as very special. When the older son Rivera was still in medical school, the former found relief from a exhausting day when he comes home, seeing Arabella around.
The Rivera family’s love for the girl is indeed real – to the point that Arabella saw no difference with the way she was treated. The girl did not react when she learned about her being a adopted child. Besides, she is intelligent.
Last year, on a Holy Week, the family agreed it was time for a child her age to understand about her adoption story. The mom felt the revelation should be in an appropriate setting – in a hotel where the family would be together and all by themselves in one room, overnight. And so they did !
Arabella’s dad, who was an ex-seminarian, started out with a prayer for fear of any negative outcome. The sons have to prod their mom, who felt a heavy heart, in her attempt to begin with her tale.
How did the doting mother build her story ? It went by asking Arabella, “Do you remember the movie Annie?”
Annie is a widely – promoted Adoption – relevant movie which is about an abandoned child who have lived for long in foster care and later, into adoption.
The Riveras have been preparing her emotionally by playing again and again said movie while she was growing up.
Mom Lolita Rivera explained to the child that she was a gift from heaven and that her real parents have died. She went on explaining, for Arabella not to feel separate from them, though she did not come from her womb. But the girl just ignored her mom so that the older siblings gently told the mom to stop talking.
It appeared that Arabella had never felt like there was something withheld from her. The truth did not bother her daughter so much, only a little.
At that night, Arabella asked her mom – “ Where is the cemetery?” Mom Loly answered her, but the girl did not go on.
Arabella felt nothing has changed, for she is a happy kid who has found real love from a real family.
There are more Arabellas around waiting for a new home, and in the Rivera’s case, it proved that “family is not maintained by our genes but built and maintained through love.”
If anyone is interested to take a child permanently into their home, please visit the DSWD Field Office Extension Office (near GSIS) at Marasbaras in Tacloban City or send queries to the agency’s Facebook account – DSWD Field Office 08. #