Ruby’s Lullaby

My friend Trish, who does not love to fly, travelled more than 7000 miles to bring her daughter Ruby home.

That year Savage Garden released a single called, “I knew I loved you before I met you” and it became Ruby’s Lullaby.

Placed with the Parenting Foundation of the Philippines shortly after birth, Ruby developed cataracts as an infant so surgeons removed her lenses. Due to the visual impairment this caused, she was placed in foster care. She came to Appleton undersized and nearly blind.

Within the unlikely cocoon of her new Midwestern family, though, Ruby quickly found a home. She wore tiny pink glasses and held her head high. She learned to speak and then she learned to sing.

As her voice grew strong, so, too, did the little girl who would have had such a different life had my friends not scooped her upa nd brought her home.

She read Twilight books, shopped at the mall and sang. She learned to play the piano, chatted on Facebook and sang. She went skiing with her brothers and sister, swam with her cousins, and sang. She took singing lessons.

Last year Molly and I went to Ruby’s graduation from modeling school and watched proudly as Ruby sashayed, shoulders back, chin high, eyes wide, grin bright. If modeling seemed an improbable career choice for a 14-year old girl who stood barely 5-0, nobody told Ruby. She owned the runway that day.

Sometimes, when I see Ruby walking with her 6-6 brother, or teasing her very blonde sister, or hugging her little brother, or singing, I think about the baby that travelled all those miles to find a home and the parents that dreamed her into life.