Jacqueline M. Ruffino-Platt

You came into this world alone. On that special day you were born, you felt the warmth of your mother’s breast as she cuddled you. A tender touch of your dad’s fingers. Held with fragile arms, kissed, hugged, and tickled until a tiny smile begins to appear and your mom and dad embrace this first moment. A baby is a bit of stardust blown from the hand of God. Whether you are the first child or one of few siblings, you are special and will remain special. When your mom and dad brought you home, the family gathered around for a peek. Still close to your mother’s bosom, the hugs from your dad, they begin to lay the path for you.

A few years back while sweeping my garage, a nine-year-old boy stopped and asked to sit down and visit with me. We chatted for about an hour when he looked up at the beautiful clear blue sky and said, “How does God know where to send which baby to which family?” I was surprised and quite speechless and searched for an answer he would understand. Or an answer I would understand. Instead, he had the answer, one which surprised me coming from a nine-year-old boy. His answer to his own question seemed simple but rather profound. “God looks down on earth holding each and every baby in his arms and looks around through the glorious blue sky and white clouds and places a baby in the family he knows is the best home and a good fit. God does this every single day and never runs out of babies. They keep coming, and He is busy all the time.” He places them so carefully. I felt honored and inspired by this young boy’s beautiful rendition. My little friend came from a rather large family with heartaches, less riches than most folks, a mother and father who had little paying jobs, and barely enough money to put food on their table. How special, I thought, he was. My little friend held my hand and said God put him in the wrong house when he was a baby. I assured him right then he had more to offer than he could imagine and was in the right place. I haven’t seen him in some time since we moved, and, hopefully, he continued on the right path.

Growing up and taking a step onto the pathway of life towards a direction we wanted to pursue, our tasks were to listen, especially from our parents, learn from our educators, professors, our employers, and to each other for guidance. We developed into fine ladies and gentlemen. You learn many things growing up into a world, a world with love, hate, passion, crises, crime, punishment, and, most of all, knowledge we learned from the first breath we took when God placed us in the arms of our mom and dad. Some of us became successful through knowledge, education, patience, dreams, good habits, and love for others, understanding our very beginnings. We are out there …