Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 10, 1993 TAG: 9301080126
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHY WILLIAMS LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
RETURN TO ROMANIA
IN 1991, Kathy Williams journeyed to Romania to find a child. Last month, she returned to her son's homeland and discovered a people whose spirit has been restored despite their struggle to survive amid squalor.
ROMANIA: December, 1992\
Dear Daniel,
I wonder when you first stopped crying.
You were 3 when we first met in February 1991 and one of the things I noticed about you was that you did not cry. Not when you fell down. Not when you were wet and hungry. Not ever.
After three years in a Romanian orphanage, I guess you figured out there was no point. No one ever came when you cried out. No one cared that you did not eat. Or that your bed was soaked through with urine. All you wanted was a little help and comfort. Is it possible that a 3-year-old could abandon hope?
At the time, I never thought I would visit Romania again. Too bleak. Too depressing for me. But when the opportunity came this year, it seemed wrong not to give something back to a country that gave me my only child.
What memories this second trip to Romania has triggered.
After I adopted you and took you home to America, I remember one night when you fell and hit your head hard on the floor. How surprised you looked when I rushed to your side. Scooping you up in my arms, I nuzzled my face close to yours and whispered words of comfort. The next time you stumbled, you looked my direction, hesitated for only a moment, and let out a wail. I cried, too, but with pleasure.
Your hope and a little part of your spirit had been restored.
On this trip, I am not looking for another son - I have had all my dreams realized in you. I'm traveling with a Hampton Roads group called International Samaritan Health and Aid Association, dedicated to giving Romania medical help.
As we visit villages around the countryside assessing the many medical needs, it strikes me that Romania is much like the son I found two years ago.
Silenced by 40 years of communism, Romanians knew it was pointless to cry out. The iron boot of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu had crushed their spirit and left them without hope.
In 1989, a country weary from oppression struck back and Ceausescu was executed at the hands of those he tried to strangle.
Like you, Daniel, Romania is fighting its way back - step by step. Though democracy has supposedly come to this tiny country, Romanians still feel the breath of communism on their necks.
Like their Soviet neighbors to the north, Romanians are struggling just to eat, keep warm - to survive. It is hard for many to believe that freedom is worth this price. Many are tempted to surrender and turn back the clock.
For the first time, however, a few dare to hope. Some find encouragement in the helping hands of foreigners. Others rush forward to pick up their own countrymen and offer comforting words.
Traveling across the country, I have told people about my Romanian son. Because of you, many people have opened their doors and offered me the chance to be part of their family. They have confided their darkest fears and their brightest hopes.
At a pollution-choked factory in Tirgu Secuiesc, a 48-year-old worker whispers one thought: choices. In Oradea, a surgeon shivers in the cold of his operating room and wishes for one thing: knowledge. A homemaker in the tiny village of Sarmas sits in her church and with tears streaming down her face gives thanks for one privilege: religious freedom.
A nurse in the Falciu orphanage, where I first found you, looks at the beautiful, healthy child in the picture. A broad smile creeps across her face as she realizes it is you. There is hope for the people of Romania, she says.
I tell you their stories now, Daniel, in the hopes that you will never take for granted the freedom and security you have in this country.
And I hope your countrymen continue to grow and prosper as well as the little boy who once lived among them.