The Garden of Angels

[Guest guest]

"I didn’t know why this particular child was touching me so deeply. Finally, I asked God what he wanted me to do."Debi

Faris had one eye on dinner and the other on the five o’clock news the

night she heard the story that changed her life. Someone had abandoned

a baby several miles from her hometown of Yucaipa, California, and the

televised account of the tragedy left her immobile, too horrified to

walk across the kitchen floor to silence the report’s graphic details.

She could do nothing but stand there and absorb the painful description

of a newborn boy who had been stuffed into a duffel bag and tossed from

a window of a car speeding down a freeway."I

couldn’t move," she says. "I kept thinking, ‘How can this be? How have

we become a society that throws away its children as if they are

nothing?’"Four days

later, the story still haunted her. Somehow she had to find out what

happens to a child’s body that no one claims. Is the baby given a name?

Does he have some kind of funeral? Does anyone say a prayer over his

grave? She thought about contacting somebody, but she didn’t know what

to say or how to explain her growing obsession with the little boy. "I

didn’t know why this particular child was touching me so deeply," she

says. "Finally, I asked God what he wanted me to do, and I felt him

saying, ‘Debi, pick up the phone and make the call for me.’"An Act of LoveThe

information she gathered did little to relieve her anguish. The

investigator in the coroner’s office was kind, but the procedure that

she described seemed routine and uncaring. The bodies of abandoned

babies—and the county tallied as many as 15 a year—were assigned

numbers, were eventually cremated, and the ashes were stored until

enough had accumulated to justify the opening of a common grave. Debi

thought about the newborn. "I just can’t have that for this child," she

said.With the blessing

of her husband and three children, she asked that the authorities

release the baby to her for burial. She secured permission, and in her

conversations with Gilda--the coroner’s investigator--she learned of

another unidentified newborn awaiting cremation. Could she care for

him, too? she asked Gilda.While

she waited for the answer, her search for two burial places took her to

Desert Lawn Cemetery in Calimesa, where an attendant pointed out an

available plot in one area and another in a different section. "Somehow

I knew we would be caring for more babies than these two," says Debi,

"and I wanted a special place where they could all be together." She

asked if there was a larger open area, and soon settled on what has

become "a cemetery within a cemetery." Her premonition proved right;

more babies were in her future."Gilda

called me one morning and said that the two little boys were ready for

release and that I could come pick them up. Then she hesitated and told

me that they also had the body of a little girl, about age two, who had

washed up on a beach in Malibu some time ago.The

coroner had been given the order to cremate the child’s body. Gilda

asked, "Debi, would you be willing to take care of her, too?"

Overwhelmed, Debi told Gilda she needed time to think, but she never

doubted her response."I

knew when I hung up the phone that we would be taking three caskets to

the cemetery, but first I needed time alone with God. I remember

praying, ‘I don’t think I can do this, God. I don’t think I have the

courage.’ I stayed quiet for a while until I sensed that what we were

doing was right. It was an act of love, and at that moment I made a

commitment to offer it to any child who needed it."A Gift From GodOf

the 41 babies she has helped bury since that August in 1996, Debi has

given names to five of them herself (she has enlisted help from others

to name the other babies). The gesture is symbolic rather than official

since the law prevents a stranger from naming a baby. The first three,

Matthew, Nathan and Dora, were easy to bestow. Each name means "a gift

from God," and she believes all children are just that.As

a way of offering healing to the police officers who investigate the

deaths of abandoned children, Debi invites them to name the babies and

participate in the services that honor the children. "They’re the ones

who have to remove the babies from the trash cans, the dumpsters, and

the roadways," she says, "I thought it might help for them to be part

of something loving that was planned for these children." The police

often accept her offer, arriving at the cemetery in full dress uniform

and carrying stuffed animals to tuck into the small caskets. "Sometimes

they even bring their pastors with them, or they buy the blankets to

wrap around the children, or they read poems and release doves as part

of the services," says Debi.The Bigger PictureWord

of Debi’s ministry has spread, and volunteers have rallied to help with

details that range from making pillows to tuck under the babies’ heads

to tending the flowers that decorate the Garden of Angels. She has

recruited a group of pastors to conduct the services, and her dad makes

the white crosses that serve as markers."Preparing

the babies for [for burial] is the hardest thing I do. Yet it’s also

the most blessed thing I do. I think it’s an honor to put my arms

around these children, love them, and pray for them."Until

recently, she handled all of the arrangements from a spare room in her

home. Thanks to an anonymous gift, she has moved this year to an office

in the center of Yucaipa, where she spends more and more of her time

overseeing efforts to lobby government in favor of a "safe abandonment"

law. Under a safe abandonment law (which several other states are also

in the process of developing), a mother could bring her unwanted baby

to a safe place, such as a hospital emergency room or a police station,

with the assurance that she won’t be prosecuted. The legislation is

controversial because opponents believe it allows parents to duck their

responsibility and casually dispose of a child whose arrival is

inconvenient.By

lobbying for legislation and investigating programs like Safe Arms,

Debi hopes to reduce—better yet, eliminate—the need for her Garden of

Angels cemetery. Until then, she tends the garden and honors its babies

by telling their stories to service clubs, church groups, and

middle-school students. "It will always be our mission to try and keep

children from coming to the Garden of Angels," she tells her audiences.

"Until then, by sharing the stories of the children who rest there, we

have become their voices." Visit : Sai Divine Inspirations : http://saidivineinspirations.blogspot.com/ Sai Messages : http://saimessages.blogspot.com/ Love Is My

Form : http://loveismyform.blogspot.com/