Once in a lifetime, you meet someone in your town that takes in and cares for kids as if they were her own. You don’t understand how she does it or how she has the strength to cope with so many daily problems and issues, all you see her doing is watching over these kids with love and understanding.
A Utah woman named Christie Jameson has adopted 35 children in her lifetime. As the story goes, she got the idea when she discovered her brother had accidentally hung himself while playing on a rope. From that point on, she wanted to care for children.
What’s different about adopting 35 children is she has adopted primarily children who have problems, where nobody else would have adopted them. That is one strong lady.
From People:
Christie Jameson sometimes wonders if the idea to adopt 35 children was planted when she was 12. She came home from a doctor’s appointment with her mother one afternoon and discovered that her only sibling, Buddy, 15, had accidentally hung himself while playing on a rope.
Over the years, Christie Jameson has adopted children who have Down syndrome, spina bifida, cerebral palsy and fetal alcohol syndrome. Some of her children were physically or sexually abused and some are blind or deaf, while others have weak immune systems and are not expected to live full lives.
“Of the 35 we took in, we’ve lost 12,” she says. “Every time, it’s heart-wrenching, but if I had to do it all over again, I would. They deserved every happiness they could get in the short time that they were here. They brought a lot of joy into my life.”
At each of her childrens’ funerals, Jameson played Garth Brooks’ “The Dance,” because she relates to the lyrics, “I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance.”
Although she now has two assistants come in daily to help with bathing and feeding, Jameson didn’t receive state subsidies for her family’s care until just before her husband died.
“Alva worked as an accountant, and for 15 years, I cleaned toilets and mopped floors at our church to bring in a little extra to augment his salary,” she tells PEOPLE. “We’ve always made our own meals and lived a very simple life. But it’s been a good life, a happy life. Nobody has ever gone wanting.”
To ensure that her family is cared for once she is gone, Jameson put her home and her life savings in a trust “so that they’ll always feel loved and protected,” she says. “For the rest of their lives, I want my kids to be loved and cared for. They’ve done the same for me for my entire life. They’ve given me much more than I could ever give them.”
She and her family are a shining example for the rest of us. We all (including myself) need to do more for others. We are so blessed and we need to give of ourselves even if it is only a smile, each and every day.
What a terrific story about an amazing woman. I hope that she is blessed beyond measure and that the kids turn out.
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h/t – People