Mom Responds to Note She Got About Treating Her Adopted Black Daughter "Differently"
"I guess finding a note like this on my car after dinner should make me angry," Tonya Keefer, an adoptive mother to both a black and white child, wrote in response to a note a stranger left on her car. "Maybe it did, but more than angry it made me feel really, really sad. I pity the person who sees my family and can only see the colors of our skin. Because in our home, we make no such distinction."
The note she's referring to was left on her windshield as her family ate dinner in a nearby restaurant, which read: "Just because the girl is black does not mean you have to treat her any different than your white child. You and your husband walked off and did not look back for the little black girl to make sure she got out the car safely. You should be ashamed. Seems like you're racist. Give the black girl back to her mother. You and your husband are white trash."
Instead of feeling anger at this person for making assumptions about her family, she wrote a graceful and heartfelt response to the stranger on her Facebook page.
The 'black girl' as you call her, is so much more than the label you place on her. She has a name, we call her Leah. She has a beautiful personality, a silliness that is endearing, and a laugh that is infectious. She is talented and creative and hilarious. In fact, as we drove into the Zaxby's parking lot tonight, she was bouncing and giggling in the back seat, being her incredibly unique self.
See, you see a black girl in my back seat, but not the countless prayers I prayed begging God for her. You can't see the times I've cried or lost sleep wondering if I was good enough for her. You see the 'black girl' with the white family, but I see an answer to my prayers, my daughter, my miracle.
I'm sorry that when you see my children you judge them by the difference in skin color, I truly am. Both of my children were abandoned by their birth mothers. Both of them were born to addicts. And both of them deserve the very best of life, and I'll admit, they deserve more than I could ever give them.
"If this note ever finds you I want you to know I am not angry," Keefer wrote. "And I would love to buy you dinner and offer you the chance to get to know our wonderfully unique family."