Garden of Angels - Kim Michael %

“For anyone who has ever loved a child.”

If you drive west over the state of California on I-10 heading toward Los Angeles you will pass a little town called Calimesa; a town so small that you might not have realized it was even there. Yet in this nondescript little town of just over 7000 people something amazing exists. It is known as the “Garden of Angels”.

If you are unfamiliar with the Garden of Angles let me take you there. As you enter the first this you notice is all the little white crosses, each with the name of a little boy or girl on it, and the next thing you will notice is--there are no last names. They are tiny, babies who have been left in alleys or garbage cans to die alone, unloved and unwanted.

For many years (and still in some places) the remains of these little ones were placed in cardboard boxes and buried in John Doe and Jane Doe graves. That is where Debi Faris-Cifell and her husband come into this story.

There are many people who live their lives going from cradle to grave without leaving so much as a footprint, while others leave huge wakes in life as they pass. They are heroes of a sort; people who inspire us and at times even humble us; people who are capable of such indescribable acts of kindness and courage that it’s difficult to grasp how or why they do what they do.

It begins with a phone call as it has ever since 1996 when Debi got the first call. It is a request for Debi to come to the morgue to collect yet another body of an abandon baby who has died somewhere in the three county area surrounding Los Angeles.

Debi goes to the morgue, insisting on going in alone into the autopsy room where she raps the babies in a hand made quilt and in the quiet of that room she holds them, and prays over them, and loves them. She gives them first names that will be engraved on the little white crosses above their grave. And she buries them in a special that she has made for them, that has come to be known as “The Garden of Angels”.

Since Debi began she has buried more than seventy babies: held seventy babies in her arms; given seventy babies names; and most importantly gave seventy babies love. She refuses to let them pass from this world nameless and without being loved—even if only for a little while.

Over the years the Garden has had frequent visitors: some are people who have lost children, some are people who never had children, and all are people who have kind hearts and believe in what Debi and her husband are doing. And for whatever the reason they come; many adopting the babies, leaving flowers and toys on their graves through-out the year.

But just as Debi is committed to the babies who have been lost, she is equally committed to saving the lives of babies who are still in peril. In 2001 she helped win passage of the law called the “Safe Haven Law” in California, which allows desperate and confused parents a three day period to leave a child at a firehouse or hospital, without fear of prosecution. Forty-six states now have enacted such laws and since the law took affect 67 babies in California have been safely surrendered, though Debi admits, no one knows how many have still been lost, and without an adequate awareness campaign many of these tiny lives are still in jeopardy.

To that end Debi travels across the country to lobby in states that have no such laws, all in the hope that one day the Garden of Angels will see its last angel.

She does all this with a three person staff supported by donations, grants, car washes, bake sales and compassionate people through out the country, but it was barely been enough to cover the costs and Debi realized they could not go on without a miracle.

Then in 2008 the miracle she needed actually happened. Debi and her husband won the California lottery. They had only played it three times in their entire life, but they won $27 million dollars.

They received a lump sum after tax of $9 million dollars and as you would expect some of it went to their children, but the bulk of it went back into doing the work that is, and always has been, Debi’s passion. And because of the money, her babies will live on in a new way, one hundred forty scholarships will be given out each year in the names of each of the abandoned babies she has buried.

Now I suppose there are many who will say that Debi and her husband are deluding themselves; that what they do makes no difference at all in the grand scheme of things--but it does. It matters to me and I suspect, to a lot of people. I believe that no act of compassion is ever lost. That kindness and love can transcend even death and in some way, I know each of those babies are saying “thank you for loving me when no one else did”.

And why do I think that? The odds of winning the lottery are astronomical, even impossible-- especially if you've only played three times in your life. But I tend to think the chances of winning are significantly greater when you have seventy dancing little angels in heaven…helping you.

By the way you can find the website for the Garden of Angels at: http://www.gardenofangels.org/