Selma: The Faces In My Dreams

Every square inch of Selma’s house shouts that three generations share the space. Toys, water tables, and a trampoline take up patches of the overgrown backyard. Multiple sets of muddy handprints adorn the wall above the water hose. The porch is littered with scooters and athletic shoes. The bathroom counter is a sea of pastel hair ties, brushes, and grooming products targeted at kindergarteners and high schoolers alike. An adoptive mother of three and the biological parent of three more, Selma never planned this life. But she was brave enough to choose it.

The Baiza family was one of 39 households to receive home repairs through Community Powered Revitalization last Spring. Volunteers came to replace her rotted fence, touch up her paint, and tame the lawn — among other things. As is often the case, there was no single, world-ending problem with their home. Just a series of little ones that added up over time until she felt like she was suffocating under her responsibilities.

For Selma, that work was a direct response to months of prayer. She spent 6 months asking God to help her tackle an overflowing list of responsibilities before the first volunteer came to inspect her home. It was a fair thing to pray: He brought her here.

The Year Everything Changed

Selma and her husband came to Texas in search of work. For eighteen years, she supported the maintenance department at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Her husband struggled, often telling her that he was too sick to keep a job and ought to stay home with the kids.

At the time, there were three. Selma’s eldest child was an adult by the time they arrived in North Texas and has his own family now. The next oldest will graduate from high school this year, and her brother only trails two years behind her. In fact, with the exception of their father’s mysterious illness, the family settled in well. Until the epileptic episodes began.

“I was having [a] nice job for eighteen years,” she said. “This is the job that I love to do it, working in the airport with the maintenance department. I give them the parts to fix the planes. I was working there, and for no reason the epilepsy came into my life.”

Doctors told her that she had to retire. Her Union advised that she take a break and try medication to get her condition under control. She chose the latter. During her recovery, she started to dream about her cousin. Strange, specific dreams in which he handed her an infant and placed another child’s hand into hers. Night after night for a month, the same images played in her mind. Worried that her cousin’s marriage was in danger, Selma called her Aunt.

The cousin she saw in her dreams was fine, but another one — a man she’d never met — needed help. Within months, Selma adopted all three of his daughters. She returned to work, suffered a more dramatic episode, and was forced to retire. Then her husband left.

‘I Never Doubted’

In the course of our interviews, Selma took care not to attack her ex-husband. She explained that neither doctors nor psychiatrists could diagnose the condition that supposedly kept him from working. That he left not long after the girls arrived, and that their home life was increasingly stressful in the wake of the adoption. She wasn’t interested in blaming or judging him. In her mind, that was God’s job. But she couldn’t deny that his departure left the family in a difficult spot.

“I was depressed for three months. That was horrible. My kids cried with me,” she remembered. “I didn’t want to even live. I don’t want to even breathe…

“That was hard for me, at that time. Especially when I had the three little girls and then I had a husband that — for nowhere — leave me alone. With three little girls and my two kids from him. I had five kids and no man in the house to help me out.”

Selma didn’t stay down for long, though. She knew that her kids needed her. That God had not abandoned her. When asked if the decision to adopt — to double the size of her household — was a difficult one, Selma responded in her native language: nunca dudé.

Her daughter, on hand in case we needed translation, leaned in:

“I never doubted.”

‘The Faces In My Dreams’

Selma’s youngest came into her life under difficult circumstances when they were still infants. Two of the three have no memories of another parent. The eldest needed heart surgery at the time. Selma came to help care for the others during their sister’s recovery. She remembers traveling to McAllen, TX, to meet her cousin and his wife. The moment sticks in her mind because she had already experienced it. Every night for a month.

“She came to me with the little one in her arms and the other one in her hands [and gave] them to me. She didn’t know who I am, but she say ‘here, the kids,’” Selma said, “I was shaking. I said ‘oh, my goodness, I cannot believe this happened. That’s the girls!’ when I see their faces; because it was the same faces that I see in my dreams.”

Soon, her cousin was arrested and faced deportation. Selma agreed to take custody of the youngest girls, and the eldest joined the family after her recovery. All three came in poor health, and in some cases with evidence of abuse or neglect. Child Protective Services could not gather enough evidence to prove any allegations, and Selma was forced to fight for legal custody as she nursed the kids back to health over the course of the next four years. When it was finally awarded, the judge insisted that the kids adopt Selma’s maiden name and forsake any other.

Now, the family lives in peace under the roof Selma chose when she first came to the metroplex. They share a home that, without the help of volunteers and partners from all over the community, would still be in disrepair. They play in a yard that is, for the first time, safely guarded by a locked fence. And, as far as Selma is concerned, everything is going exactly as God intended it to go.

“When [the volunteers] came, believe me, I feel like I can breathe again,” Selma said. “It’s not the first time that I see God’s plan in my life. That’s not the first time God helped me with something that I need. I can stay here for hours to say testimonies about God doing in my life.

“I believe God let this epilepsy come into my life because that’s the only way that I can go out from my work and take care of these little kids. If I had to work, there’s no way that I can take care of these kids,” she added. “God knows the future. I don’t know nothing… but I said ‘well, I am here, you use me however you want.’ I don’t want to, but I can’t say no to Him! I never asked for it, but He already sent those girls, so [now they are mine].”

Selma’s story is complex, and her specific circumstance is rare. But she isn’t alone. Men and women all over our community need help maintaining their homes. Veterans, single parents, and people who cannot physically or financially keep their houses in code are waiting for your help. Get involved at 6stones.org/cpr.