Sometimes, through the hard work that needs doing around TLC it is easy to mistake the furrowed brows and deep sighs of our overworked team for a loss of passion. It is a hard job, but it is one we lovingly continue doing day in and day out because we unquestioningly believe in the innate value that comes with each vulnerable little life that passes through our doors.

If ever the passion of our team at TLC were in question, all one would have to do is read these heartfelt words written by Thea Jarvis’ eldest daughter Joanna Jones to see how deeply the passion runs through our veins.  This was written in response to the many bureaucratic injustices that are experienced in dealing with the little lives that get caught in an inefficient system.

Dear Heart,

The sad places in my heart are inhabited by the barbed words and careless
innuendo of those who cannot recognize a miracle with joy, of those who
think it useless to save one stranded starfish, but rather stand with hands in
pockets and blame the sea, professing that the world would have been a
better place had those starfish never existed.

Your thoughtless arrow, your blind stab… that’s why you call me a
bleeding heart while failing to recognize the wounds you have inflicted.

I have five treasures of priceless worth, only one borne of my body, but all
five borne of my heart. I love each one fiercely and beyond reason. For any
one of them I will meet the harshest task, I will fight the most fearsome
pirate, I will face the most painful truth… I have spent many hours, many
days, many weeks, many months and even a few years meeting each task,
and pirate, and truth as best I can. I carry the scratches, the scars and the
wounds and yet my treasure is no less valuable to me. I prize each one still
higher for each extra ounce of blood, or sweat or tears I have paid.

And then there are those faces in those sad and angry places in my heart.
Their ill-considered words say, “Why didn’t their mother’s abort them!” My
heart hears them saying, “They would be better off dead…”

Their ill-considered words say “What kind of women leave their child …
They should be sterilized, they should be jailed, they should be…” My heart
hears these self-righteous judges of humanity, sentencing without evidence
or insight and I weep for the mother’s of my children.

What makes your daughter more deserving of life than mine? Is it because
she was nurtured in your educated and well-nourished womb, while my
sweet blossom, no less fragile or fragrant than yours, had a lesser birth right?
Was Moses less deserving of life than the son of the pharaoh? Who are you
to presume the right to decide his fate, to sentence his mother or deprive a
princess of a son?

DO YOU DARE!