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Tamarakorr

I am looking for my niece Alexis Orr. Along with her brother Devon who is a year younger, she was taken from her mother April Lynn Orr by the CPS in Lubbock, Texas when they were toddlers. I am her mother’s older sister Tammy. Alexis and Devon were very little when they last saw me. The last time I saw them, I watched them outside the courthouse in La Porte, Indiana while April attended a meeting inside. April soon took them to Texas to see our father (their grandfather), Garry. He was a musician and travelled around the south in his big Winnebago RV. Alexis and Devon stayed with him and April for a while in it, before they were taken away. They were screaming and crying in the back of the police car that took them. Both children enjoyed putting things away and cleaning, and Alexis liked playing a video game in the Final Fantasy series with her mother. Alexis was very quick and intelligent for her age. When they were in Indiana, they lived in an apartment with their mother. It had bad water that had to be boiled before the family could drink it. Both children were born in La Porte, Indiana and lived there before they went to Texas. Their mother, who was a teenager, lived with our mother (their grandmother) for a time. I was older and working as a programmer while attending university at night in South Bend, about an hour away. I worked and attended school from 7am to 11pm every weekday, spent most weekends on schoolwork, and I saw Alexis and Devon occasionally but not often. Their grandmother helped raise them when they were little. Alexis, when you were taken away, your mother suffered very badly. She spent most of her time and resources trying to find you both. She managed to find you at a preschool at least once. This caused the CPS to move you. Then the CPS told us that it changed your names. When your mother lost her rights in 2007, I began the early stage of the adoption process, but my husband backed out and I had to stop. The CPS soon told us it found a family who was now in process of adopting you both. I do not know if anything it told us was true, because we were told that a lot of different times, and always the family was at the very start of the process, and the description of the family was always different. Sometimes it was adopting both children and sometimes only one, sometimes it had its own child or children and sometimes it didn’t, sometimes it was a single person and sometimes a couple. The CPS said your grandmother and I could not be told your new names or have contact, due to a restraining order against your mother, because we might tell her. For all this time I have worried about you both. In 2007 I went to Texas to help your mother and meet the CPS caseworkers, and to attend your mother’s court hearings and appointments with her. You were in foster care at the time, and we had an appointment to go and see you. But your mother’s mind was in a very bad state from being separated from you for so long. She was very unwell, and she became unable to follow the rules. The CPS decided that she was too unwell on the day, and they cancelled the appointment, and none of us saw you again. She was totally devastated and shut down. Soon we were told we could not look for you until you were 18. I made a mistake when marking your 18th birthday in my calendar, thinking you and your brother were born in 2002 and 2003 instead of 2001 and 2002, and I marked your birthday today instead of a year ago. I am so sorry. It is actually your 19th birthday today, and I have patiently waited a year longer than I needed to. I believe Devon’s 18th birthday is tomorrow. I am sorry for all that happened to you and your brother, which your mother and I could not protect you from. The situation was terrifying. I was only a little older than you, and every intervention I made at every level was stopped. I hope that we find each other and that I can speak to you both again.