Christmas came early for Linda Herst this year, and her daughter Alison and husband Paul delivered the present of a lifetime.
Christmas came early for Linda Herst this year, and her daughter Alison and husband Paul delivered the present of a lifetime.
The two brought Alison’s adopted daughter home from Haiti after a grueling 52-day ordeal, arriving at the Herst’s McNaughton Avenue home Wednesday afternoon.
“Now we don’t have to shop for any gifts because the best one just walked in the door,” said Linda.
Alison had been in Port-au-Prince, Haiti since Oct. 18 trying to complete Zoe's adoption and obtain the passport she needed to bring the 13-month-old youngster to Canada.
But she was frustrated at every turn by a Haitian bureaucracy indifferent to her plight.
Herst finally received Zoe’s passport Monday afternoon and she and Paul, who had gone down to Haiti a second time to help her, left Tuesday.
“I was absolutely terrified going through Haitian customs at the airport because I just didn’t know what would happen,” Herst said, as Zoe toddled around her grandparents’ living room.
“But a customs officer said it was a good thing I was doing, giving Zoe a better life, because of the terrible poverty in Haiti.”
Finally, as the three walked across the tarmac toward the plane, Herst said she broke down and cried tears of relief.
“It’s hard to believe it’s over and that I’ve finally brought Zoe home because it’s been a very difficult and awful experience, but beautiful in the end,” Herst said.
Welcome home finallyLinda and Alison’s pal Tracy Johnson couldn’t contain their excitement earlier Wednesday afternoon as they waited for the precious cargo to arrive.
A spread of food included Alison’s favourites, hummus and home-baked butter tarts.
And
a sign near the front door said “Welcome home finally Zoe, Dedo, Aunty Ali.”
It was signed by the Herst’s grandson Joshua.
Then, at 1:45 p.m., the trio arrived.
"We made it, we made it," Herst said as she was
hugged by Johnston.
And then it was inside the house for the homecoming of a lifetime.
It was terrifyingHerst talked to local reporters about her stay in Port-au-Prince.
She said she had gotten to the point where she couldn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel.
“It was terrifying, I didn’t know how I was going to get her home, I kept saying that to my parents, to friends, to my boyfriend,” Herst said, as Zoe grabbed curiously at a microphone.
“I’m not Haitian, and they looked at me as a rich, white American. I didn’t know what to do so I just called people every day and bugged them, and I kept paying money to get her home.”
The last person she paid, a Haitian lawyer who had worked for the orphanage Zoe came from, finally obtained the passport.
“I think I’m a terrible case of an adoption gone bad, and what happened to me doesn’t happen to everybody thank goodness,” Herst said.
Opened its armsWhile she won’t be adopting from Haiti again “because I can’t afford it,” Herst said it would be “beautiful” for Zoe to have a brother or sister from her culture.
“She’s coming into a white community so it would nice for her to be able to relate a little better to somebody with colored skin,” Herst said.
“And that’s one of the biggest things for me that came out of the fundraiser, that North Bay has opened its arms to Zoe already, and it will stop a lot of questions and staring. They’re ready for her and it’s tremendous, and I’m so grateful for that.”
Herst's boyfriend Stacy Jackson said he's in awe of her.
"It goes to show what type of person she is, how resilient she is, and how much inner strength she has," Jackson said.
"She saw this thing through to the end and now her incredible journey has ended happily at home."
