"Mom, what does this mean to you?" asked my 15-year-old daughter, Leimomi, as she laid down her school backpack.

"Our teacher gave this to us, 'The axe will never remember the pain, but the tree will'?"

"Hmm."

I wasn't thinking about the answer. I was trying to read my daughter. She didn't want an answer. Instead, she was dying to tell me something.

"Not sure. What does it mean?"

Leimomi was the most difficult to adopt. She was considered an older-child adoption, since she was 8 years old when she came to us.

At the time, we didn't understand what older-child adoptions meant: The kids came with the memories of their families.

Leimomi had eight years of those memories, and she had strong family ties. She often compared us to her biological family.

I remember when we took her to visit her psychologist, she drew pictures. Once, she was asked to draw a picture of her home. She drew a 1-inch square box with a black crayon in the middle of an 8-by-11 inch piece of paper. She drew herself, sitting in the box.

It wasn't so much that she felt trapped, but I remember crying, over all the space that she left empty on that page.

When we were heading for the adoption of Leimomi, at times she was delighted and could hardly wait. Other times she became very depressed and regressed, with bed wetting and thumb sucking. In those times, she hated us and every kid in our home.

The counsel we had received from every professional person on her case was, "have no contact with her biological family." They had valid reasons.

We were standing in line at McDonald's one day, and I looked down to see that Leimomi was standing in a puddle. She had no idea what had happened. And it seemed that the closer we got to the adoption, the worse she became.

Finally, my husband and I chose to stop the adoption.

"She needs closure," I told my husband. "She can't move on yet."

So despite the counsel we received, we made arrangements for Leimomi to visit with her grandparents, who had custody of her at that time. We remained with her throughout the visit.

What a difference that visit made for her. It gave her permission to move on in her life.

She quieted down and was ready for the adoption. We proceeded and she welcomed us into her world.

Now, at 15, she was telling me about an "axe that wouldn't remember the pain, but the tree will."

"What does it mean?"

"The axe is the bully, and the tree is me!" She replied.

"Wow!" What a revelation. I tried to calm myself down.

"Can you see past the pain, to see the message?" I asked. "What are you supposed to understand?"

"Mom, I don't know, do you?"

I just smiled, and suddenly became aware of all the "trees" walking around in my home.

A. Lee Totten, mother of 11, has adopted seven foster children.

Reach A. Lee Totten at (Unknown address).