Christina was a beloved mother. Grandmother. Birthgrandmother. She was all that, and so much more. She rose to life’s challenges with grace, always. (As only she could.).
Born and raised in San Antonio, Christina was an LVN, and the doting single mom of two fine sons. The boys got their good looks from their mama, no doubt, and Christina was always proud of them, even when times sometimes got tough. She was helping to raise Adrie, the bright and lovely granddaughter who was her son Adrian’s first girl, and named after him. Eventually, Christina chose to adopt her, with Adrian’s blessing.
It was a choice Adrie appreciates. “Honestly, I’m so grateful my mom was the one who adopted me. I was happy it was her. 
She taught me so many things and raised me with respect and compassion. I know my mom was grateful to adopt me. I was her son’s baby. I think she saved my life, and I saved hers. She was a hard worker and always did what she had to do. She had the purest heart and was always lending a hand to everyone.”
Christina always made it a point to do her hair and makeup and look her best, even when she was just visiting a plant nursery, one of her favorite past-times, as she loved plants and growing things. She was beautiful inside and out, and one of the most important lessons she taught her children was to help others and be nice, but to never let others mistake your kindness for weakness.
Becoming a Mother. Grandmother. Birthgrandmother.
Unbeknownst to most of his family, Adrian had also fathered two babies by a girlfriend who chose adoption to give her little girls a more stable life. He would’ve preferred for all his daughters grow up together, but he knew that would put too great a burden on his mom, so he kept the extra grandbabies a secret. In 2010, at the invitation of the adoptive parents, Adrian had finally made plans through Abrazo to meet them at Camp Abrazo.
Just a couple of weeks before Camp, though, at the age of 31, Adrian died unexpectedly of an aneurysm. Adrie remembers “when my dad passed away, it broke down my mom so much. But she was always saying he left her with a beautiful angel, that I was just like him, and how I’m literally like his twin.” Abrazo’s staff, the girls’ birthmother and one of the adoptive mothers quietly attended his funeral. 
Afterwards, at the request of the adoptive parents, Abrazo reached out to his mother Christina, and let her know that her son had left her two more beautiful angels: the granddaughters who’d been adopted by two families who wanted to welcome her into their daughters’ lives via open adoption.
Recalls Adrie, now 21: “I know she was so grateful for Abrazo, because most adoption agencies don’t give out info about other siblings and where they are, but with Abrazo, it brought everyone together, and she loved that. That’s all my mom wanted, was for all her grandchildren to be with each other. Her grandchildren were her world. My mom loved her grandbabies so much, she was always about family and trying to keep everyone together, She was so happy about the Abrazo program and seeing how it brought us all together.” Christina and Adrie came to Camp Abrazo with the other two girls and their families the next year, and for many to follow.
The Legacy Christina Leaves Behind
Upon learning last week that her birthgrandmother was ill with pneumonia, Texan birthgranddaughter Jenna made a quick change of vacation plans. “Thankfully, I came to San Antonio to be with Adrie and the rest of my birthfamily, to be at the hospital when she passed. I’m kind of going through the loss of my birthfather again, along with her.” Everything Jenna is feeling is normal, particularly because adoptees can be extra susceptible to loss, having experienced such a primary loss so early in life. She is fortunate to have the support of caring adoptive parents who knew and loved her birthgrandmother, too, and who always have nurtured her open adoption connections. That makes a big difference for her and for all of her sisters.
Christina’s eighteen-year-old birthgranddaughter, Tasia, is about to start college out-of-state, but she too made plans to travel to Texas to support birthsister Adrie. Tasia remembers fondly that “when I was younger, my family called Christina “Rainbow”… because when I was far away in Virginia, it made me feel at home with my Texas family every time we saw a rainbow. Like it was a symbol, since Christina was really the only connection I had to my birthparents.” Tasia grew up knowing and loving this birthgrandmother, and Christina lovingly supported this birthgranddaughter and her family after Tasia’s beloved adoptive mom Susan (who’d been the first to befriend both Adrian and Christina) died of cancer in 2018.
Christina didn’t have a particularly easy life. And yet, she always found a way, Rainbow that she was, to look at the bright side, and to share joy with others. As Christina once wrote in a birthday text to one of her granddaughters: “Happy Birthday, my precious! 10 years ago, there was an angel that was born on this day. Even thought I was not able to celebrate her birth, I know that a very special little girl was born on this day, Always remember that your grandma loved you from Day One and continues to love you always.” Those are words any adoptee would treasure always, coming from a beloved birth relative.
Gone too soon, Christina “Rainbow” Saldana: mother, grandmother, birthgrandmother. (The very definition of a matriarch.) We know there must have been such a joyous homecoming party awaiting her at those pearly gates– but oh, how she’ll be missed back here, where she made such a beautiful difference in the lives of many.
