Diverna Abatte never bore any children.
But the 64-year-old has spent 42 years as a stand-in mother for roughly 175 children — her adopted son and dozens of children in the foster care system.
“The Bible talks about ‘one body, but many members,’ and this was one home with many members,” Abatte said.
Abatte took in her first foster child at the age of 23, after becoming licensed through Child Protective Services in 1979.
She stayed with CPS until 2002, when she became a part of Buckner’s foster family program, from which she recently retired.
Abatte “is a giver, compassionate,” said Buckner’s Annie Flemon. “She loves people but especially children. Children are her heart.”
Even though she was a single mother and full-time working nurse, Abatte managed some of the system’s cases that required the most attention.
“They were her specialty,” Flemon said, adding “if we could clone this woman, our jobs would be so light and easy.”
Abatte fostered children with special needs, emotionally- and behaviorally-challenged children and those who had run away.
“She got them to listen to her, and she did it, not with the belt, but with her words. She did it with love. In order to do foster care you have to do it with heart,” or you won’t last, Flemon said.
Abatte had heart.
She had heart to spare — enough to last for decades and roughly 175 children. The oldest of them is now 52. The youngest and one of her last foster children just turned 5.
On Wednesday, Buckner staff honored her with a drive-by retirement parade at her home in Pear Orchard.
Abatte, a crown topping her head, blew kisses and waved at the line of participants. They drove by, shouting and waving, horns blaring. They were Buckner staff, church friends, fellow foster parents — all who were touched in some way by Abatte’s decades of service.
“All that love,” Abatte said at the parade’s end, “that was just awesome.”
“Forty-two years seems like a long time, but it didn’t feel that long,” Abatte said. “I feel like I could have done it forever,” she added, but health issues last year forced her decision to retire.
Abatte’s journey with the foster care system began when she was still a child herself. She was the youngest, and her much-older siblings began moving away when she was barely a teen.
Abatte recalls seeing a newspaper ad for foster families when she was just 13. Hungry for siblings, she implored her parents to sign up. Ultimately, they relented, and the legacy of fostering children in need of a loving home was born.
She remembers learning to bake cookies from scratch alongside her foster siblings, something she later would do with her own foster children and earned her the nickname “the cookie lady.”
More importantly, she learned to nurture with compassion and by following her mother’s one simple rule — The Golden Rule — a Christian teaching that calls on people to treat others the way they’d want to be treated themselves.
“At 23, I began to realize this was a ministry to serve a need. This was something God called me to do — to provide care and a home for children,” she said.
But for many of the children, she provided more than simply food and a roof.
She provided a nurturing home, compassion, acceptance and a sense of self-worth that many children in the foster care system find pushed out amid feelings of abandonment.
Toni Hayes was one of those children.
She came to Abatte at the age of 3. Her sister went to foster care under Abatte’s mother, which allowed them to maintain a close relationship before being adopted two years later by the Sylvester family.
Hayes recalls her time with “Miss Di,” as she is affectionately known, as one filled with a strong sense of faith.
“I loved being with Miss Di,” she said. “When I got to her home, I learned to fall in love with God — who he was.”
Moreover, there was an unconditional acceptance and belief in the possibilities that God had in store for her.
“She always made me feel like I was somebody,” Hayes said. “She cared so much and believed in me. She made me feel like I was important … special … and like I could do anything.”
Now, Hayes is spreading that message to others through her job at DDMS in Beaumont, which focuses on mental health support.
She dreams of building a resource center “to help troubled youth, and let other kids know they can do it, that we believe in them.”
“Miss Di had a big influence on that. She was loving, warm and protective, and I can never forget that,” Hayes said. “She was such a big, heavy influence on my life, and I love her so much. And that kind of love just doesn’t die.”
“I love you,” Abatte said as she hugged Hayes outside her home Wednesday. “I love you more,” Hayes responded.
That love lives on through the legacy instilled in Hayes. It is passed on to her own two children and to those whose lives she will now touch through her work.
And for those who did leave, the love never stopped.
Abatte’s maintained relationships with many — following their lives through Facebook and when possible, in person.
Last Mother’s Day, a former foster child paid a surprise visit and brought her flowers.
Another, who currently is incarcerated and has since found God, sends letters every month. They are filled with the memories he has of living with her, Abatte said, especially their time together in church.
Whenever she reconnects, “the first thing is they want to show me their children,” Abatte said.
“Growing up in foster care, they understand the importance of family, and they’ve gone on to become exceptional parents. Now, I’m like a grandmother to their children.”
kbrent@beaumontenterprise.com