And so I prayed for rain.

And when it came, torrential and thundering, I knew with a 3-year-old’s confidence that God had come to town.  Looking up at the glowing blue sky, awash in the golden light that comes after the summer rains on the Texas Plains, I knew He had heard my prayers.

It is one of my earliest memories.  And that golden-blue, after-the-rain color is still my favorite of all.

And so I boldly asked for more.  “God, since I know you are here, please bring me a brother or sister now.”

I knew with the certainty of a small child that it was only a matter of time before this next request was answered.  After all God had already come to town.

Oh, to have faith like a child.  Now I understand the grown-up things that bring doubt…  Words like infertility and adoption process.  But in those days, I only knew the faith that came with the summertime rainstorm.

And He answered me a few months later.  It came in a surprise phone call from our family doctor asking my parents if they would want to adopt a newborn baby boy.  I remember a nun in a full habit was holding him as my mom introduced us for the first time.  Looking at the tightly swaddled baby in the arms of a nun, I whispered to my mom, “I always knew that’s what angels looked like!”

There were times when I wished, like all older sisters with pesky little brothers, that God would take him back.  But deep in my heart I always knew that God had heard my prayers, and I’ve never stopped being thankful.

———

Though not yet an adoptive mother, Carrie is the older sister of two adopted brothers.  Carrie and her husband live in China working with a foster home for orphans with special needs, and Carrie writes about her life and experiences at her blog Signs of Hope.

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Some children will have summer school, others will have weeks of scheduled camps. Many will be home with a parent or grandparent, with weeks of free time stretching out before them. Eventually the phrase, “There’s nothing to do” is uttered. Here are some comebacks to that dreaded phrase:

Free Movies–every week, all summer long there are free morning movies. In our neighborhood, we plan catching a few movies thanks to the Regal Family Film Festival.

Free Concerts in the Park–all three of the park districts near us offer free entertainment all summer long–some are in the morning for the kids, some are in the evening for the family. It doesn’t really matter what kind of music is playing, my kiddos love to watch and dance around to live music.

Free Library Programs–our city library offers a summer reading program for the whole family–parents can earn points as they read to their children. Prizes include restaurant meals and passes to attractions, so a few mornings at the library can lead to more adventures all summer long! The libraries also offer special story hours, movies showings and programs all summer long. Along the same lines, we like to visit different library branches throughout the city in summertime.

Playground Hopping–During the school year, we tend to stick to the same neighborhood park. During the summer, I scope out new places to play. Sometimes we meet friends, sometimes we just go by ourselves. My kids LOVE playgrounds!

Water Fun– Finding good swimming pools is crucial here in hot & humid Indiana. Zero-entry pools (where you walk in, as opposed to walking down steps) are great for younger children becasause they can sit and splash away. Sprinklers can be great fun while also taking care of the lawn. Buckets of water, with sponges or paintbrushes can keep young children busy for hours. Last weekend my son found a cooler of ice at a party and spent the rest of the evening putting ice cubes into party cups lined up on the floor. You can bet that we’ll be recreating that fun game on the patio this summer. Check your area for splash parks–those are fun and less of a hassle then packing for a day at the pool. The splash parks in our area are great, and a fun way to cool off on a hot summer’s day.

These five activities kept us busy all summer long for a minimal amount of money.

Another option is to have each child make (or dictate) a list of what they’d like to learn and do. My daughter is determined to learn how to tie her shoes. She also wants to go back to small zoo we visited a few weeks ago. She wants to visit Grandma, and she wants to go to the beach. You might be surprised as to what they’d like to put on their lists.

For older children, summer is the perfect time to try out different volunteer opportunities. Most churches need helpers for their Vacation Bible School programs. Our church grows a harvest garden, and donates vegetables to shelters around town, so they are always in need of gardeners. Libraries usually take on volunteers for assorted jobs, and assisted living/nursing homes love young people to come read, visit, or play music.

The question is, how do you keep track of all the events going on around town?

This summer I’m sharing a Google calendar with some friends, so we can plug in activities easily. As one of us sees an ad for something fun, we plug it into the calendar. Then we can plan out the week accordingly. A girlfriend of mine likes to plan “theme weeks” so we are planning on going to see Toy Story 3, and visit a toy museum in the same week.

My friend Heather wrote a great eHow article on how to create a summer schedule–she’s assigned an activity to each day of the week, so that her girls know that Monday is library day, Tuesday is movie day, etc.

No matter how you plan it, summer is here. Enjoy.

Michelle is now in full-summer mode, at home with her two children.  When not scheduling her life via Google calendar, she blogs about life on her personal blog,  Gotchababy.

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I was so excited for her to come. It would open up so many opportunities for us – we would be able to learn about Korean culture from some one who lived it everyday, we would have an older child in the house and we would be able to meet some other parents because she would be involved in some things; her application said she liked to sing, swim, do art and drama and play the piano. While I found it a little odd that we had no recent pictures of her we were very excited for her to come.

She came and we talked for a bit when she got here. We learned that she was a complete and total introvert, she was scared to talk to ANY ONE. The only people she willingly talked to were the Korean’s at church (and we were told not to let her hang out with them because it could cause problems – we didn’t see the harm at first, now I see it). She was so rude to my 16 year old Goddaughter the weekend she came to stay in an effort to get Sunny to make friends that I decided that there would be no other students in our house unless they were invited by Sunny. We have encouraged her to invite her friends over and NONE come, not a single one.

We learned that even if unintentionally she would be untruthful with us about the foods she liked and we would have to hide food to have the things I needed to make dinner. So we took her grocery shopping with us not only to the regular grocery store BUT to the Korean grocery as well – the girl would not tell us at all what she wanted and when asked what she would like to eat she would not answer. Even if she would answer we have learned that we cannot trust the answer that she gives us. I stopped asking and resorted to hiding the food when necessary so that I would have it for meals or for the twins (who we bought it for).

We started asking around and learned that she may think it was rude to request food. So I kept an eye on what she would eat and tried to keep some of it around. We also learned that she was probably here because her parents expected her to be and not because she wanted to be (so in typical 15 year old fashion she is trying not to enjoy her time here to punish her parents).

She told us she wanted to sign up for some groups and things at school, so we talked about what may interest her and she decided to talk to her drama teacher and her art teacher. It is now months later and she has yet to talk to either teacher about signing up for any classes, and I am told by the teachers that I cannot just sign her up for the groups.

She then proceeded to ignore our whole family and spend whole days on the computer. Yes the whole day. I installed a program on the computer that would limit her time to 90 minutes and she ignored me for a week when I told her. She was furious with me. ONE week later she figured out a way around it – even though during the week when she was limited we were finally getting her to participate in the family. (She does not know it BUT I am spending Monday cleaning up the desktop….making her a user and Aaron and I administrators, and she will only be receiving an hour a day on the computer as she has no business being on the computer for 8 hours a day. So I am prepared to be the bad guy again.)

She acts as if she is in a boarding house and not a family — I figured that it was just her until this week. She decided she wanted to stay with a different family for the break. I didn’t allow that – she was FURIOUS with me. The family she wanted to stay with was Korean. I let her stay a few days but not the whole break. I also learned over break she has NO desire to learn anything about our culture — she is mad at one of the other Korean exchange students here because he likes so much about the American culture and is not being Korean….I tried to tell her there has to be a balance but she said no…

So next week I am trying something new…(1) I am going to record a show I think she may like and offer to let her watch it every night BUT she has to watch with Aaron and me; (2) she is going to be limited to ONE hour on the computer a day period – no exceptions; (3) we are instituting game night at our house — one night, one board game and (4) the one thing she enjoyed doing with me was cooking the Korean food, so we are going to have ONE night a week when we cook together….

Why am I doing this? because I will poke my eyes out if I have to deal with things the way they are until June when she goes home (June 4th is what she says but the program has not told me that yet…I am not sure that is her exact departure date….) SO things HAVE to change and if she is not going to change them I am…I am tried of the ignoring and the attitude (though I know most of that is teenager behavior).

Those of you with teenagers….HELP….what can I call teenager behavior and what is her being an introvert and what is her being pissed at us or her parents or whoever….

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One of our children came to us by birth, and the other five by adoption. We had three daughters at the time that I first saw pictures of my son and his siblings, and I was drawn to him right from the start. His online profile talked about him being angry that other kids picked on him and called him names, and I felt that “mother hen” reaction, wanting to rush to his defense. How could they pick on “my” boy? Within a year of seeing those pictures, we flew to meet him, along with his big sister and little brother. He was four; mischievous, and a little wild. Why wouldn’t he be? He had already lived in an overcrowded orphanage for a year, and clearly the kids did what they wanted much of the time. Yet on our visit, he listened when we spoke, looked to us for approval, accepted correction.. and when we had to bring him back to the orphanage, he crumpled to the ground, wailing in agony that we were leaving him there. As heartbroken as we were by this, we took it as a good sign. We loved him fiercely, even from afar. I often cried with missing him and our other kids. I prayed every day that they would be home soon.

My husband made a return visit to spend additional time with the kids. Finally, eight months after our visit, and a year after starting their adoption, I flew to their orphanage, picked up our children, and brought them home. About a month after coming home, our son, now 5, attempted to assault one of our girls (during play), and she, horrified, immediately came to tell us about it. When we questioned him about the incident, he disclosed extensive sexual abuse from another child, although we suspected that somewhere along the way, an adult had also been involved. We sought post-adoptive services and followed the advice that we were given, but despite our best efforts, we discovered, a little more than a year later, that he had been perpetrating sexual abuse against one of our daughters over a period of months, and molesting another (and clearly “grooming” her for more.)
After a frightening weekend during which we had to report our son to Child Protective Services, our life drastically changed. We moved his bedroom to another floor of the house, alarmed his door, put him (and the girls) in therapy, kept him in sight at all times. He was angry at these changes, and at being denied the sexual outlet, and started acting out. He would rage violently for 2-4 hours per day, actively work to antagonize me, verbally taunt and mock me, threaten to kill me and the other kids, tell me he hated me and wanted me to leave, intentionally and deliberately destroy his belongings, work to set my husband and I against each other and then laugh as we fought. We knew that he was suffering. We knew that he needed help, and desperately. And yet every therapist, counselor, psychologist and psychiatrist that we took him to in our community had a different opinion on what was “wrong” with him, and their suggestions on how to help him were ridiculous. There was no sticker chart that was going to help my boy, and putting him in “time-out”? Please.

In the course of a year, our son had been to an art therapist, a psychologist, and 2 private psychiatrists, had been in an inpatient psychiatric hospital for 2 weeks, done an outpatient psychiatric program for 3 weeks, seen a family therapist, gone to a neuropsychologist, had MRIs, full blood panels, EKGs, EEGs, and been in a school program for kids with emotional disturbances. There were three attachment therapists about 90 minutes from our home (none of whom took insurance). One wanted to swaddle my husband and I in blankets and “hold” us to show us what our child would go through in treatment.. this is not even legitimate attachment therapy. We left that office and never went back. The other two had waiting lists so long that one would not add to the list, and the other projected they could call us in about 11 months. We didn’t have that long.

We were living in day-to-day crisis mode. It was hard to make plans, because we never knew what our son would be like that day. Our other kids were sometimes late to school, because their brother would be raging. On occasion, I called ahead to his teacher and brought him in his pajamas, because he refused to get dressed. To do something as simple as go to the bathroom, I had to escort him to his room and set the alarm first, every time.

He continued to make sexual gestures and comments to our daughter. I could not even send him to the closet to get his coat at the same time as the other kids, because he could not control his words or behavior, and she was afraid. But it also grew increasingly difficult for him to control those behaviors outside of our home too, as he propositioned a therapist, his teacher, and another child at school. We were moving as fast as we could to get him into a specialized residential treatment program; I only prayed that we could get it in place before he hurt someone again.
And finally, he went to residential, my 7 year old baby. It was the best program we could find, the one program that we believed could really help him. We had had to pull strings to get him there, to “work the system” a little bit because it was an out-of-state facility. We glued together a mishmash of private insurance, a grant from an employer, and then Medicaid to fund his care. We participate in his treatment through phone therapy and SKYPE, and we take turns flying to see him every 6-8 weeks or so. He has been in residential for almost a year now.

We see some changes in him. An increased ability to take responsibility for his actions. More cause-and-effect thinking. His aggressiveness and his oppositional behavior still are wildly variable. We don’t know if the hypersexuality is being kept in check by him or merely by the ultra-restrictive environment, but our feeling is that it is probably the latter (just because there has not been enough emphasis on this in therapy, in our opinions).

The biggest change in our son being gone was in us. In me. Once the chaos was removed, I was able to see for the first time the effect he was having on our other kids, and it was not okay. I owe them safety. They deserve, at a bare minimum, to feel safe in their home. I told my husband that our son could not come home, and that I was willing to face whatever consequences of that decision I needed to, even if it meant the end of our marriage. We fought for months. We both felt that “adoption is forever”, and yet I knew that I could not continue to keep our daughters safe, and that the effort to do so was killing me.

We could have tried to keep bouncing our son from one long term residential facility to another until he turned 18, but there was no aspect of this that was appealing. For starters, we felt strongly that he deserved to live in a family. He was as much a victim in this entire scenario as our daughters. To sentence him to 10 more years of institutional living.. on top of the 3 years he had already spent in institutions, seemed inhuman. Not only that, we feared it would only prepare him for living in institutions… like jail. Further, our experiences thus far made us think it would be highly unlikely we could keep him in residential care for the long term. While funding may once have supported this type of care, it certainly does not, now. There were no good options. We loved our son, but did not feel he could live with us. We did not want to sentence him to long term institutionalization in order to maintain custody of him. We decided to dissolve, or legally void, our adoption, and find our son a new family.

Knowing that our son had more challenges than the average child, we took our search to the internet, posting our story on our blog, asking friends and other adoptive families to link to our story, to Facebook, Twitter, and email the link to anyone and everyone they knew. We received emails from all kinds of families who had similar stories; families who had suffered through their dissolutions in silence and isolation and shame, when, in truth, they had done nothing more than give everything they had to kids with very traumatic histories.

Sometimes, that’s just not enough. We also received some unbelievably cruel and sadistic email, from people who had no goal but to wound. Some of it succeeded, although truthfully, there was little that people could say to us that we hadn’t said to ourselves or to each other over the previous two years. I accepted it, telling myself that if it ended with a family for our son, it would all be worth it. Finally, it did, and they were everything that we could have wanted for him.
We are moving forward, slowly. Our son is still “ours”, for the time being. He will finish his treatment; his new family will wait for him. They have agreed to let us continue to have contact with him. They understand that our boy needs as many people in his life that love him as possible.
We are slowly coming to terms with the fact that he will not come home to us, and while this is “for the best”, I find myself struck down by grief unexpectedly. No family ever imagines this outcome. No mother ever dreams of her child leaving like this. This is not how it’s supposed to be. But for now, it is what it is.

At the request of the author this post is anonymous and comments will remain closed.

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How often does this happen? In Indiana alone, it’s happened 18 times in the past two years (this link takes you to another case, the right side bar details the 11 children who died between 11/07 and 6/09) All too often a child’s picture is splashed across the headlines, along with a biography of his or her short life. And this is just in one state. One state with a population less than that of New York City.

In the most recent story to be covered by the Indianapolis Star, Jeremiah was a boy whom his mother dropped off with relatives who thought the world of him. She put her son in their care so that he would be safe. For six years, they were his primary caregivers, really, parents in every way they could be. His mother signed over guardianship for educational and medical purposes. But she drew short of consenting to an official adoption. If she did that, she would lose the welfare money she was drawing because of Jeremiah.

If you read the accompanying time line on the Star website, you will see that his mother has a long history with the Department of Child Services,  for various issues with her other children. Jeremiah, however, was safe. He was safe until it was pointed out that he actually needed to live with her in order for her to receive benefits for him. She then immediately took him away from the only real home he’d ever known.

Five months later, he was dead. He was dead from a gunshot wound to the head, inadvertently catching a bullet that was meant for his mother. The gun was fired by her violent boyfriend.

I am all for encouraging people to parent children born to them. I am all for providing resources, financial and material to keep families together. I know plenty of people who’ve drawn on government and private donations to keep themselves afloat, to keep their children clothed and fed, and to keep a roof over their heads.  These people are driven by the love they have for their children. They are driven by the fact that they know their children are counting on them.

But what happens when that isn’t the parent’s goal? What happens when the children involved aren’t even close to a priority? What happens when the parent can’t put the child first? When the child is an inconvenient after thought?

All too often, that child is abused, neglected, or somehow killed (by neglect, abuse or accident). This should not be acceptable or tolerated. SOMEONE has to stand up for these children. SOMEONE has to put the needs of an innocent child before the wants of a selfish adult. Somehow, children need to be protected from the domestic violence that goes on around them. Somehow, children need to be protected from adults who disregard them to such an extent that they can’t provide a safe home. At some point, a child’s basic right to a safe and loving home has to trump the adults’ selfishness. That right has to trump the fact that the adult may be trying but not succeeding, or really not interested in trying but interested in the welfare benefits attached to the child.

After his death, Jeremiah’s three half-siblings were removed from his mother’s care. I pray that they remain safe, and that they somehow find a home where they are truly safe and loved.

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by Mark, husband of Judy (Special Needs)

Okay, so my wife, the writer, asked me to write something for Grown in My Heart as we approach this Father’s Day. I am the proud father of four children. Each of which had their own unique path into our hearts and our lives. In reflection I’ve often tried to find the words to help those of us of the male persuasion to come to terms with the adoptive process.

Speaking as a father of a biological son as well as three adopted children I thought maybe I can help prospective fathers sort through the myriad of thoughts that go through male minds. Judy indicated that I needed to keep it short so I decided to speak to three thoughts for the fathers and prospective fathers of the world.

1. There is no difference in the love you feel for a biological child or an adoptive child. I remember the warmth and love I felt for my son in the delivery room and thinking I could not love anything more than what I feel for this child. I was wrong, the first time my oldest daughter greeted me in the hallway when I came home from work dropped me to my knees as if I had just been sucker-punched. The moments I watched my younger daughter smile uncontrollably, as she experienced the wonder of dance, or my youngest son giving me a thumbs up and a smile as he scored his first goal are memories I cherish. A greater love for one over the other – I don’t think so.

2. Open your heart and mind, as wide as you think is possible, and then point double it. If you truly can do this the amount of love and kindness will be returned tenfold. I can think of no greater love than that given by a child. This is truly the purest gift one can receive, one that has no expectations whatsoever of getting anything in return.

3. Do not put undo pressure on yourself as to how to be the greatest Dad on earth. I was given a book by my wife when my son was born. The book asks children what every daddy should know in order to get along with his children. An eight year old replied “You need to remember that you should spend as much time as can with your children, because pretty sooner or later, they will be too old to run races against them”. I think about this every day, not always doing the best job at it but as a constant reminder. Keep it simple and love them!

I have been blessed in many ways during my life, none greater than having my wife and children to share all that it has to offer. I believe as my wife does – that we do not choose our path in life, but are only given options that affect the outcome. Along with that I believe that we don’t choose our children, but in fact they choose us. I’m glad all of mine found their way home. What do I wish for Father’s Day? Not a thing!

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I saw a couple walk into the building, and found a parking space. I met my husband in the lot-we had both left work early for this meeting. We made our way in to the lobby and sat down, waiting. There were other people there, and I wondered, “Who was it that picked us? Who was it that wanted to see us in person?”

We were called back, and entered a room especially for this kind of meeting-it was no one’s office, there was no telephone or computer, it was a room for talking, without interruption. We saw our case worker, and the expectant parent caseworker, and then we were introduced to Jane and Geoff.

I had spent no time wondering what they looked like. I was surprised they were both tall. I remember being seated, and making small talk. For as monumental as the moment was, I don’t remember much about how the conversation started. We took turns explaining what brought us to the adoption table.  And after awhile, we were talking easily with each other. We met for about 90 minutes. I remember Jane telling us why she chose our profile. I remember my husband asking Jane and Geoff if they had to make a profile book, what would it look like. I remember, oddly enough, discussing the movie Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Through that conversation, we discovered the fantastic world of Tyler Perry, and every time we watch a movie of his, we bring up the fact that it was Jane and Geoff who turned us on to them.

When we left that meeting, we felt good—good that not only would we be adopting the child ready to arrive, but good that we felt a connection with these expectant parents. That after debating about being “open to open adoption” on our application,  we would be more than willing to venture into an open adoption.  A few days later, we got an email telling us that Jane and Geoff felt the same way.

Four years and two children later, we still have an open relationship.  We know a lot more about each other now, than we did in that first 90 minute meeting. But that first 90 minutes laid the ground work for everything else that was to come.

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Instead, I was a pimply-faced teenager, wearing an ugly sweatshirt and sporting fingernails bitten down to the quick.  I remember that day so clearly because it was the day I met my cousin for the very first time… Sleeping Beauty, an adorable little baby my aunt and uncle adopted from Korea just a few months before I met her.  My aunt and uncle had adopted their son, another one of my dozens of cousins, seven years before, when I was too young to dream of my own children.  But Sleeping Beauty arrived in my life at a time when many young girls flash-forward a decade or two, imagining the time that they, too, will hold a little one in their arms.

Tonggu Momma with Sleeping Beauty in 1991

That day, I cuddled Sleeping Beauty close and – for a split second – I imagined my life with a daughter who looked just like her.

Well, my daughter, whom my husband and I adopted from China, doesn’t look just like my Korean-born cousin, but – to quote my five-year-old Tongginator – they DO have “the same shiny, black, Mulan hair.”  Sometimes it takes my breath away to think of how our pasts can so radically shape our futures.

Sleeping Beauty with the Tongginator, last weekend

My cousin Sleeping Beauty is no longer an adorable little infant, forced by her ultra-feminine momma to wear pink, ruffles and lace.  She is no longer a young child with few opinions about adoption and culture and life in general.  Almost two decades later, she is a bright, attractive and self-assured eighteen-year-old, heading off to college for the very first time.  She is someone who loves her family, is dating a young, Chinese-American man, expresses more interest in learning about Japanese rather than Korean culture and generally feels content about her adoption story… at least for now.

The husband, Tongginator and I visited with Sleeping Beauty over Labor Day weekend… one last hurrah before life takes her on this next grand journey.  She and I talked quite a bit about race, school, adoption and culture.  I asked her questions and truly listened to her answers.  One thing I find absolutely fascinating is that Sleeping Beauty and her brother, both raised within the same family, feel VERY differently about their adoption stories.  Sleeping Beauty feels that part of this stems from personality, but much of it also stems from different life experiences.  You see, seven years separate her from her brother in age.  When her older brother attended their local elementary school, he was one of only TWO minority children in the ENTIRE school… and the ONLY Asian-American.  By the time Sleeping Beauty reached kindergarten age, the school population had become more diverse, although each of her classes only averaged about three or four minority children within every class of 28ish students.

Still… what a significant difference.

I found it quite interesting that Sleeping Beauty spent quite a bit of time asking me questions, too.  It makes me wonder about her comfort level in asking my aunt and uncle about all things race- and adoption-related, although I never did ask her about it.  Perhaps I felt afraid of her answer.  At one point during our conversation, my cousin shared with me how blessed the Tongginator was to be adopted by Tonggu Daddy and me.  When she said that, I paused for a bit, then…

TONGGU MOMMA: You know, I can’t say that her life is a better life because we adopted her, but I can definitely say that we’ve given her a different life.  She’s for sure made OUR lives better, but, as to the rest… (I shrugged my shoulders)

SLEEPING BEAUTY: (pondering that for a second) Well, I feel that my life was better.  I feel so blessed that my parents adopted me and that I was raised here in America.

TONGGU MOMMA: (nodding my head slowly) I’m glad, cousin.  And I hope and pray the Tongginator feels the same when she is your age and even older.  But that’s not something the Husband and I can ever feel or say for her.  Because only the Tongginator has a right to decide whether or not she feels her life was better because we adopted her.

SLEEPING BEAUTY: Well, I hope she will.  I know I do.

I hope she will, too, cousin.  I surely hope she will.

Although Tonggu Momma still sometimes acts and looks like a teenager (complete with acne, ratty sweatshirts and fingernails bitten down to the quick), she tries to pretend to be a grown-up at her blog Our Little Tongginator.

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In China, it is a common social custom for grandparents to raise grandchildren.  With busy parents off working and supporting the whole family, it’s more common to see little ones clutching the hands of grandmas and grandpas at the markets than mommas and daddies.  For myriad reasons, sometimes members of the older generation don’t have little ones to raise, and oftentimes those are the families who decide to foster orphans.  And almost unfailingly, they throw their whole hearts into the effort.  Taking care of the children not only brings in a few extra yuan a month, but it also brings laughter and joy into their lives. While I’m sure you could find families who do it for the money, the majority of the families I’ve met have been deeply concerned for their kids, and pour an enormous amount of love and affection into their lives. And, when the kids leave to go to their “forever families,” they take part of their grandparents’ hearts with them.

One time I was in the small home of a very poor foster family in another province.  I was there when the old gentleman and his wife were told that one of their three foster children would be adopted soon.  They both started crying.  After he had regained his composure, the grandpa walked to a corner of their small, one-room house and took a framed picture off the wall… the only decoration hanging in their home. It was a collage of photographs of all the children they’d ever fostered. And he had a small chalkboard with the children’s names that hung beside the frame. On it he had written their names and the dates of their arrivals and departures.

With watery eyes, he told us, “I just want to know that they are OK and happy.”

In another corner of the room his wife pointed to a small clothesline strung between two windows.  On it hung several raggedy outfits.  Each was a memento from one of their previous foster children.  The red one belonged to a little girl who always loved the color red.  The white one with the holes was worn by a little boy who would suck his clothes when he first came to their home to comfort himself.  Their clothesline traced their memories and their love.  The orphanage representative visiting the family with us confided that whenever they have a child who seems hopeless and certain to die from lack of care, they bring him to this family.

In their simple homes with their meager resources and old-fashioned ways, these grandpas and grandmas nurse children back to health.  They’ve uncovered smiles and re-lit the spark in eyes; they’ve celebrated first steps and got up late with teething babies. In short, they’ve loved. And all along, they’ve braced themselves for painful goodbyes.  For those of you who have adopted children who had the opportunity to live in foster care, say an extra prayer of thanks for that family tonight… wherever they are and whoever they are, they loved a child they knew they would lose, and that’s more than most of us can do.

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I realize now that I should have given the book to my husband’s family as well…it may have helped in a recent situation I found myself in with no way to say what I wanted to say and so I kept my mouth shut.

Here is what happened:

My family all met at my husband’s grandma’s house to meet his brother’s new baby, a boy. My husband and I were a little late as our kids were napping when the brother and his family arrived. Unfortunately, we missed my husband’s other grandmother. When everyone was in the house and after all the kids had played a bit (our new nephew also has an older sister) my in-laws stated that a four generation picture needed to be taken with my husband’s grandmother, his mom, his brother and his brother’s children. I watched as the picture was set up and even snapped a few with my camera and kind of waited to see if Aaron and our children would be included.

They were not.  Some mentioned that it was just like the picture they had taken with the other grandma (Aaron’s dad’s mom). At that point my wheels started spinning and I wondered what other “family” things my children had been left out of but I didn’t get much time to wonder because someone was at the door. It was a Sunday and Aaron’s grandma is on oxygen and does not get out much now so the people at the church she attends brought her the alter flowers. It was a very nice gesture. Aaron, the children and I have been to the church many times (our kids were baptized there) but we did not know this woman. As his Grandma was introducing everyone to her she said as she pointed to Little Man and Little Princess – “their adopted from South Korea.” My mind went from the family pictures to the comment just made – Aaron and I were both sitting there and had just been introduced as their parents, they look NOTHING like us and the woman could have thought whatever she liked, was it necessary to point out that my children were adopted – as if that makes them different? I spent the rest of the day smiling and laughing on the outside and silently fuming on the inside.

I love these people and don’t want to offend them BUT they just offended me AND my kids. This is not the first time I have felt as if my kids were treated a little different because they are adopted and each time I keep my mouth shut for fear of offending my husband’s family. I would let him say something but he says next to nothing to them already – and they expect him to say little. This time though I wish I would have spoken up. I wish I would have said something, anything in the nicest way possible. I will say it to strangers but not to their family – what is wrong with me?

So now I will be handing the above book to my mother-in-law and asking her and my father-in-law to read it and pass it on to Aaron’s grandma when they are done. I am taking the wimpy way out I know, but I want to keep the peace as well. If the book does not work I will become much more vocal because my kids do see and they do get it even if no one thinks they do.

What have you done when it is your family or your husband’s family that just does not get it?

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