Category Archives: adoption

Adoption Accounting

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I recently watched the movie Philomena.

There is a harrowing scene of loss in the movie. A scene I once had to endure myself.

I was a foster mother–a mere placeholder without any legal recourse, but Philomena and thousands like her were the true and legal biological parents of children who were stolen through the misuse of power and secrecy of adoption law.

We need transparency in adoption. No government entity or adoption agency or even adopting couple should be able to hide behind confidentiality to steal children.

And we need to be clear about this:

All children of adoption should have the right to know their true story, their real names, all their family. They may also need to know that this truth of who they were and where they came from…yes, and even who they “belong to” now, may have been obscured in the documentation of the adoption process itself.

For years it never occurred to me that social workers and adoption agents would lie to take a child from a parent.

And for years after I knew they could and did, I felt the subtle pressure to keep quiet about it.

We would rather some things remain opaque, because if they were transparent we would have to acknowledge all our broken stories.

And complicity in such unspeakable sorrow.

Dearest Triplet B

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When I lost you
I knew you were never really mine

You have your mother’s face
Your father’s hair
Eyes all your own

For years I marked the days
Knew when your birthday came and went
Saw your face in every crowd

Missed you and wished you well
Because that is what love does

It never stops beating
Down every door for you

I saw every fairy tale through a different lens
Knowing how easy it could be
Excuse me, was…
For Rumpelstiltskin to steal a child
And teach her a world of untrue stories

But in real life
Truth
The Truth
Always sets us free

Do something (brave)

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My blog is littered with drafts. I haven’t published anything for awhile because I struggle with–why bother?

In the aftermath of what happened to my family, a lot of people let us down.

It could have been because I was too vocal. It could have been because we were too risky. It could have been a lot of things.

It took a toll on my evaluation of humans. How could so many “nice people” run like rabbits? Or worse. There was always worse.

I battled insomnia. If a person you have fed peanut butter sandwiches can hurt children, the world feels permanently unsafe.

I wrote. I wrote and then wondered why?

Then I began wakeboarding.

I like wakeboarding because no one tells me I can’t do the things that terrify me. In fact, they show me how.

I like it because the people there are brave.

Not just spin-in-the-air brave, but also push-yourself brave.

Many of these brave people restore my faith in our broken world.

Which leads me to “ordinary brave”–

Men who are faithful to their wives are brave.

Judges who prosecute pedophiles are brave.

Health officials who fly into an Ebola epidemic are brave.

Paying your bills and your taxes on time

Holding a lackluster job to provide for your family

Befriending the powerless–

All brave.

When I see brave, I want to be brave.

Up Late

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There is a great TED Talk about the “museum of 4 a.m.”

Apparently 4 a.m. is the nadir of time–so late no one would chose to stay up. Too early for decent waffles.

I am up at 4 a.m because of…

Two dogs
A nocturnal animal prowling the yard
A list of unbearable memories.

Dog A barked
Dog B followed suit ad infinitum
And mom C remembered.

In the days and weeks and months after M and C were placed with us, C had night terrors.

He also had fits of unbearable rage.

His sister was no picnic either.

But the seconds, minutes, hours of darkness in which he kicked, screamed, pounded his fists against objects, slammed doors, wailed….

In the utter darkness.

They stay with me.

Day or night, a thousand times a month I longed for monkey tranquilizers to calm those kids down.

Since it was not an option, we hiked, walked, ran, and frequented parks.

It was my daily task to:

1. Stay sane
2. Wear those two out.

Now that I am older, now that I have lived through every part of the growing up story of those two precious, deeply wound people, I would say this–

I know enough of the neglect and the violence that led to their howling childhood. I know enough of the condition of their brains, concussed from the absence of love, to know that for every minute of solitary wakefulness that I endured with them–for them, every moment of public humiliation in a grocery store or restaurant, every crazy scene, all those years of lost peace.

Worth it. Worth the risk, the agony, the relentless void.

But why did no one else come to our assistance?

Why such violent, unending loneliness? No cure. No concern for the survivors.

Nothing.

Nothing at all
Alone each 4 a.m.

Matthew 25

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First, you should know: I believe in a literal hell.

Not so much because the Bible alludes to it as because the world displays its existence in broken children, enslaved humans. Sudanese women getting whipped while men stand by and laugh.

There are pictures of hell within easy reach. To not believe in it is hubris.

And then there is the time I have spent there myself.

In the fall of 1996 I sat across the table from two small faces and watched them munch down the first of thousands of peanut butter sandwiches at our table.

We did this because of some rather poetic injunctions in the Bible about helping “orphans.” None more poetic than Jesus in Matthew 25.

He says “the righteous” will take in strangers and feed them peanut butter sandwiches. He says they will share of their safety, abundance, and nourishment with people who are the riskiest and least able to pay back such snacks and beverages.

He says they will give themselves. The cost is implicit in the risk.

But at the time it was just a couple of sandwiches. The humiliation, rejection, exposure, assault, and duplicity would take years to fully unravel.

The emotional cost remains steep.

And the words of Jesus still echo in my head–the least of these…you did unto me..

And if the least of these punch you in the stomach? Take your trust and abuse it?

The sorrow is a badly drawn tattoo along the sternum. And hell comes in the vertigo of watching those you cherish hurt.

Back to the table…

I must return to the table and find someone else hungry and thirsty and lowly like me.

It is a gift to know I am the least of these.

And your attention to my grief, a cup of clear water.

Thank you.

Dear Cassandra,

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You were the smallest of the babies and just as beautiful as your sisters.

Your foster mama was a veteran fostering and adopting mother. She told me

everyone has a birth story

Meaning that adopted and foster children had a way of making their entrance into a family memorable.

I worried about you because you were so tiny. I visited your foster mother one day in the spring before they made it clear that all three of you were destined for adoption by the people who took you.

I will never forget praying for you. Praying for the path your life would take.

When you love a baby, your world orbits that child’s well-being forever.

Dearest Mercedes,

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Your foster mama was a grandmother and she cherished you so.

She and her daughters sang you lullabies with your nickname–Sadie woven into the songs.

Your hair was slightly darker than your sisters, even though Veronica was your identical twin.

I have home movies of you with your sisters on your first birthday. All three of you together was such a joy to see.

Such beautiful babies.

It hurt to lose you. It was some consolation to know you had your sisters.

Mark Twain on Social Evil

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Mark Twain said that when he was growing up in a slave state (Missouri) he was never confronted with a single dissenting viewpoint.

Pastors preached the (biblically erroneous) notion that Africans were cursed by God and therefore ought to be slaves.

No one saw any abuse of the slaves.

The slaves kept quiet about their opinion one way or the other.

In the Missouri of Twain’s youth slavery was a de facto good not evil.

A situation he addresses well in Huckleberry Finn.

But it was not true. Slavery was and is an abomination, an aggression against other humans.

What aggressions against humans do you take for granted or even passionately support?

Abortion?

Child sexual abuse?

Human trafficking?

Abortion is legal in the US and many people are passionately supportive of it. But it is a greater evil than slavery.

And while child abuse and human trafficking are illegal, if our government does not enforce their extinction, they will and do flourish in the gap.

Adoption Stories

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You should know that no matter how old you are, I see you as the little girl you once were.

I say this because you tell me you can’t ask Yahweh because you don’t believe in Him.

Because you don’t believe in Him is exactly why you should ask Him. What do you have to lose?

Don’t worry, I know you do have stuff to lose. So let me phrase the argument as a parable:

In 1998 I lost a daughter. In my mind I lost 3. She was a triplet. She was taken from me because I was a foster parent in a place where the laws of custody and adoption were not held in high regard.

Her mother wanted the babies back. If she could not have them herself, she was willing to allow us to adopt them. Brave mama, tough story.

They took the babies. Broke my heart. Drove me to desperate measures.

The last desperate measure was leaving a record.

If you go to the archives of the federal court of western Pennsylvania you will find my record–a quixotic lawsuit I filed so that if I could not get her back, at least she could find me.

If she ever looked.

If she wanted the true story.

Because I was pretty sure she would not find it without a little help from the public record.

And since she was just a baby when they took her, I knew that they could erase me pretty easily.

But I am real and I love her. I was her mother for awhile. And I have never stopped loving her and her family.

God is like that. He is always our first mother, our foster mother, who can then be erased by another story.

But never forget. The story of His love for you is in the public record. It is your job to find it.

I have known for years that my daughter had a choice to look for me or choose to look away.

But I can assure you that I am real.

And I have loved her since the day I met her.

“I Can’t Read This!”

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The man bore an uncanny resemblance to Michael Jackson. His speech was staccato and robotic. Clearly scripted.

He wanted me to believe that I should buy magazines from him because

1. He had a rough life
2. He had an eleven year old daughter
3. He was from New York City
4. He was doing God’s work
5. By selling magazines he was helping teens see the world
6. I live in a nice house in a nice place, he would like to live there.

I listened when I wanted to send him on his way. This was not my first magazine appeal. Sometimes it has been children’s books for the needy.

If you don’t need what they are peddling they press you to donate.

One pair of salesmen promised to come back and wash my windows shortly after they (they–two strapping college dudes) said hopefully I wouldn’t kidnap them.

One (my hero) took a donation from me to hand out copies of poetry books.

And he did. He handed them out when he could have just dumped them.

But this fella yesterday did not take my book. I gave him snacks, someone else’s poetry book, some rocking ties and a copy of Just.

He asked what it was about and when I told him he returned it to me. Said it was too sad and he couldn’t bear to read it.

I told him I understood.