Category Archives: adoption

Losing people

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A few days ago I received an email from a family member–normal right?

I could tell this person’s email account had been hijacked because s/he and I do not have a family relationship anymore. S/he joined the ranks of friends and family who were so chagrined by me that the relationship could not be repaired.

Close relations of crime victims often inflict terrible secondary wounds.

They are ashamed of me and my story and to preserve their “normal” life they do really wretched things.

Friends can be equally painful. They stop being friends, shrinking quietly into the shadows, not calling, not inviting our family to events. That familiar blanched look of fear…silence…gone….

I had a friend who was a sister to me. Unlike many she stuck with me through the shock, grief, and early period of survival, but she deeply disapproved of my public efforts to draw attention to what happened to us. Too public…to noisy…

She is gone. It hurts.

The list gets longer and more erratic after that–people who make their money from shepherding other people–gone or worse–cruel.

You start to rethink people. The world seems increasingly lonely.

Yesterday the Christian Post asked if it’s readers experienced loneliness. A bunch vehemently denied it–

Never! I have God! Ditto!!! Double that!

But of course I have to be the lone dissenter. I said,

Jesus experienced loneliness, why shouldn’t I?

That is my motto and I am sticking to it. But I won’t lie to you–I wish I had kept my mouth shut for my children.

They had a shot at “normal,” if it weren’t for my big mouth.

The truth will set us free…no one said it would make us look normal.

Normal is the lie.

For all of us…not just mouthy me.

Why Do Women Have Abortions?

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In the struggle for some kind of life in every abortion story one out of every two people loses. A child dies each time.

Why? seems to matter.

The big google-able voices on this subject are funded by rabidly pro-abortion concessions. You will forgive me if I do not trust their stats or their lugubrious attempts to make the death of a child sound like a mani-pedi.

One thing they say strikes me–1 in 3 women have had an abortion.

Wow.

Just as with all abuse of children, the stories of abortion are often the stories shared in community. But we keep them our secrets because we have no adequate forum for telling them.

These are my community’s stories (a fraction, I am sure, of the whole)–

The college student who aborts her child under pressure from her boyfriend who is a cadet at a military academy.

The wife of a professional who aborts their third child because “two is enough.”

The young woman (who was herself adopted) who decides to have a late-term abortion because the baby may be a Downs child.

The teenager who lives in a no-abortion country who flies to the US to abort a child.

The woman who is pressured to abort because her child has a 3% chance of a medical condition. (Multiply this story by at least 4.)

A young professional who lives in a country with family planning laws. She aborts to avoid legal penalties.

The woman who is in her early forties, married, but surprised by a late-in-life pregnancy. She just doesn’t want a child in her early forties…

The untold story of abortion is a story about value and pressure and time. It is a story about how valuable the life of a child is, and it is a story of what it costs to remove that child.

Each aborted child leaves a George Bailey-esque hole in the life of their community.

Why would we sanction that?

And how could we face God if we did?

This Generation of Women and abortion

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I am astounded by some women. I have yet to hear an abortion story that did not involve pressure to abort, yet here come the vigilante cowgirls advocating celibacy to pressure the menfolk to let you kill your own babies? Medea would be impressed. Darwin maybe? Jesus not so much.

First, let me make it clear–if you are a pro-choice filly in the state of Texas I absolutely agree-you should definitely go with the celibacy protest.

Last time I checked celibacy was the safest way to not get yourself pregnant. So good work girls. Good thinking!! No sex! No gestation! No abortion!

But here is the deal–all the women in the great state of Texas and in the United States today of child bearing age are alive despite Roe v. Wade. Each one of us could have been an abortion. And some of us survived them.

There are hundreds of women who share the heartbreaking reality of being abortion survivors. They lived despite their mothers’ intentions to kill them.

Look them up. Hear their voices.

And the post-menopausal? Shame on you all, you old fools. Don’t tell me how we should all “make some noise” to kill our children and their children.

You gave us Roe v. Wade. You decimated our kindergarten classes, our playmates. You have indeed had your say, old girls.

And I, for one, am ashamed of your bloodied hands and shameless talk.

Too blind to see it is we ourselves who are dying.

Prayers for my reactive attachment disorder children

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I face this story every day, every moment of every day:

Once upon a time there were two teens. They both came from stories of neglect and abuse. Someone had hurt them by not giving them safety. Others by transgressing the most basic law of love–don’t hurt a child.

They hooked up. Had kids. Wandered into ways to dull the pain and longing in their hearts.

The children were so young but they still remember hunger, watching their parents leave them locked alone with a single cupcake to share among them all.

Longing. We all long for something–love, truth, justice. But what if that longing is never heard? A child cries but no one holds him? A little girl lives with a gnawing ache for food.

What happens when the search for love and safety comes up empty before they are one or two or three?

I watch her face in each picture. She never smiles. I want to say to her mother–pick her up, snuggle with her, talk baby talk to her and feed her. That is why you get wic, so she can be full.

Break the cycle, girl, for God’s sake, break the cycle.

What is it like to be raised by wolves?

Better than this. Wolves are social animals, willing to hunt for their young.

I search for answers, but there are few that satisfy. I cringe at memory–my own exasperation, impatience, and exhaustion. So many things I would do better.

I say that ruefully knowing that the maxim I had at 27 was true and mattered–regardless of the raggedy look of things. You must hold on. They need years of you just being there.

I am here. I won’t ever leave you.

He asks if we can meet. I say yes, but only me. The others are not ready.

Ready is a placeholder for heartbroken. Reactive attachment disorder can seep into the lives of everything it meets. It takes no prisoners.

I pray. I pray all the time. I pray they do not hurt or kill or disfigure. I pray for safety. I cast about for anyone or anything I could enlist to save them…from themselves. The longing for mother’s love turns to drugs, alcohol and reckless touch. Wires in a machine all shorted or circuited wrong.

Nothing will work but love, and by love I mean compassion. And by compassion I mean Jesus. I do the only thing that makes sense when the disease at the heart of your child is terminal–I cling to the feet of God and say, Save these babies, resurrecting God.

Still haven’t heard from the senator from Ft. Worth…

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Dear Senator Davis,

I still have not heard from you (which is strange). You said that you wanted to hear stories about abortion provisions in Texas. You said…and correct me if the national media got this part wrong…

That you were standing for women’s rights in Texas? I am waiting for my right to be heard.

Please let me know where I can send these small pink sneakers. Your office address is fine, I just want to know that you will receive them.

See, that is the difficult part for me–you have said you are listening and standing and representing, but are you listening to women like me? Are you standing for all of us?

The abused? The abandoned? The unwanted?

It’s just a tiny, adorable pair of baby shoes, right?

The feet they are missing. They are so small.

Sincerely,

Elea Lee

Fairy Tale Beginnings

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Imagine you are a reasonably attractive young person in your 20s. You are educated and have an interesting job with growth potential.

Then…you enter into a completely voluntary relationship with two fairy tale creatures. Think frog in well, old lady at door of castle material. There is a spell that has been cast over them, you, intrepid young person, must break the spell!

This requires enduring a lot of verbal abuse, physical abuse (fairy tale creatures are small but fierce and sometimes quite wild).

You hang on, barely, telling yourself each day that the humiliation and loss you feel is worth the investment in these small people, I mean enchanted creatures. Someone has to break enchantments, why not you?

Yolo; I know. That is part of the heartbreak. To “waste” your youth on the ungrateful and the enslaved can feel like desert living.

When they get older, larger, and more criminal, it can feel like…well let’s just say not a fairy tale.

The other people in the enchanted woods look a little queasy when you spill your tale–what? No magic reveal? No broken spells? What the heck?!

You can see it in their faces–please stay away from us, we live in this forest and are invested in keeping up magic appearances.

But you know the secret–dark, sad, but unavoidable secret. There is only one happily ever after and there is only one handsome prince.

He was the unlikeliest of Redeemer Princes–unremarkable, a tradesman. Itinerate, shekel-less. He died a miserable death and seemed to indicate there would be rough and uncertain times for his kingdom.

His spell-breaking talisman seemed a little too brief–follow me.

Like we would want to do that. Like that would be pretty. Like hell itself would be a picnic.

But of course, hell was just a place on a narrow road for him. It was not his destination. So keep up, girl, the story isn’t over…

Isaiah 58

Martha Speaks, Mary Speaks

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I love the PBS show Martha Speaks. Martha is a very lovable talking dog who teaches vocabulary lessons. One of the reasons I love PBS kids is the safety inherent in these child-centered communities. Such safe places.

In today’s episode Martha becomes discouraged when her constant chatter is not appreciated. She neglects her speech and has to resume talking quickly to foil a crime.

I feel for Martha. Often people don’t appreciate words. Some things are difficult to face, much less talk about. This episode always makes me grateful for those who expose crime and injustice. Like my adopted daughter, for instance. She helped her little sister get help. She spoke out.

Thanks kid.

The Bad Days

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Some days are just hard. You could tell me I need more sunlight or you could tell me that I need to leave the past behind me. I wouldn’t advise it, but you could.

But what I would say–

Grief is a big dog sitting on your chest
An arrow lodged in my sternum
The shadow on my daughter’s
Face
Lost people
And the dream of a family where everyone is safe
Someday.

This is you.

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I know people would prefer I not write or talk about what happened to my family. I know because they tell me to shut up. I know because they tell other people I am a liar or crazy or at fault. The lines of thinking are terrible and wretched. But the abuse itself….

Is haunting.

I write about what it feels like to have adopted a predator because predators are common. Yesterday I saw an arresting picture of a “shark circle”–hundreds of fish in schools carefully leaving a distance of a few yards between themselves and the shark.

You gotta know a shark to avoid a shark. What if the sharks could assume the shape of an ordinary fish? What would happen to the schools?

I write to stay off of drugs. If I articulate the enduring pain and hauntedness of what happened to my babies I am debreeding a deep and terrible wound. I don’t know if it will ever truly heal.

My adopted son made himself out to be safe. But he wasn’t. My children were victimized. That does not go away.

But I think somehow that if I cry out, mourn, and wail for the things we have lost in trust, hope, and community perhaps my children will not have to.

Or at least they will not grieve alone.