Category Archives: parenting

Happy Birthday, Little Ones

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The day I lost you I sent you a letter. I sent a letter I knew your adopted parents would never let you see.

Just like your real name.

Just like your mother, your brother, your sisters. So many beautiful faces.
Taken from you.

I say this because you do have a real name and you do have a real story. And unlike most children adopted under spurious circumstances, you have a paper trail–articles in the local papers, a federal lawsuit. Questions about a very bad judge.

I knew that if I lost you, I had to send out every possible sign that you were and always would be loved.

A mother should be able to celebrate her children’s birthdays, but for your mother each day like this is a reminder of what was stolen from her.

Losing you broke my heart, but not mine alone.

All I ever wanted was to make sure you know, really know, you are loved.

So think of yourself as the magic princess, little one, whose royal parents send out lanterns on your birthday,hoping, just hoping you will see them.

All for you. All this light for you.

Breastfeeding preventing breast cancer?

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I am bemused with scientific studies. There is one out now stating that the “myth” that bras promote breast cancer has been refuted.

Apparently this was based on the fact that breast cancer is more common in developed than developing countries.

Seems far more likely that the tendency of women to have fewer children and eschew nursing would be a more significant marker.

I fact the healthiest thing for women is the following:

Have children before 30
Have many children
And nurse on demand for greater than one year per child.

Many mothers in developing countries do all these things, nursing children to 2 years and beyond and nursing far more years than women in industrialized countries.

One study said that every 12 months of nursing reduced breast cancer risk by 3-5 percent.

And that is only the benefit to mom. Babies who nurse on demand get countless advantages from the process.

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.

Simple Rules

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The day I found out my adopted son was a pedophile was a rough day.

It remains with me with the grim clarity of a plane crash.

As I moved past simple shock and devastation I sought advice from Jesus.

How do I do this?

His advice was simple–the truth will set you free.

We all have the right to tell the truth, and yet there is such an extreme pressure from other humans to hide it.

We are afraid to acknowledge our monsters. As though they will befriend us if we just pretend they are not real?

There is a dark side to adoption. Not only are we adopting parents sometimes a rum bunch, we also are trusted with children who have been profoundly changed by their own biographies.

And the result can be quite difficult to parse.

“Normal” people may not get it.

But Jesus has never been normal, so he does.

The injunction to let the truth set us free can be terrifying and lonely.

But truth is the seminal condition of heaven.

And what is heaven if not the cure? The safe haven? A place where hiding things will be impossible and unnecessary forever.

An old story for a new friend

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I sat on the beat up couch and told my mil the story that had just unfolded with heartbreaking force–years of sexual abuse perpetrated by our adopted son Charles. Stopped as soon as it was uncovered but not soon enough to obviate years of damage and pain.

She looked stunned (of course) and managed something about God blessing our family.

At the time I thought, does she see what I cannot?

God has blessed me. God has blessed my family. But she did not know what she was talking about. She was a woman on the mainland of “normal” and I was drifting in the dinghy of “messed up life.”

Attachment disorder will do that to ya. It will put you out to sea with issues so devastating that Richard Parker starts to look like a tabby cat.

Love, if you hear adults, professionals, “experts,” tell you things that do not make sense, learn from my lonely voice.

Your children all have an equal right to live in peace, safety, and love. If one of those children threatens the safety of the others…

Yell loud at anyone who will listen. And don’t stop until you get the help you need.

You have a right to live free from the constant threat of harm.

And so do your wee ones.

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 Veronica Badamo,

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In the fall of 1998 I lost you. Since I was your foster mom, I never had much legal right to you anyway.

What happened to your real mama. What happened to your whole family was awful. Criminal awful.

I was just a broken bystander.

You were, for one precious year, my baby. And when they took you away I was broken.

Barely survive broken.

Whole world changed broken.

I was pretty sure the people who took you would erase me, but I could not let you go without a benediction.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published it. I knew that they would change your name so I called you Little One.

And for year I have been calling and calling, Little One.

I missed you. I missed the years, days, hours with you.

You were my lost treasure.

One good thing happened; losing you gave me a plumb line for love.

Anyone’s child could be you. Suddenly the world was full of Veronicas.

It was a painful gift. I would have rather had you, real you.

But I was the ghost. And I can give you these two promises–

I loved the world better because of you.

And I love you. Always, always, little one.

Not Exactly Standing for Texas Women

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Imagine your daughter was on life support. Imagine she was pregnant with your grandchild. Imagine the story of how she sustained her injuries was unsubstantiated and raised serious questions.

Would you want her to live? Would you pray for a miracle? Would you fight to save your child and your grandchild?

Would you want the law to protect them?

You might. I would. Ms. Machado and NARAL would not.

They want both the mother and unborn child to be denied the chance for life and the crucial protection of the law.

Neither of these patients had DNR orders. There is no written record to suggest Ms. Munoz wanted her life terminated, much less the life of her unborn child. The surviving family insist they are sure Ms. Munoz would want to die.

Her family is fighting to have her life extinguished. The only protection she has is the law of the state of Texas.

No thanks to Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and Wendy Davis.

When we are weak

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This was over a decade ago. A small storefront church, a young mother speaking.

She spoke about a children’s song–

Jesus loves me this I know/for the Bible tells me so/little ones to him belong/they are weak, but he is strong/

The song is so simple, so elemental, but it is only a portion of a longer hymn few of us know or sing.

We like the idea of Jesus being strong until he requires something of us.

We like the idea of Jesus being strong until he requires us to acknowledge our weakness.

We are weak. All of us. There is not a living creature on the planet who can stave off death, yet we cling to the illusion of our self-sufficiency.

The young mother that day was focused on the call of the Gospel–one man able to save us from death forever, and how to bind that good news to her children, all God’s children.

How many times have you heard a person cry out in grief and pain and then seen people answer–

stay strong/you are strong.

No. You are not. None of are. We are weak. That is the point–we are weak. He is strong.
So when sin and grief and pain hit you hard remember this: the song is true.

We are weak
He is strong
Only his strength can save us
From the swirling darkness of this
Dying world