| CARVIEW |
I’m going back to the original blog. I don’t really know why. I left for a variety of reason none of which are important any longer. Things change. It was always my favorite title – spontaneous delight – the most accurate title for our lives. perhaps I’ll come back here if our lives take another turn and everything is mysterious and unknowable, but for now it’s back home to https://www.spontaneousdelight.blogspot.com.
An old post from Spontaneous Delight. Published two years ago, January 17, 2010. long before I could imagine what today would look like.
when Q was 3 years old in daycare they celebrated Martin Luther King day with simple words of world peace. his teacher told Q and his friends of how Dr. King taught the people of the world to be more loving. when Q was 4 years hold he was excited to bring in to his unitarian-universalist sunday school a library book we had found titled: My Brother Martin: A Sister Remembers Growing Up with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, King Jr., a lovely book about Dr. Kings childhood, told in a way only a sister could. in that book was the first mention Q had ever heard that some children wouldn’t play with others because of the color of their skin. to a 4-year-old it had as much meaning as saying the men who built the pyramids did so against their will. it was ancient history. Q was proud to be african american like Dr. King. when Q was 6 years old we celebrated Martin Luther King day by listening to his speeches, played Abby Lincoln and Nikki Giovanni even more than we already do, and we spoke of how Dr. King was not an american hero but a world hero, that what made him really different was that entire world changed because of him; not just his town, or state or country – but the world.
Q is now 7 years old attending a wonderful public school where white children are the minority. he’s in first grade, in a classroom that combines first and second grade children. this week his teacher chose to show a video about the life of Dr. King that had especially graphic violence. for Q himself, who has challenges that i do not discuss publically on the web…the images he saw have been especially overwhelming for him.
and so, we’ve had some sleepless nights. first addressing what he saw and helping him to process the information in physical way. there is also, for the first time his understanding of where we as a family fit into history. as with most of parenthood there is no, right or wrong time for this or anything else, however, it comes after a week where i did not see him at night because i was getting home at 10 PM or after.
yesterday, after being up 4 times at night with him from his nightmares i finally took him down stairs and as he watched cartoons i sat next to him and paid some bills on-line (the work never ends right?!) he kept jumping on top of me and my laptop to hug me. maybe fifteen times he jumped and hugged.
‘please, please, baby…i just want to pay the bills so we can go into the city and have a fun day, OK?
‘i can’t help it mom…i can’t help it… it was the hardest week, the hardest i’ve had and i’ve missed you so much and i’m so glad you’re here.’
i paid the last bill, turned off the computer and he and i went to his favorite diner as i had promised him on friday night when i called from work to say i wouldn’t be home for breakfast. he had bowl of maple syrup with a few bits of pancake floating in it (never let a seven-year old boy pour his own maple syrup while you are looking for the waitress for more coffee) and we sat at the counter and watched two greek teams play soccer. he was in his glory. the greek owner of the dinner standing next to us ‘oh, no out out out teach that player a lesson.’
my son is a guy’s guy. sitting next to the owner saying that is for him like oprah knocking on my door and saying she heard i had the ugliest kitchen in america and get out of the house because she’s redoing it for me (which i honestly believe could happen one day) for Q sports and grown men talking to him about sports = nirvana.
‘but i can’t find ‘diary of a wimpy kid!!!!’ i can only find ‘captain underpants!!!!’
‘you don’t need to have a book in order to get on the train – you need to get to the train in order to get on the train’
blank stare at me “you don’t NEED a BOOK on the TRAIN?”
‘GET IN THE CAR!!!!’
i am pulling the train tickets out of the ticket machine as Y holds the door open and i jump on.
it is true, you do not need to have a book in your back pack in order to get on the train
we go for the second week in a row to harlem
there was no planning in any of this, no thinking of the time of year, or well heck no thinking. i still have a herniated disk (i see my first surgeon on tuesday) 80 year old women with canes are making comments that i’m walking too slowly as i hobble around, so i’m still at that stage, get up, don’t think, don’t plan, just go.
we are in harlem for the second week however because it is the open-house and registration day for an arts school that we are considering for Q for the winter. while we live in a mixed race, blue-collar town with some art opportunities, the quality and other issues have us wanting him for him to a different experience than any we have available here in our town. this will mean an hour and a half one way for the next fourteen weeks. hmmmm…i’m trying to figure out who on earth is going to do my laundry.
there are times when a person comes into your life at exactly the right moment and you suddenly feel how healing come happen without anything other than being with that person
and there are times when that same experience comes from a place
for our family, that place is harlem and that time is now
one of the reasons we considered the long commute to take him to this particular school was that it teaches a huge variety of the arts. so while we’re walking to the dance studio, we’re hearing piano being played, someone behind a closed-door is singing and there are a group of children from 4 years old to 12, boys and girls, dragging their conga drums up to the circular stage to start practicing with their teacher.
Q by the way, did not want to go to the school.
‘i’m not taking dance AND i am taking guitar, but not with other people, on my own, i’m taking private lessons.’
‘you, ARE taking dance. that is a parent decision not a child choice. like going to school, church and wearing under ware…you are wearing under ware right?’
‘why, do i have to get undressed?’
the blank stare – and then he cracks up hysterically – he truly loves his own sense of humor
‘of course i’m wearing under ware! it’s winter!’
good enough.
the classes were going on and we wandered the hallways sitting in on a small variety that were right for his age. modern dance (girls in black leotards bending and stretching – got an instant ‘NO!’ from Q ‘remember’ i tell him, ‘ i decide what you’re taking’ his eyes got HUGE at that’) and then hip hop. still mostly girls, only one boy, but a young guy teacher. kind, with a great attitude and Q’s feet never stopped moving as he sat in my lap.
we wander to the lobby area and listen to a reed section, students to 3 former directors of the music program learning, practising a modern piece where each player has the same notes to play but decides when and how to play them. i loved it. Y goes to explore, comes back down to the lobby and then Q and i are off to do our own roaming. upstairs we go to the music section. rooms small and large, most with closed doors and music and voices behind each. one door is open and we hear a piano. a man in his 60’s who is giving a private lesson sees Q and yells out to him…
‘young man, come. come here and listen for a moment’
Q immediately walks down the hall and stands in the door way. the room is the size of a small bathroom. the piano fits and the bench and that’s it. there is a window which helps. the man has an eastern european accent, gray hair, a kind face. he introduces himself and Q does the same. the man smiles. his student, a really beautiful dark-skinned black teenaged girl with natural hair is nice, smiles politely but i could tell she was wanting to play her piano.
‘do you play the piano?’ the man asks of Q
Q says he does not.
i explain that we are here for dance classes and are just exploring. we listen to a lot of different musical styles, love music and that no (in answer to his question) we do not have a piano but are hoping one day to bring his grandparents piano to our home. i tell him, that Q’s father started playing piano at 8 years old but now when he has the time he plays the flute for his own pleasure.
the teacher claps his hands in a rhythm and asks Q to do the same
Q does exactly as the teacher had
the teacher claps again, this time a more complicated pattern, and Q returns the pattern
(Q took private drum lessons when he was four years old so he has some experience with pattern and rhythm – he was too young for those lessons but loved being in them so much we let him follow through for the winter – it got him for a while to stop begging me for private chinese lessons – and the money spent on the drum lessons was worth it for that alone)
the teacher smiled broadly and then played a pattern on the piano
‘can you clap with your hands what i just played on the piano’
i thought to myself – ummmmm, no of course he can’t
but he did
the teacher then showed him where a c note was and asked Q to show him two other places where the c-note would be. on and on it went, this little musical test. Q stumbled here and there but really was amazing (for me, his mom, i know i know i know) to watch.
the teacher stopped, sighed. smiled. and then looked at me. ‘i only take a few students. i only have 4:30 available on Saturdays. you would need a piano.’
i stopped him, we’re really here for the dance and it’s early for him i think…
‘yes, i know’ he said. ‘but i only take a few students. and he’s very musical.’ he took Q’s hands in both of his and looked at his fingers the palms of his hands turned them over, the white veined bony hands of experience, the brown lovely young hands in his. i gave me pause, a heart flutter. this is why we are here, i thought
‘he has the right hands…beautiful hands.’
‘yes,’ i smile thinking of Levonia ‘he inherited my mother-in-law’s hands – he’s very lucky.’
‘he could play the piano…’ the teacher said one more time.
we thanked him for his time and apologized to the student for taking up so much of her lesson. she gave us a polite smile. it was open-house, her eyes seemed to say, what choice do i have. now please go, i want to play. she started as soon as we left and it was beautiful.
we walked down the hall and peeked into a couple of more rooms. in one i recognized the teacher of the conga drum players we had seen earlier in the day. he was sitting in the middle of a larger room and around him were about 8 young children who i would later learn were seven to eleven years old. one girl player was there. i opened the door and asked if we could sit in the classroom.
‘you can sit…he, nodding his head at Q can only come in if sits at this drum here (he patted the drum next to him) and plays with us. Q didn’t look at me for a moment, he marched past all the other drummers dragged over the chair that the director told him to (‘not that one – the taller one’) and took his place at the drum. the director (for that is a better name for this tall light-skinned african american man, born…where? new york maybe? a tall man who likes his food, with a deep voice, a broad calm smile and somehow on first meeting him, you know instantly, a divine sense of humor and a love of children. one boy knocked over his conga drum three times and each time the director without looking at him said calmly ‘let’s be careful with that’. basically the kind of guy you would invite to a party after knowing him for five minutes. a guy you want to be around
so the director gave Q a five-minute private lesson on the various sounds he would get from the conga drum he had in front of him. similar to the pianist he played a riff and Q repeated. he continued until he reached the level that Q had difficulty following. ‘don’t worry, you’ll get it, we don’t PLAY the conga here, we play MUSIC. music comes from within you, you start playing with us, there is no right or wrong, just keep playing and the sound will begin to come in you and then to the drum and then you’ll have it.’
Q then looks at him and says “by the way my name is Q…..H………, nice to meet you”
the director lets out this great laugh and says ‘yeah, i know, nice to meet YOU QH.”
after a while we’re hungry and i’ve done my research and chosen the restaurant we’re going to. it’s a bus ride down 2 dozen blocks or so south and a one block walk over. easy peasy. they don’t ask any questions, my two men, they just assume, as always, i’ll take care of them. we’re off the bus before Q says ‘what type of food are we eating’
i love that question, i think it’s such a new york question.
‘ethiopian’
he stops in his tracks and his father looks at me too. every other time that i have tried to make him go to an ethiopian restaurant he’s refused. Q wants chinese, or, soul food, now that he knows it means fried chicken and banana pudding.
‘Ethiopian?’ Q exclaims. “we didn’t all three talk about this. we didn’t discuss this. we all three need to agree on where we’re going.”
‘no we don’t. sometimes mom’s don’t even have to ask. sometimes hard-working moms who sit for hours in music rooms just so you can listen to hip hop music and bang on a drum – sometimes we just get to tell the men in our lives – i want ethiopian food and then we all go there and sit down and watch mom be happy.’
Y smiles. “that’s right.” he’s a man of very few words, but they always come at the right time.
i’ve chosen for our first Ethiopian restaurant one that i’ve read has a more contemporary new york style. Q seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when we walked in the door of a charming, minimalist chic place, the type of atmosphere that he’s used to from all of our forays into SOHO and such.
the waitress is lovely. we let Q have soda (a big treat in our house) to give him some positive vibes and we order.
i don’t know Ethiopian food so i cannot comment on its authenticity of flavor. how true or not it might be to some ideal. however, i can say it was absolutely delicious and couldn’t be a better introduction for Q. he does however, hate eating with his hands. he learned how to use utensils very young, hates to play with play dough or anything ‘yucky’ and so eating with his hands , that was pretty big for him. but the food he loved, especially the spicy lentils. he ate so much i thought he might get sick and then he looked at me and said ‘so, what kind of desserts do Ethiopians eat’
“do you have room for dessert?” even for him he had eaten a lot, two beef patty things, lentils, a beef dish, a spicy bread dish…
‘do i have room for dessert?’ that deadpan look again ‘hello. are you my mother? of course, i have room for dessert. i LEFT room for dessert.’
god i love this child. he may have his fathers looks and my mother in-law’s hands but he’s got my sweet tooth!
a couple more buses and then the train ride home and he was in bed and listened to about 4 minutes of the true story of pirates before he had fallen asleep.
8:00 PM. huh…thank-goodness.
i went to the basement, transferred the wet clothes to the dryer (you’re doing wash now? Y says. I leave for work at 6:15 AM. I get home sometimes at 10:00 PM. yes, i am doing wash now, because now is what i have…) i put in another load and head up stairs with the load i did yesterday. i set up the ironing board, iron four shirts and then at around 9 call it a night.
and then last night again, the images from the movie Q had seen came flooding back. i’m punched out of a deep sleep by the terrified voice of my son “MOMMM! MOMMMM! I NEED YOU!” From my sleep i answer “I’M COMING SWEETIE” and i get to his room,
‘i’m having bad dreams.’
it’s three am and i slip into bed with him.
‘i’ll stay here till you’re asleep and you start doing that kick me out of bed thing you do when you’re asleep – OK?
he quietly laughs nods and in about thirty minutes he’s asleep and sure enough he’s playing soccer in his sleep or dancing or i don’t know what and after the third kick in the groin i’m back in my own bed. Y has turned on the light and is reading. we talk for a while about the week i had at work. i need to go into the city to buy some things for work, but don’t want to be away from Q all day. Y offers to go into the city with me today so that i can be with Q on the train, then when i’m shopping, he’ll take him off to something fun and we’ll meet. we turn off the light and fall asleep at about 4.
Q enters the room at 5:15. he slides into bed. ‘i can’t sleep anymore. i can’t stop thinking of those people (he means the movie)”
‘i know, no problem, we’ll talk more later’
Q begins to talk. he talks about everything. what he saw yesterday, the diner, not wanting to play piano, wanting to play conga, and on and on. however, the majority of the subject was the time of Martin Luther King and the blood he saw on the face of the some of the people in the movie.
i told him, what was often missing in those movies, and what i didn’t like was they always seemed to ignore the tens of thousands of ordinary workers who listened to Dr. King’s message. listened, and then followed him and changed the world. not with clubs, or guns or rock throwing but with making deep, difficult, and painful sacrifices. not getting on a bus is no big deal if there is a taxi coming up behind it. not getting on a bus, day after day after day, walking miles to work, and then not getting on that bus again to come home, that was heroic. and i told him probably the tv cameras then and now thought it would be just to boring to film a tired worker coming home at night and fixing dinner for the family or tucking their kids into bed. i said everything he saw was true, but it was one small part of it. an important part, something never to forget, but there were literally millions of other stories that have not been told that still need to be.
‘i wouldn’t be bored mom’
‘i know sweetheart.’
and i told him too that every single day when i say my thank full prayers as i do every morning (funny at the end of the day i’m saying my ‘please god help me…prayers – but in the morning it’s all thanks) i always include Dr. King in my prayers, and his family and thank god that he sent him to this country, when so many other countries needed him too.
and then my boy, my son (who never likes to pray, always makes funny riffs during our meal prayer, or wants to complain to god – actually he once did say a really sincere prayer when he was four years old thanking god for bacon – which absolutely thrilled me for i was happy there was something that actually moved him to prayer)
“i’m going to do that too, mom. i’m going to say thank you to god everyday for Martin Luther King. because if it weren’t for Martin Luther King, i wouldn’t have been able to have the best Mom in the entire world.”
and yes friends, while i have had on many occasions been able to hold myself back from crying in front of him when he says something that goes right through to my heart, on this occasion i just burst forth a fountain of tears and snot.
he grabbed me,
HE held ME
and when after a few moments i got myself together to start wiping first the snot and then the tears i stammered
‘happy tears baby, these are happy tears’
he smiled at me, completely calmly and said
‘i know mom, i know.’
God Bless, Dr. King’s family and all the families of those brave heros who listened, and then sat down, or got up or didn’t move even at the threat of their and their children’s very lives.
without them, i would not have my Q nor my youngest who may not be here yet, but who is on their own journey even now and would not eventually be with us with out Dr. King’s changing this world.
and a special prayer for our youngest
may you feel gods love
even now
when your journey is most difficult
I want to tell you how I am doing. What’s going on. But to do that I feel as though I need to begin to speak in tongues. To have a dozen or so languages so that every word I speak is instantly translated into those languages. For one language is not enough.
This feeling of immersion or perhaps disintegration is probably a common one for mothers who bring home new children. The first days are intense, worrisome, sad, poignant, blissful and scary. Bringing home my first child who I gave birth to under the extreme bodily sensations of an emergency c-section and bringing home my second child a three and a half year old who was born to the wife of an Ethiopian coffee farmer who died a few months after he was born were oddly similar experiences to my heart and soul.
The difference between the two new-mother experiences has almost nothing to do with the way I feel about each boy.
The difference for me has been this sense of gaining and losing a family at the moment I gained this precious son.
In an instant we became one. One family. Us, in North America and they in the Horn of Africa. For a few precious moments we sat together. Prayed. Asked questions. Stared. Hugged each other and cried. Ate injera and shiro and drank dark salted coffee.
A few moments later we (us, them, the village) walked up the hill side, hugged, smiled, waved and then parted.
Lost. Since that moment on that hillside I have been lost.
I’m not sure, but I think it is the overwhelmingness of this part of the story that has me caught in this place where writing is so very difficult.
Even as I write this, here sitting surrounded by my coat and bags and snoring people on the 6:30 AM train, my heart is suddenly grabbed by a malevolent being who seems to want to both cause me pain and wake me up.
Pain. Thinking about my family in Ethiopia causes me immense pain. Almost impossible to grab on to a thread of coherent thought and unravel it to make sense in the midst of all of this. I understand now why so many families want to hold onto the happy story of a new child. I understand that. Children are so beautiful and losing ourselves in them can be like a drug. I understand feeling as if you do not have the strength to live with the pain.
I, however, do have the strength.
I do.
I remind myself of it daily.
Time to start calling on it.
The Democracy Now report. About 20 minutes and well reported.
Why did his family give him up?
I hear this question all the time. Why? Why indeed. It is THE question. Part of this short film was shot in the region that Dawit is from. This film was made in 2008. Dawit was there. He was one years old. His mother had died a few months before. His father was trying to keep his children fed. This film goes a small way to answering why. A small but important way.
20 minutes of your time, to learn a little more.
Unless we understand the need we cannot help.
Driving back down the mountain after meeting Dawit's family
To continue the discussion about our children’s history and our own retelling of it. to them, to ourselves and to the rest of the world, I have another Ethiopian story to tell.
Our eldest son, Tadgh, in all of his eight year old beauty traveled with us to Ethiopia and our birth family visit. An only child for eight and a half years made to be the eldest child in a new, often surreal family. Surreal is in fact the word he used when describing what it was like to hear that he had a brother. Surreal, he said. How many chapters could I write on how this child, this story teller, the boy who made me a mother, complicates every issue ever discussed on this blog. For one, he has his own story. He understood that the plane ride over to Ethiopia was his last day as an only child. From then on in we would be right there for him the moment he needed us as long as his little brother didn’t need us more in that same moment. He was scared and so many other emotions that I cannot even begin to list. When he met Dawit he was happy for a short while. We got off of the plane and headed directly to the care center. That first afternoon, just after he met Dawit, Tadgh said ‘he’s the best little brother mom, just right for our family.’ The next day however, the first full day was difficult. He began to see what being three years old meant. How much time it took for the parents. He saw that Dawit was a stranger to us, that we didn’t know what he liked, how to soothe him. Most difficult of all for my great communicator was the language barrier. In a foreshadowing of the emotions I would go through weeks later, Tadgh became emotionally overwrought at not being able to truly speak with Dawit. This meant that my days were a balancing act holding each boy as ‘the one’ we were not yet acting like a family of four. We were always a family of three but the main character changed depending on the time of day. From 6 AM to 9 AM it was Tadgh. We were staying at our agencies guest house which is on the care center property. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were provided for us should we want to stay in however, we made sure to get out into the city before going over to the ‘big kid house’ even if it was to the little cafe across the street. From 9-12 we were at the big kid house playing with Dawit trying as best we could not smother him with all the love we had been saving up for five years and at the same time getting as many details from his nannies as possible on what worked for him and what didn’t. At noon, they started baths, meals and naps and we would head out again.
The afternoons were often blissful as we wondered without much planning throughout the city. “Can you believe we are in Addis Ababa?” I asked Tadgh one day as we walked down another extraordinary street. With a happy calm he said “I don’t know? It doesn’t seem strange. I feel like I’m at home.” At first I was slightly disappointed by this because I thought of all the money, time and emotion we spent in preparing for this trip together and here he could have stayed home. Later, I realized we had brought him to Ethiopia at exactly the right time. Not so young that he would forget but not so old that he would look at these people as exotic or different than himself. Where I saw torn clothes and a hunched back from carrying heavy bottles of water, he saw a smiling, kind face who said ‘Salam’ to us as we passed. He saw people for who they were and not what they were doing or wearing. He humbled me.
Returning at Four PM was always difficult. I was anxious to get back knowing the children were up by now and having their tea and dabo but we were all beginning to tire. Traveling with an eight year old boy means there are no afternoon naps or sips of coffee while reading a book or writing in a journal. It’s all go. All go, all the time. So, Four PM was difficult. By Six Thirty when we would walk back to the guest house for dinner we were a all bit of a wreck. Dinner with the other traveling families was nice but Tadgh needed to be alone with us and there was little of that. Oncehe was finally in our bedroom he would break down in tears. All of the emotions he had held in throughout the day would come out. Why did we ruin his life? Why didn’t we ask him if he wanted a brother? Why did I have to come here? I miss my friends? I want my own bed? Sometimes he would hit me. Not real hitting but soft punches that I barely felt but were meant to express his deep frustration. I was at a loss. Thankfully it wasn’t long before we had to leave the city and head down to Awassa. The morning we left Addis I told him that Ethiopia was his story too. “Look” I said softly as I sat on our bed and I held his hands “when you’re older, if you want you can write a book and the title could be ‘When I went to Ethiopia when I was 8’ or something like that and when you write it you will have so much to say that if you don’t want you will not even need to say why you came here. This trip is your story too. Dawit’s of course, and yours and Dawit’s as you become brothers and all of ours as we become family but separate from all of that is your individual story about what this country means to you. This experience. You need to see you as the center of your own story, even if you are not the center of this family.”
We traveled down South in an SUV. My mom, me, Tadgh and Y along with our driver. Another family traveled with us in a separate car. We had met during our court date week and we adored them. He is a doctor who had been to Ethiopia on six medical mission trips and she a nurse who had done medical mission trips as well until their three year old was born. They brought him too, their so very three three year old and it made our voyage to the South feel as they were were one large extended family traveling together. In addition to the day we spent meeting the birth families we had arranged to stay on in Awassa for one extra day in order to give the boys and my mom a rest although we all benefitted greatly from having one day to process some of our thoughts and feelings surrounding our birth family visit before heading right back into the heady emotions of the care center. For one last trip Tadgh was on his own. He was no longer an only child but he could at least relax without having to work on being a big brother. Funny to have along with us another 3 year old, but this one spoke English at least and he and Tadgh got along well.
When we arrived in Awassa we picked up the translator who ended up in Tadgh’s seat, between my mom and me. This is how it came to be that Tadgh ended up sitting on a pile of luggage in the back of the SUV as we made our way to Dawit’s family’s home. We had about an hour drive to a town where we would pick up Dawit’s father and he would lead us from there. This was our second meeting with his father and it was a strange but beautiful moment when as we drove down the street of the little town that I recognized him, standing at a kind of cross roads waiting for us. “There he is” Yancey pointed out to the driver and jumped out of the car to hug him. He is a tall man, warm of spirit with a the a handsome smile. He makes you feel comfortable immediately although it feels odd to admit that here. He hopped into the back of the car and sat on more luggage opposite of Tadgh. He smiled at him, hugged him when he found out that he was Dawit’s older brother and complimented him through the translator. He and Tadgh then were together for half an hour more or so as we made our way higher up the mountain. Eventually the car could go no further and we all got out to walk. We traveled on foot together with Tadgh most often between the two fathers. They smiled, laughed, and exchanged a few words like konjo and gobez and the like. It was a homecoming of sorts. My mother and I were behind a bit trying to keep up.
The translator with Tadgh in Dawit's first home
Upon arriving at the home we were immediately greeted by the stepmother, which was a surprise. Her experience and reaction was very different from the father’s and I will write later about her as she is for me the figure in the shadows. We were invited in the home and sat for about an hour with the interpreter trying to figure out what questions Dawit would want to know the answers to. With Dawit’s siblings in the room I felt constrained and I didn’t ask the same questions as if they hadn’t been there. Y was extraordinary and said a prayer and spoke of family and Ethiopia and how we were honored to be there with them. After a few moments Tadgh spoke up and said he wanted to ask the family some questions. “Do you have a special prayer that you said with Dawit?” Dawit’s father was thrilled with this question. Yes! Yes! And he had Dawit’s sister stand to recite the prayer. That lead to the entire family singing a song, similar in sound to a lullaby and we all sat mesmerized by the beauty of their voices. Dawit’s father stood and told us that we were family. That he knew Dawit was in safe hands and that he hoped we would send letters back telling how Dawit was doing. He then looked at Tadgh and through the interpreter told him ‘and you too! I need to know not just about Dawit, but about you, Dawit’s big brother. You are family and you are a fine young man and we want to know how you are doing, too.”
And that was the moment it all changed for Tadgh. There were no more protests nor outbursts of tears. He had discovered his own golden thread woven there in the story of our family and it stretched all the way to Ethiopia, albeit in an dramatically different way than his brothers.
The rest of our trip was anticlimactic for the most part until first Y, then Tadgh became ill.
When Y and I decided on Ethiopia we did so in large part because we were hoping for an open adoption. That is hoping that our child would not be abandoned and hoping the family wanted ongoing contact. It has been one of our greatest blessings that we not only were blessed with Dawit but blessed with meeting his father and family with the hopes that one day again we will be together. The fact that we could take my mother and our eight year old son is beyond any hope I ever had. Dawit’s father mentioned a couple of times how honored he was that Dawit’s ‘family’ had come to the mountain just to meet them. I wanted my mom to be there because Dawit is her 10th grandchild and she had been at the birth of 7 or 8 grandchildren and I wanted Dawit to have a grandma story too and boy does he now, because grandma can tell a great story!
So that is one small Ethiopian-American boy of 3 years old, on 8 year old American boy, one white American mom, one black American dad and a grandma who can tell a story like no one else. It is Dawit’s story but it is ours too, for that is what family is, a weaving of each other’s stories into our own. There is little controlling what the others will say and do with it. What is Dawit’s father like? Ask the five of us and I know you’ll get five different answers.
We share the our story with others because it would be impossible to keep it locked up, given the people who came with us. We may regret at times the exact way the story is told when we are not doing the telling but that is the price we had to pay. In the end, it’s a good problem to have. A messy family story, one with too many characters, all trying at loving the best they can and none of them getting it exactly right but together…
Surreal. It continues.
Tadgh was three years old when we decided to look into adoption and made the first phone calls to agencies to inquire about domestic African-American adoption. He was eight years old when we brought his little brother home. For most of the five years we were pursuing adopting we did not tell many people. There were people at work who knew and a couple close friends who we asked to write reference letters but the vast majority of our friends and even family did not know. I’m not big into secrets but for me it wasn’t about a secret so much as I knew it was going to be a long long haul and I had no idea how long. I knew I am not emotionally capable of handling the ‘how’s it going? Have you heard anything yet?’ for more than a few months.
We live in a small town. 10,000 people perhaps. It’s a Main Street town where if you start on one end and walk the mile down the length of it, you will pass by the following businesses; Coffee shop, ice cream parlor, art gallery, church, gas station, post office, grocery store, health food store, cafe, hardware store, bank, library, cultural center, bagel shop, toy store, stationary store, Italian restaurant, and more. We spend much of our time on Main Street. While many of our casual friends did not know we were adopting the clerks at the post office, bank and copy center did. While we were in Ethiopia on the first trip other businesses found out about our sweet Dawit when my mother was staying with Tadgh. The ladies at the library and the waiter at the Italian restaurant were thrilled to hear from my mom that we were in Ethiopia and would be coming home with a new son. Seeing the same people every day and sometimes several times a day can give everyone a feeling that they know you better than they actually do. Not a bad thing but an interesting one if you have, like me spent most of your life living in big cities. In any case, I was entirely unprepared for the number and type of questions that I would receive about how exactly Dawit came to be ours. Almost every single day I find myself answering questions about Dawit.
Where are his real parents? Are they dead? This from children in front of school. Why couldn’t ‘they’ keep him? Why is he so small? And many many many more questions. Every day practically, every where we go people ask and when they ask I usually tell them. I keep things simple. I say, we are his real parents but his Ethiopian father is still back in Ethiopia where Dawit was born. I say, his father said he was unable to provide enough nutrition for him. I explain he is small because of malnutrition. I say his mother died when he was a baby. I tell them he has sisters and brothers in Ethiopia. I say Ethiopia is very very beautiful especially where he was born and we are so blessed to have visited and we hope to go back. I say he is doing well, but that it is very hard to leave your home country. I say we love him and we are blessed, truly blessed to be his mom and dad. I say we don’t know why his mother died. I say he was born in the rainy season which is approximately summer time. I say English is his third language. I say he is funny, smart and wonderful. I say he looks like his father. I say we hope to go back.
I do not say “that is his story to tell” or “we are waiting to tell him” or any other of the phrases I’ve read that are recommended. Most of the people asking the questions are people that know us even if it is just to serve us our pizza or sell us stamps, they are truly thrilled for us when they meet Dawit for the first time. Librarians, restaurant owners and the lady that owns the stationary store, they all smile as if we’ve made their week, when they meet Dawit. It’s not that I tell everything to everyone. I do not for instance offer up an explanation unless there is a direct question. When I hear the comment “Oh my he’s 3 years old? He’s so small!!” I do not say anything about his adoption or malnutrition I simply say he’s got the biggest heart and leave it at that. What he hears is me saying he’s ‘big’ and he never fails to smile. I do not explain why he doesn’t speak English or why he’s never seen a popsicle (that’s been corrected) we just smile and move on. The one time I have been asked how much his adoption cost I did evade with ‘not a lot considering.’ I have no idea what that phrase means but it’s appropriate in any case considering the outright rudeness of the question. We are lucky. We were given a rather complete social history of his family at referral and we met his father twice and traveled up into the countryside of Ethiopia to meet his family. While I feel like there is a universe of questions I didn’t ask and am desperate to know the answers to, we have much more information than I would guess most international adoptee families. While I want Dawit to know we are not hiding anything and that we are not afraid to talk about his past we do not share intimate family details. We do not explain his families personal history and truthfully I don’t think people want to know. People want to know why this happened to him because, for the most part, they get it. They get the horror of it. Almost everyone we have met in our small town has said to me “You are so lucky.” Not that they don’t also say that he is lucky but they get that we are the ones who are blessed. What I hope Dawit knows by us being honest and open (without over sharing more intimate details) is that there is nothing to be ashamed of. We are deeply proud to be his parents. We feel nothing but love and admiration and gratitude to his father. He is a courageous man who loves his son dearly and probably saved his life. I cannot imagine Dawit’s emotions as he gets older. I only hope I can be a good and open listener for him. I want him to know that his story is our story to. We are woven together as a family and we are on a path together where ever that path takes us. We hope to go back to Ethiopia and to once again share a meal with his family. Meanwhile we share their story. We celebrate their courage and we pray for their health and well being. We are open and honest and hopeful that by being so we take away a bit of the stigma attached to adoption.
I sat on a bench looking out into Nantucket Harbor. I had come to the island to see my dearest friend Tracy one last time before she died. It was August and only four weeks since the last time I had seen her but everything had changed. Tracy was in bed in her room where she had been for several days. Barely able to move she was dependent on her sister, her father and three incredible friends for everything she needed. I had sat with her for a few hours, first at her side and then sitting in an arm chair near her. She could whisper only a word or two at a time and so we exchanged only a few words.
When someone came in to sit with her for awhile, I left the house unable to bear all that it contained and made my way to town. I think I went and bought a plant. Silly. What else to do? Not ready to go back I found my way to the bench. It was a beautiful August day and I remember seeing a tall middle aged black man sitting on one end of the bench. From looking at him I guessed he worked in construction and was resting after a long day of building. As I sat there I thought of Tracy and all that would be happening around her over the next few days or weeks. After awhile, still not ready to go back but knowing that I should I looked over at the man who happened to look at me at the same time.
“You’re visiting?” He said.
“Yeah, I don’t live on Nantucket”
“You’re not here for vacation.” A sweet, sad statement. An opening statement. A kind compassionate stranger had seen … what? Something on my face which he recognized as needing compassion. I could have said, yes, I was on vacation, or no just visiting a friend but when I looked at him there was something within him that allowed me to say
“My friend is dying. Cancer. I’ve come to say goodbye.”
He nodded his head and looked out at the water and then turned to me and said “Your friend isn’t Tracy? Is she?”
I must have looked confused but said yes.
“I’ve worked on some of her projects. She’s a nice lady. A really nice lady. Always the same with everybody.” He looked at me silently for a moment. “I’m sorry” he said. “I really am.”
“Yeah” I said.
“You’ll see her family. I think her dad? Would you tell him that my family and I have been praying for Tracy every night before dinner for a few weeks. We’re praying for her and her family. Every night. Would you tell him? Maybe it will help him a little bit. Let him know people are thinking of him.”
I went back to the house and immediately told her father. He had me repeat details of my conversation with the kind man several times and as I sat there and watched this dear man I saw a wave of peace come over him. A devout Catholic he believed deeply in the power of prayer. The word I brought him were not trivial. Prayers were being said for he and his daughters and it made a difference to him. It was a beautiful moment that he spoke of several times. Tracy died less than 12 hours later. Her death was beautiful. Peaceful and divine and I felt as her soul passed out of her body, that there were angels hovering all around us as we went about our day, she gone, but all of us with tasks now to do.
Many years later, I was sitting on a commuter train for the one hour and fifteen minute ride from Grand Central Station to a small village on the Hudson River that we had just moved to. I was several months pregnant and huge and sat with knitting needles and yarn perched on my big belly. There was a very clean cut, conservative looking white guy, short hair, neat suit who was sitting one seat away.
“When is your baby due?” he asked when we happened to glance at each other at the same time. I’m not a small talk person and again I had to make a decision to end the conversation before it started or to go against my own grain and be open to his questions. There was something sincere about him and so I told him my due date. It made him happy and we talked for a few minutes about other things. At one point he stopped and looked at me. “Listen, don’t take this the wrong way but I belong to a prayer group, we meet once a week and just pray for people we know. Anyway, I would like to pray for you and your baby if you don’t mind. I just feel…well…I just feel I want to pray for you. Would that be OK? I would need to know your name.” I felt a funny peace come over me as I told this man I had never seen before my name. As he got up to leave the train he smiled back at me and then was gone. What he didn’t know was that there was nothing certain about this, my only pregnancy. I had been admitted to the labor and delivery unit at 25 weeks and was lucky to have had the contractions stopped but they kept coming back and it seemed there were new issues every week. Every week I was still pregnant was a celebration. Finally, after many hours of labor and an emergency c-section I had a beautiful baby boy. I had a long time after surgery to wait and I remember thinking about the young man and wondering if his group was still praying for me and my little boy. I remember lying on my bed and saying a thank-you to them on the odd chance they might be. Good job, prayer group! I remember thinking. Against all odds this child made it safely into this world.
Several months later, once I had returned to work I happened to run into the young man. He recognized me. “Kristine?!” I heard from behind and it took me a moment to recognize him but something about that haircut and his really neat suit reminded me. “You had the baby?” He said somewhat quietly. “Yes!” Honestly thrilled to see him and be able to tell him about Tadgh. I even pulled out a photo. He was elated and told me that he would go back to his prayer group and tell them and that they would be so happy. “He looks wonderful!” He said. I told him he was healthy and happy and a joy to his dad and I. “Well,” said the kind man “We’re going to take you off our emergency prayer list then – unless, you want us to keep you on …” he smiled. I was shocked. They were still praying for me. No, I told him, no all was well. And then I asked him if he always went up to pregnant women and put them on his prayer list. I was serious. I just assumed he did. He laughed out loud. “Oh no! No I have never done that before or since. You just looked…well…I don’t know…you looked fine but I don’t really know…I can’t say that you looked like you needed prayers…I just felt you did. Sorry, I know it doesn’t make sense.” And then he was up standing in the aisle and telling me again how happy his prayer group was going to be. “So, we’ll say thanks for the safe delivery of your sweet boy and then we’ll take you off the list, OK?”
OK I said, and I never saw him again.
Birthday Peonies on the desk in my bedroom
It is times like this I wonder about my lost religion. My lost saints as the song goes. What of statues and candles, small notes of paper written with requests and burned to watch the smoke go to the heavens. What of the God of all those stories, those walks on the beach and I was always with you and you are never given more than you can handle? I wonder if it would be better and I would know what to say.
In any case my faith outlines no specifics. No prayers, lamentations or statues to look to. I do believe in God, however. I believe we are created in the image of God. We are literally manifestations of true divinity. As I sit here tonight I try to meditate on that. My three friends spread out across the country. I look at the moon tonight and I know that the very same light that stretches from the heavens down into my little attic office in New York will reach down to all three women. I have nothing physical to give that will help recover what has been lost. I believe in the metaphysical however and in the power of friendship and love and kindness. I do not believe we need to know even that others are wishing us well. I believe that we feel it even if we do not know where a sliver of strength comes from when we are all but done in. My dear Aunt Mimi used to tell me that angels were the manifestations of prayers that people were praying for you. I love that. For many years we lived far from each other and often she would say over the phone ‘do you feel all the angels flying around you?’
Yes, dear, I do, they have never left, they are here with me still.
So that is what I have. Prayers, thoughts, meditations. Angels sent forth into the night to hover near women I care about. So tonight and for the next three nights I am going to say a special prayer at 11 East Coast Time for each of these families. It feels good having a plan. You probably know one, two or all three of these women and if you do or even if you don’t but you believe as I do that kindness sent into the universe is healing then I invite you to do the same if you like. Together perhaps we can bring a sliver of calm in an otherwise chaotic and painful time.
no ordinary days
I have thought of that day every birthday since. It was the only birthday of hers that we celebrated together as that was the only year we were in the same location during the month of March. We did get to celebrate a couple of my birthdays. The first on that same trip when I turned 19. By then we were in Ireland. I have no memory of that birthday. I am quite sure we did not kiss and hug and I am equally sure that whichever Irish bed and breakfast owner we were staying with , she did not shout at us to kiss and hug. 19 years old. Another non-birthday birthday, nothing to remember. The following year we were both living back on Nantucket. It would be my last summer on that island but Tracy had begun to set down roots there and it became her year round home. I remember my 20th birthday down to the smallest detail. Tracy and a couple of friends had told me they were taking me out to an expensive restaurant for dinner. None of us had much money and I was happy and extremely excited. The best thing about traveling through Europe with Tracy the previous Spring was the fact that she was as obsessed with food as I was. We followed the arrival of Spring starting in Greece and traveling through Italy, France, Austria, Ireland and England. Our meals were long and memorable. Back on Nantucket we spent hours talking about food and recipes.
When I arrived at our friend’s home where we were to meet up before going to dinner I was surprised with a dining room table set for a gourmet meal. We were not going to a restaurant. Tracy had spent several days planning and preparing a birthday dinner. I was thrilled. The table was set with a white table cloth which had pink ribbons going down the length of it. There were peony petals strewn all over the table and at each place setting there was a small clay flower pot which contained a loaf of herb bread which had been baked in the pot. The clay pots were all tied with pink ribbons. It remains one of the prettiest table settings I have ever seen and the sweet and savory honey herb bread has never been topped.
Those were the days before cell phones much less cell phones that doubled as cameras and camcorders and so I have but two rather fuzzy photos of the night. One of the table and one of the four us. For hours we ate, laughed, drank wine and ate and laughed some more. 10 years later Tracey would write in her journal about that birthday dinner. She had been asked to write down three of the most special memories of her life up to that moment. The first memory she wrote about was our trip to Europe and the second was preparing that dinner for me. A few months after that journal entry, Tracy died at the age of 35 in the pre-dawn hours of an ordinary August day on Nantucket. It is one of the greatest blessings of my life that I was with her when her spirit left her body. I also consider it one of the most generous acts of love her father and sister gave to me and the three other friends that sat on her bed with her that morning. Tracy died a horrific and beautiful death at home in her own bed. As the sun came up, the scent of lavendar came in from the garden and the birds began their chorus. It was heavenly and intensely intimate.
For many years after that I held my heart close to myself so that I might never have to watch as someone left me here to carry on as best I might. It was only after Tadgh was born that I began to understand how I had been holding myself back from life. I finally began to understand what Tracy had meant when she told a friend of hers that ‘my death is a gift to my friends.’ It was a gift, she was correct, but it was one that took me several years to unwrap.
Most of the big decisions I have made in my life since that morning in August have been made with her and her life as my guide. She taught me that this day, this one here that I am writing in and this day too the day that you are here reading, this day comes with no guarantee. You cannot know how your life will change by the end of it. It’s this idea. The idea of the extraordinariness of every single day we are given. That there is no such thing as an ‘ordinary’ day, nor one that is not blessed. This was her gift to those that were closest to her.
I am turning 47 years old sometime in the next 24 hours. I’ve been given 12 more years to live than my dear friend Tra. I am old by some standards and young by others. I hope to live long enough to look back on this day, this year and think, “I was sooooo young!” I hope to in any case but of course I cannot know. In any case, Tra, I write this for you. I hope somewhere you are aware of it. I hope you can feel how grateful I am for this awareness and for this new birthday, for this new birth year. More than anything I hope you know that in spite of certain hardships I am intensely happy and grateful to be the mother of two of the most spectacular little boys ever to grace this planet. I hope you can feel above all else, my happiness, my gratitude and my deep joy in being alive.
and buds know