The Box

Let me tell you a story…

I’m in second grade and I get the lead in “Little Red Riding Hood.”  It’s VERY exciting.  I’m proud and my parents are proud.  Dad is so proud he takes over a “mom-job” and works with me on my lines.  A lot.  I mean, a real lot.  So I’m ready.

It’s the day of the show.  Dad takes the afternoon off from work and sits with Mom and my little sister in the audience.  The show starts and my class is performing our little second grade hearts out.  The stage is big and we’re small but we’re doing fine.  Time for the big finish.

I should tell you that our version of Little Red Riding Hood is different than most.  In ours, Grandma comes through her encounter with the big, bad, wolf just fine.   At this point, it’s my job to open a box and hand Grandma a gift.  So.  I pick up the box, take off the lid, look inside.  And it’s empty.

I do what any 8 year old would do in the circumstances.  I panic.   The stage which had already been big now looks huge.  The audience looks like it’s doubled in size.  I look at my teacher, Mrs. Patterson, in the wings.   She assumes that I’ve forgotten my line and starts to mouth it to me.

So now I’m panicked and I’m mad because, as we’ve discussed, I know my lines.  I point to the box and mouth back to her, “There’s nothing in the box!”  She gestures to me to keep going.  I know this won’t work but I do what I’m told.  I pull nothing from the box and I hand nothing to Grandma and the play ends.

I go out to the audience and see Dad and explain what happened.  He leans down and tells me to listen very carefully.  He says “Gail, there’s a saying in the theater that applies just as much in life.  That saying is ‘the show must go on.’ No matter what happens to you in life, I want you to remember that and just keep going.”

It’s been more than a few years since I was in that play.   I’ve had a number of opportunities to remember Dad’s advice, but none as meaningful as when M and I were trying to start a family.  In spite of our best efforts and the efforts of the best science of the time, it didn’t look like it was going to happen.  It was hard.  And it was sad.  It felt like I had been handed another empty box.

But I heard my dad’s voice and we just kept going.  We kept going until we landed at the doorstep of JFS of Metrowest where we met Dale and Raquel of Adoption Choices.  They listened and they heard me.  Their kindness helped me let go of the box.  It wasn’t empty. It just wasn’t mine.

It’s hard to believe but our daughter K just turned fifteen.  That dark time seems so long ago and I can barely remember the sad, empty woman I was.  You see, I just have to look at K’s face, I just have to hear K’s voice to know.  Yeah, I have the right box now.

Safe

“It’s my job to keep you safe.”  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said that to K over the years.  This job of mine made things like bike helmets and car seats and seat belts non-negotiable.  It required us to install safety gates on stairs and rubber bumpers on sharp corners.

K is 15 now.  She’s outgrown the car seats, safety gates and rubber bumpers, but she always wears a bike helmet and her seat belt.  She looks both ways when crossing the street.  She doesn’t run with scissors or talk to strangers.  So, she’s safe, right?  Cause you see, that’s my job, to keep her safe.

We talk about current events and the lessons we can learn from them.  I try to be honest without being frightening.  I believe in open conversation.  I believe knowledge can help us be better prepared for danger.

But now…

A 15 year old girl was sexually assaulted after getting off her school bus in our town.  Getting off her school bus.  At 3 in the afternoon.

The Boston Marathon runs through our town. Like so many in the area, we knew people running the race and at the finish line.  I’ve run a marathon.  I’ve had family waiting for me at the finish.  On Monday,  a monster or monsters set off bombs near the finish line, killing and maiming people.  For running or watching a marathon.  In the middle of Boston.

It’s enough to make me want to put my family in lock down.  Put safety gates around our house.  But… I can’t do that so I look for comfort where I can find it.

One of the comforting messages I heard was to acknowledge to children that yes, there are bad people in the world but to remind them there are many more good people than bad.  Maybe as parents our real job is to keep our kids as safe as we can.  And our job for the world, is to do everything we can to make sure our kids are one of the good guys.

So today, K and I volunteered for the first time at The Food Project, an organization whose mission includes creating a “thoughtful and productive community of youth and adults from diverse backgrounds who work together to build a sustainable food system.”  Our group of volunteers planted 14,000 parsnips seeds.  As one of the volunteers said, “In light of this week’s events, I’m thankful to be able to come together as a community and make a difference.”  Exactly.

Good guys.  They’re everywhere.  We just have to remember to look for them.

K and I cross the finish line, Mystic Places Marathon 2003

What We Can’t Fix

K and I had a recent conversation about homework that ended with me saying something like “You’re an awesome kid and I know that.  But you need to remember actions have consequences and you’re at an age where some of those consequences will be things I just can’t fix.”

K gave me a hug and walked away.  Out of nowhere, I remembered an incident with her bike when she was about four years old.  I was following behind her as she rode around our block.  It’s a safe neighborhood, all side streets, but on one stretch the drivers go pretty fast.  We were on that stretch headed toward the stop sign.  I knew she would stop but like always, I called ahead “stop at the stop sign!”  I watched in horror as she never slowed down and went right through it.  I started running and caught up to her on the other side.

 “Get off the bike”

“Mom, I tried to stop”

“Get off the bike”

“I tried to stop but I was going too fast”

“If you’re going too fast to stop, you are going too fast.  Get. Off. That. Bike.  Now.  Do you understand what could have happened to you?  Do you understand if someone hit you with their car, you could be so hurt, I couldn’t fix it?  Do you understand?”

She got off the bike and the tears started to fill her eyes.  “Mom, do you still love me?” Tears ran down my face as I held her.  I took a deep breath and said, “Of course I love you.  If you don’t remember anything else I’ve ever told you, remember this.  There is NOTHING that you could do, there is no mistake you could make that would EVER make me stop loving you. “

I wonder if kids realize that as parents our sole purpose isn’t to critique their lives by wielding a huge red Sharpie marker.  We don’t want our interactions with them to be those of the Grand Editor, circling this error and crossing out this one.  We are trying to give them the knowledge to make the right choice – to buckle that seat belt, skip that party, turn down that drink, avoid that boy, call for a ride instead of getting in that car – because the consequence of the wrong choice can’t be undone.

I guess the best we can do is to use the fine point marker or even a pen when possible.  And a reminder that there is no choice, regardless of consequence, that could ever make us stop loving them.  I told that once to the girl with the light-up sneakers riding a little pink bike with training wheels.  I better tell her again.  That, at least, is something I can fix.

Best Valentine’s Day Ever

Fifteen years ago, on Valentine’s Day, K’s birth mother chose us.

She picked us from our “Dear Birth Mother” brochure.  I can’t remember what the proper name for the document actually was.  It may in fact have been brochure.  I know that’s what M and I called it.  It was a booklet of text and pictures  shown to potential birth mothers to help them decide if we were the right family for their baby.

I remember agonizing over its creation, trying to select the perfect pictures and just the right words.  Not to mention the sheer difficulty of putting it all together in the era before digital pictures.  We made fifty copies and waited.

While we waited, we went to pre-adoptive parent education classes.  At first, my favorite part of the class was when new families brought their new baby/child and told the story of how they became a family.  “That’s going to be us some day,” I’d think.

But not a single one of the first fifty potential birth mothers expressed any interest in us.   We regrouped.  We took a vacation to San Francisco.  We changed our picture on the brochure cover and made some more copies.  I didn’t love the babies coming to class as much.  As much as I hate to admit it, as much as it makes me seem petty and small, I couldn’t help but think “why them and not us?”

Until Valentine’s Day, 1998, when she chose us.  She liked our picture on the cover.  She said we looked nice.  We talked on the phone and we emailed.  She got to know us better and still thought we were nice.  Two months later K was born and we became a family.  Not a day goes by that I don’t think of K’s birth mother and thank her for that.

And on the fifteen anniversary of my very best Valentine’s Day, I also give thanks to all the women who didn’t choose us.  I was once told, “The soul of the child that was meant to be yours will find you.”  I don’t know if that’s always true but I know my child found me.  She just needed me to wait for her.

The Ladybug Sandbox

It all started with the red ladybug sandbox.

K was 2 and I decided she needed a sandbox.  The ladybug was the perfect size – not too big, not too small – and K loved it.  She loved it before we even put sand in it.  She filled it with the little plant id tags from my garden, stepped in and started filling her bucket with plant tags.  I loved it because for the first time since K could move, I could sit.

We started going to playgrounds.  There was the sunny playground with the great train.  There was the wooden playground with the dog statue.  There was the Veres Street playground at Mom and Dad’s house.  We loved them all.  K enjoyed the climbing structures more than the swings but she always made time for the sandbox.  We packed a snack, sometimes lunch and stayed for hours.  The leaving was never fun but honestly leaving anywhere at that point in K’s life was a challenge.  And really, who wants to willingly leave a playground?

We decided to expand the offerings at home.  I did the research and declared that we needed to go with one of the more expensive choices because they marketed themselves as “splinter-free.”  What can I say?  I was a relatively new mom at the time.  I believed it was in my power to keep K’s life splinter-free not realizing that the required mulch underneath the play space would provide more than its share of splinters.  We started with a sandbox and climbing area and would ultimately add a swing set.  I can’t begin to count the hours we spent visiting playgrounds or using the masterpiece in the backyard.

But somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, the swings in the backyard weren’t really for swinging anymore.  K and her friend G would sit on them and chat for hours but they didn’t swing.  They had gotten too big to go down the slide or climb in the fort.  But they loved to sit on the swings and talk out of earshot of the adults.  Visits to public playgrounds had stopped a while before.  We were too busy with other things.

The backyard playground began to show its age.  The ladybug sandbox was more pink than red and the lid hadn’t been opened in ages.  The mulch had been ground into the dirt and lost its battle with the weeds.  The girls realized there was just as much privacy in K’s bedroom and the swings stayed empty.

A neighbor’s granddaughter was having twins.  The baby’s arrival would make five children.  Could they use a swing set?  The neighbor came and looked at ours and thought this family would enjoy it.  Kids could climb on it and swing on it again.  We were thrilled they wanted to take it.  Yet,  I’m glad I was away the day they came to take it down.  You see, it was just yesterday that my girl was three and we sat on the steps and watched the men put it up.

K and I drove by the wooden playground the other day.  Or I should say the place where the wooden playground was.  The powers that be decided it was too old or too unsafe so it was taken down.  It was replaced with a much smaller, rubber/plastic kind of structure.  “I can’t believe they changed it, Mom.  That was a great playground.  Do you remember how we used to go there?”

Yes, K.  Yes.  I remember.

California Dreamin’

We’ve booked the flights and make the hotel reservations.  We’re off to California in February.  No, it’s not another trip to Napa for M and me, although that does sound delightful.  This time, the three of us will be heading to San Diego.

We’ll be staying in the same hotel from our last visit, the trip when K was born.  We’ll be doing a lot of the things we did the last time – Sea World, San Diego Zoo, the beach – and yes, we realize now those things are way more appropriate for a 14 year old than a newborn.    What can I say?  We were 3000 miles away from family and friends.  We did the best we could, and we all survived.  I consider that a success.

K isn’t sure if she wants to see the hospital, but as with most everything on this trip, it’s her call.  Honestly, I’m not sure I want to see it either.  Yes, I clearly remember walking out of that hospital with the world’s greatest gift.  Yet I can never forget the girl, not much older than my K is now, who walked out with nothing.  But, if K wants to go, we go.  This is her trip, not mine.

We almost went last year but then the Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened in Orlando and that took precedence over San Diego.  That decision sums up the place adoption holds in our lives now.  K determines its frequency and importance and we respond accordingly.  We’re a long way from the days when I obsessed over how to respond to people who told me K looked like me.  Should I respond immediately that K was adopted?  Should I wait til I get to know them better?  Is a simple “thank you” appropriate?

Adoption is the way K joined our family.  Although we are forever thankful for that, it does not define us.  We will visit her birthplace and we will remember those terrified thirty-somethings who had waited forever and then become parents overnight.  We will remember waking up in the hotel each morning relieved we had kept K alive for one more day.  We will remember the flight back home with a two-week old.  And we will remember how we become the awesome family that we are.

A New Grandchild by Pa

I was cleaning out a desk the other day and stumbled upon something my dad wrote about a year or so before he died.  At the time, I needed an article for the Adoption Choices newsletter and asked him to write something.  What follows is an excerpt from that article.  I thought it would be a fitting post for this month.  With thanks to the man who gave me my love of words…

I remember how excited my daughter and her husband were when they told me they were planning to adopt a baby. My feelings and those of my wife were a bit more complicated. We were excited, of course, but we were also anxious – not worried, but anxious. The baby was going to be born in California. California’s a long way from Massachusetts; we just thought so many things could happen.

A few months later, my wife and I got a phone call telling us the baby was about to be born. My daughter and her husband got on a plane and hoped to arrive in California in time for the birth. We waited for a call to let us know they had arrived safely, and we waited for the call to let us know the baby had been born. When those calls finally came, we were very relieved. Baby K was born; she was healthy, and from what we were told, she was beautiful. With our other grandchildren, this call would have resulted in us driving to the hospital to verify this information ourselves. K was our sixth grandchild; we had quite a bit of experience with these things. But this grandchild was 3,000 miles away. There would be no drive to the hospital. We would have to wait, and so many things could happen.

We waited and waited to meet K.  For over two weeks, we waited.   We thought if they could just get home, it would be okay. Finally, on day fifteen, they boarded a plane headed back to Logan Airport. My wife and I drove up from Connecticut and were there waiting to greet them when they departed from the plane.  We looked at K and said how beautiful she was. And yes, my daughter had told me this two weeks earlier but a grandfather likes to see for himself.

In anticipation of the many visits K would make to our house, my wife insisted the baby needed a crib there. We bought a crib and although winter was at least six months away, we also bought a gorgeous pink snowsuit. The snowsuit seemed big to me, but I trusted my wife’s expertise in this area. Well, three winters came and went before K was ever big enough to fill that snowsuit but she used the crib quite a bit.  I remember the visits after she started walking. She would lead us all in a never ending pots and pans parade around the house. With the precision of a parade Grand Marshall and the temperament of a drill sergeant, she led us around and around. Ignoring our requests for relief or respite, refusing to accept any letters of resignation offered, she marched on and expected us to follow suit.

 K is a young lady now. She has been the source of many stories I tell my friend. She’s the leader I envisioned when I followed her around my house banging my pot and pan. She is healthy. She is happy. She is beautiful. And she is my granddaughter. Yes, so many things can happen when you adopt a grandchild.

When One is Enough

When M and I got married, I imagined we would have three children.  We bought a six room Cape as our “starter” home.  The plan was we’d live there for about five years and then move into a bigger house to accommodate our soon to be growing family.  Well… in May we celebrated our 20th anniversary in that starter house.    We love the neighborhood, the back yard, and the convenient location.  It turned out to be the perfect size for our family of three.

Over the years, there were times when the house felt too small.  Our first summer here, we invited 60 people over for a backyard cookout.  The torrential rains turned it into an indoor picnic and the house was ready to burst.  When we started accumulating K’s things, the Cape’s charming sized rooms and quaint closets were a challenge.  And when the Christmas tree goes up, we need to move furniture around in ways that remind me of my old Rubik’s cube.

Overall though, our house is just right.  Any time my Dad visited, he used to comment on how much he could feel the love here.   Not sure we could put that in a real estate listing, but he was right.  There is love here.  It’s in the green walls of the dining room, the green that I selected and purchased but didn’t like after M finished painting it.  M took one look at my face and offered to redo it in another color, but I said no.  Every time I look at those walls, I don’t see the wrong color.  Instead, I remember how a man who hates to paint offered to paint again because he loves me.  I see it in the built-in shelves that my brother, R, crafted in K’s room, in the chair my parents gave us, and the rug my father-in-law bought.   Sure, there are times when I wish for a beautiful, big bathroom instead of our small one with avocado tiles, but I wouldn’t trade our perfect house for it.

Just as our house is the perfect size for us, I’ve come to believe our family is the perfect size for us.  True, it’s smaller than I once imagined.  I had middle names all picked out that I never got to use.  I’ve only got one child to select my nursing home.   And as someone blessed with the best siblings on the planet, I worry about what K missed there.  But we have friends who are like family and we have extended family who are true friends.   I know they will be there for her when M and I can’t be any more.

Our family wasn’t created the way I thought it would be.  I’ve never known what pregnancy feels like.  I watched someone else give birth to my child.   But from the moment K was born, she was my daughter.  She is my family, a family that may be small, but you can feel the love here.

For Good

 “I’ve heard it said
that people come into our lives for a reason
bringing something we must learn.
For Good from Wicked

 It’s been another great summer.

There is, of course, the food.  We love the return each year of the summer seafood extravaganza of lobsters, steamers and oysters.  It’s probably odd how proud I am of the fact that my girl loves oysters, but I am.  There is the bounty from my garden, tomatoes, basil and cucumbers, bursting from what has to be the scrappiest looking garden in MA.

We love the visits to the beach house from family and friends.  Fun in the waves, rock collecting, hanging on the porch, and more food.

And K had a blast at Circus Smirkus camp.  She calls it a place where “everyone can just be themselves.”  So glad we found that oasis for her in VT.  We also got to enjoy K’s performance in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”  Kudos to the folks at the Performing Arts Center in Framingham for pulling together such a quality performance in only three weeks!

But if I had to pick a favorite, it would be K’s and my visit to NYC to see “Wicked.”   We decided several years ago to take a trip by ourselves each summer.  The first trips were to amusement parks but after last summer’s trip to see “The Lion King”, we’ve changed our focus to an annual excursion to Broadway.  I love the alone time with her focused entirely on fun.  We take the train, have dinner, spend a night, and get some shopping in but the highlight is the show.  Some of you may recall that K and I sing “Defying Gravity”  from time to time so we were especially looking forward to this year’s performance and hearing “our song.”

And Elphaba rocked it.  Nailed it.  Killed it.  Feel free to fill in the amazing phrase of your choice.  Watching the actress raise up on her broomstick while belting out that song was truly awesome.  But it was a song near the end of the show that really got me.  I had heard “For Good” before and recognized the beautiful song.  But hearing Elphaba and Glinda sing it while on a date with my beautiful daughter gave the words special meaning.

“And we are led
to those who help us most to grow
if we let them
and we help them in return.

 Well, I don’t know if I believe that’s true
But I know I’m who I am today
because I knew you”

I honestly don’t know who I’d be today without you K.  It’s not just that I’m someone’s mother, and there certainly was a time when being anyone’s mother was far from certain.  I am who I am because I’m your mother and being your mother is the greatest joy of my life.

And yes, we got the “Wicked” soundtrack.  And yes, we still sing “Defying Gravity”, but “For Good” makes a great duet too.  I try not to read too much into the fact that I have the Wicked Witch part.

 Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better?
I do believe I have been
changed for the better
Because I knew you…
I have been changed for good.

My Mother’s Daughter

Seeking some relief from the relentless heat and humidity, K and I went to see “Brave.”   I thought the days of animated film were behind me, but I went anyway, happy to be in air conditioning and happy that teenage K was still willing to go to the movies with me.

My plan was to score some movie popcorn, settle down in my seat, and catch a nap.  But there was something to this story of Princess Merida, who in trying to defy the customs of the day makes a reckless wish to change her life.  Perhaps it was the novelty of a Disney movie still having the mother alive after the first five minutes that caught my attention.  Perhaps it was seeing a princess rely on her own skills and bravery rather than hoping for a prince to rescue her.   More likely, it was the relationship between Merida and her mother, Queen Elinor, that kept me awake.

The movie began when Merida was a very little girl and it’s obvious that she and Elinor adored each other.  Then it fast forwards to the princess as a teen fighting with her mother about her responsibilities.  In the middle of an argument Merida yelled, “Do you ever bother to ask what I want? No! You walk around telling me what to do, what not to do! Trying to make me be like you! Well, I’m not going to be like you!”  Then there was the scene when Merida came home and excitedly told her mother about something amazing she did, but Elinor was busy focused on something else and barely heard.

I was my mother’s daughter long before I was K’s mother.  I remembered being a teenager thinking, like Merida,  I would never be like my mother.  My mother was a stay-at-home mom of five; I was going to be something important.  And have I been Queen Elinor -  focused on something else while K is trying to share something important?  Guilty, as charged.

The movie did a great job of showing both sides of a mother/daughter relationship going through a turbulent time.  Merida’s wished for her mother to be different caused an unfortunate transformation of Elinor. Efforts to reverse the wish weren’t working.  Near the end of the movie, Merida finally took responsibility for what she’d done:  “Oh, Mom, I’m sorry. This is all my fault.  I did this to you, to us. You’ve always been there for me.  You’ve never given up on me.  I just need you back. I want you back, Mommy.”  K looked over at me and said “Mom, are you okay?”  That was when I realized I was sobbing.

It was my mother’s daughter crying in the theater that day.  My mother has been gone almost nine years, but when I heard Merida’s voice begging for her mother back, it felt like yesterday.  I had left my ungrateful teen self behind long ago and grew up to realize that who my mother was and all she did was incredibly important.  I grew into someone who was able to appreciate everything she did for me and even better, to tell her that.

I was 41 when she died.  I know that she loved me and she knew I loved her.  I have no regrets.  I know how lucky I was to have her for my mother and to have her with me for as long as I did.  But, in that dark theater, on that hot summer day, I was reminded that I want you back, Mom.  I want you back.