Your Name

I knew the day would come.  In fact, it has come before in other forms.  It still stinks.  The day when you, my beautiful child, with a beautiful, unique, Ethiopian, biological-parent-given-name say you wished you had a name like James.  Yes, James just happens to be my grandfather's name (also my cousin's).  It is a fine name.  A family name at that.  But it is not YOUR name, my dear child.  Your name seems like a liability to you now.  It is a way you stand out from your friends.  No one can read it and pronounce it correctly without help the first time.  It harkens to a place few people around you know or understand.  Not even you, yet.  But YOUR name, how can I even put into words your name?  It holds so much that you have lost.  So much that you will likely struggle to get back piece by piece.  It is something your father and I will treasure for you in these early years.  And hopefully something you will learn to treasure, too.  It has such an interesting meaning.  A sometimes comical one.  It means I got it.  It makes me smile to think of your Ethiopian family looking at you and saying, I got it!  For you, my son, are a sight to behold, a wonder to be had.  I don't know what exactly they meant when they looked at you and thought I got it.  There are so many ways to interpret that phrase.  But for whatever reason, now, I have you.  I have got it.  I've got it!  A treasure to hold and ponder.  I will keep that treasure safe and close until you are ready to hold it, to own it, to have it, to be proud of its many layers, to be proud of how it makes you uniquely you.

Thoughts on Conspicuousness (Part 2) - Confusion

There are some stories that are just confusing when you are a conspicuous family.  People try to do the right thing, but miss the mark, often showing how much our family stands out.  There are so many stories.  Remember this one of my sweet father in law and Scootle-Doot?  Yeah, well there are more.

Once, I was with Scootle and Boo at an Aquarium with friends.  It was busy that day.  I was able to keep Boo close, but excited Scootle was racing from exhibit to exhibit.  At one point, I see that he is getting too far away and I start to call out to him.  Oblivious, he keeps on walking ahead and I lock my eyes on him and try to catch up.  Two older African-American women are near Scootle as he starts looking around.  They see he is lost and one of them gently guides Scootle to an African-American family at an exhibit even further away.  I keep calling out to him and finally the woman's friend gives her an elbow jab and raised eyebrows, throwing her head back in my direction.  The woman registers all of this and returns Scootle to me, with much apology.  This is both comical and frustrating.  I know they meant well and I do not blame them.  It is just frustrating to think of the implications of my lost child getting "returned" to the wrong people!

Something similar happened with Boo.  Last summer, we had an extended family vacation at a beach.  At the beach, Boo is completely deaf.  His processors cannot get wet, so we take them off.  I sometimes try to leave them on when he plays in the sand, but he is so used to it that he doesn't even want them.  This means that Boo ends up playing by himself, content in his own little world, hearing nothing.  Due to the tides that particular week, we set up our chairs on top of a small hill.  Below the hill were little tidepools that the kids liked to play in.  Boo was content staying there by himself while the big kids played in the surf.  There were at least four adults up on the hill watching over him.  He gets up and starts walking around the pools.  A couple comes walking up the beach.  (You can guess what happens next, can't you?)  They decide he is lost and start ushering him in our direction.  I jump up and go down the hill, mama bear mode.  They come to tell us that this poor little boy is lost and ask if we have seen his family.  I let them know emphatically that WE are his family.   I am sure they were flabbergasted and mortified, but I don't even look at them.  I just scoop him away.  FRUSTRATING!

Boo at the beach just last week, in his own world

At a grocery store I frequent REGULARLY with my kids, one of the workers there would always look at us.  Finally, she got the nerve to ask me if I was a social worker.  White woman + black kids = social worker?  I can't quite pinpoint all the reasons why, but the scenario still makes me sad.  I think our culture thinks white people + black children = charity.  Not so!  How could I possibly explain to the world how much I needed children in my life?  How can I explain that as much as one thinks adoption is a "good thing," that the "good thing" is only a tiny piece of the big, complicated puzzle? (Note to self:  try to illustrate this puzzle!)

These stories rest uneasily in my gut.  There are no easy excuses or answers for how people acted here.  I am not even exactly sure how to react.  I am left confused, enraged.  I confess I am also left snickering a bit.  How about you?  Do you have stories like this to share? 

Thoughts on Conspicuousness (Part 1)

Our Sunday morning church routine usually goes like this - I take the boys with me, Boo-boo goes in the nursery and Scootle goes to a big kids' class.  I go to an adult forum.  Once that is over, Boo remains in the nursery, I pick up Scootle, and we go into the worship service.  Early on, there is a time for children to go to the front of the church and hear a story, then they are ushered out by some volunteers for some play time outside for the remainder of the service.  At the end, I go and collect both boys from the nursery/outside play.  Recently, I have started taking Boo in to the worship service along with Scootle.  Then they both go outside and play.  As Boo is getting introduced to "big church," I don't always take him in there.

Last Sunday, I was late coming out of the adult forum and did not have Scootle (he went to another church with Bill), so I chose to leave Boo in the nursery.  When I walked in, I realized our beloved nursery worker had brought in all the kids and was sitting with them in the front.  The church was packed, so I just sat in the back, looking longingly at my Boo.  He did not see me.  I began to get more and more uncomfortable and wanted to leap over people to go and hold my boy.  He was sitting on the beloved nursery worker's lap and I could not even concentrate.  She and Boo have a very sweet relationship.  I would say that outside the family, she is the person he is closest to.  So I was feeling quite jealous.  Crazy, huh?  Not of their relationship, but because Boo is so beautiful and I love that he is mine, but for all of the visitors in the church that day, Boo was clearly HER child.  She is African-American.  They MATCHED.  No one would ever think he belonged to the anxious lady in the back.

Wordless Wednesday - Because It's Not ALL About the Kids Even Thought it Feels Like It

When A Hug is Not Just a Hug

One of the very frustrating things about where we live (which will probably drive us out of here in a few years) is the lack of anything Ethiopian.  Our entire state has one Ethiopian restaurant and it is 2 hours away, in a city we aren't fond of, which is also way off our beaten paths.  Three hours away, in a neighboring state, there is an Ethiopian restaurant we love.  It is between our house and Bill's parents' house, so we try to make it there as often as we can.  Aside from one Ethiopian woman we know in town, who is against adoptions from Ethiopia and has treated our family quite rudely, Ethiopian restaurants are the only places where our kids have seen adult Ethiopians since we left Ethiopia almost two years ago.  Crazy, I know. 

So this past Sunday, as we were returning from a long weekend and Grandma and Apapa's house, we stopped at the restaurant.  As you walk in, there is a half wall dividing the front door from the dining room.  Our boys were walking beside us, unseen by the Ehiopian waitress on the other side of the wall.  She greets us kindly, but everything changes once she sees the boys.  Scootle-doot greets her with the "Selam" he was practicing in the car.  She swoons and gives him a hug, speaking to him in Amharic.  The sight takes me back and my breath catches in my throat.  They look so beautiful together.

We have a delicious dinner.  Scootle tries out his random Amharic words on her.   The boys eat so ravenously that we realize we will have to order a lot more next time.  Our common plate is completely clean, every bit of injera eaten in glee.  The food is celebrated among us.  Our waitress smiles contentedly.  Our boys have charmed her.

As we get ready to leave, she gives Scootle another hug.  And then, something unusual happens.  Boo-boo, who was being whisked by Bill to go and get in the car, turns around and runs, with an incredibly determined look on his face, into the arms of the waitress.  He never does that with strangers.

I often wonder what is going on in the minds of my boys - this time especially.  I know those hugs were not just hugs.  Consciously or unconsciously for them, this woman represents a piece of themselves that they have lost.  A piece they haven't experienced for a long time.  A beautiful, loving Ethiopian face reflecting their history back to them.   And all I could do was stare, so happy for them and so full of wonder.

Happy Easter! Feliz Pascoas! Melkam Fasika!

Out of tragedy, pain and senselessness, beautiful things can bloom.

We got a wee bit of attention with our Ethiopian outfits.  I love them.

Graveyard egg hunt

Excuse me as I squeeze, old souls!

 

Boo-boo had no idea what was going on, but he went with it!

Dying fresh eggs from Germaine's chickens

Scootle-doot concentrating

Yellow egg!

Dear Brazil,

Saturday morning, I woke up to my child(ren) (K did not yet have his ears on) listening to this:

 

I just sat in bed and listened to A playing with K, who was still in his crib.  They have started this new ritual that allows Bill and me to sleep in a tiny bit on Saturday mornings.  A turns on the lights in their room, K stands up, and A makes K laugh and laugh with his antics.  The room is always destroyed, but we are grateful for the extra sleep.  

As I listened to them play, I also listened to that beautiful native tongue of mine drifting in from their room.  I listened to the fun rhymes that are impossible to translate, remembered my childhood and that old feeling came creeping in.   I didn't have to say much to Bill.  He said, "saudade."  Yes, saudade. It came out of hiding, to say hello, to say, "remember me?"  Of course I do.

There are some crevices in my heart that are filled with saudade.  Saudade of Evelyn when she was just "Lyn" (leen) or Eh-veh-leen.  Saudade of the girl who was finding her way there only to be transplanted here.  Nothing has marked my life as much as this uprooting, this sharp change of course, this splitting of myself.  I don't know if it was for better or for worse.  It just was and it just still is.  

As I am embracing a third culture into my family, I am afraid of Brazil getting pushed even further back into my memories.  It can get so lonely sometimes. I don't get to speak Portuguese on a regular basis.  Yes, there are some Brazilians here, but most of them came for very desperate reasons and find me an oddity.  "So, how long have you been here?"  They ask.  "27 years."  Silence.  We are very different.  I have established my life here.  They are just trying to make a go of it.  I look like them, I speak like them, but I am definitely odd. Odd?  Me?   I share much more in common with my American friends than my Brazilian ones in Brazil.  Much more, except that.  The saudade and the hole in my soul are mine.

Two of my brothers were born in Brazil and moved here to the US at the same time I did.  Except I was ten.  They were two and one.  They don't remember Brazil, and unlike me have no biological ties to it.  They feel no saudade.  Bill and I laughed yesterday, because his parents have lived in the same house he grew up in.  They are still there after 33 years.  Before going to college, I counted that I moved on average every two years and once, it was to another continent.  His story is the opposite of mine.  We love that in each other.

But as I was thinking about all this saudade,  feeling quite sad and sorry for myself, of course I had to wonder about A and K.  This move marked me more than anything in my life and yet I moved with my mom, with my brothers, with my step-dad.  I am still connected to my family in Brazil.  My support system remained the same.  I had the thought (sorry mom and por favor nao deixe commentarios aqui - mande por e-mail se quizer - em serio), "How could my mom just pluck me up and bring me here?"  The question seemed to echo, echo, echo....  She had her reasons and I know she did the best she could do given our situation in 1983.

But this is 2011.  And in 2009, we plucked up two beautiful little boys from Ethiopia and brought them here.  How could we?  And yet how could we not?

Sweet boys, 

I want you to know that we did the best we thought we could do given our situation and yours in 2009.  I will never fully understand the feelings you already carry within your little souls, but I am here to hold you.  And when you see me drift off into my saudade, I hope you will understand that it is okay to mourn something forever, it is okay to wonder "what if...," it is okay to be mad at your mommy and your daddy for the part they had in it, it is okay to cry with confusion, cry with sadness and cry when you don't even understand why you are crying.  Because there are some things that we just can't comprehend, can't let go of, can't reconcile - ever - at least that is what I currently understand.  I also hope you will always know that I am here, not only to hold, but to listen and to love you.  And you have each other.  You may feel differently about these things than your brother, but always share, always listen.  You have each other.    

With all of this talk of saudade, you might never guess that being born in Brazil and raised in the US is one of the things I like best about myself. It has made me one-of-a-kind.  It has given me a different way of looking at the world and I like it.  Yes, it makes me lonely sometimes, but it has also brought such great things into my life, too.  I have known since I was little, that the world is a big place, but that we all have something in common, we all share in a basic humanity, a basic goodness, the ability to be friends and to be family.  Perhaps having my family stretch across two big continents early on made it make perfect sense to have you come from another continent, too.  Our family is further strengthened.  Our hugs go farther around the world. 

Though both of you and I are both far away from where we began, love is one thing you cannot get away from.  You are so loved, my dears.  Both here and there, you are so loved.  May life be gentle with you, may it give you lots of love where your saudade can rest and may it also help you celebrate how unique and magical your journey has been.  Though I started writing this feeling saudade, I am finishing writing this feeling felicidade (contentment, inner peace, jubilee) for all that my own little journey has brought me - you and your daddy especially. 

Te amo, wud e shaloh, I love you,

Mommy

Careful When Stepping Outside

A and Apapa earlier this year

Last week, Bill's lovely parents were here to help me with the boys while Bill was away for six days.  After lunch one day, I was cuing up "Diego" for A while K slept so that we adults could take a break.  I was using Netflix's instant play feature and it was taking a while.  I needed to make a quick trip to the bathroom, so I asked that A wait for me at the computer.  Quick trip to the bathroom finished (sorry, there is a point to this) and I go back to find A right where I left him.  Netflix is actually instant this time and he starts watching his beloved Diego.  The doorbell rings almost immediately.

At the door is a policeman.  He asks if I am alone.  I am so confused and a bit scared something has happened to Bill.  I tell him my sons (A runs up behind me, checks him out and then runs to the window to check out his car) and my in-laws (whom I point to - they are sitting down in the living room) are with me.  He tells me there has been a report of AN OLDER WHITE MALE DRAGGING A YOUNG AFRICAN AMERICAN MALE INTO THE HOUSE.  The words don't even register, I am confused.  I tell him Bill's dad (whom the officer can see) might have brought A back inside.  The officer asks, "But DRAGGING him?"  Still perplexed, I say that I am sure he was not dragged and that all is well.  There is a bit more to the dialogue, but not much.  He leaves and I try to understand what has just happened.

I realize that in the five minutes or less that I was in the bathroom, my wonderful father-in-law goes out of the front door to check the weather outside.  A being A hears the door and runs out to see what was going on.  My father-in-law is ready to come back inside and A being A is not.  Now I truthfully don't care what happened next.  Did he DRAG him?  Did he pull him?  Did A being A resist and exaggerate?  Did my father-in-law, who is 80 years old with severe back problems, grab A before he got too far away and into the street?  I have complete and utter trust in this man, so I want it to be understood that what he did or didn't do to A is not at issue.  Within those five minutes, A makes it back to his chair to watch Diego and he is completely unscathed.  AND all of this happened in front of Bill's mom.

What is at issue, is how I felt afterwards.  I felt completely confused, sad and intruded upon.  I realize that no one did anything wrong in this scenario.  Not A.  Not my father-in-law.  Not the officer (though the more I think about it, the more I am unsure of this).  And not the person "reporting" this (though we really think the officer saw it himself and came to investigate as the police never respond THAT quickly to anything around here - all I did was pee).

There are so many lingering thoughts.

• Had A been white, I don't believe anyone would have thought twice about it. 
• Had an elderly black man who really intended to harm my child done this, I don't think anyone would have investigated the scene.
• What if it had been me?  And it has been so many times!  Are we going to have to answer to the police every time we pull our children away from danger?
• I really thought I was safe from being the conspicuous family within my own house.  Lesson:  don't step out of your house!?
• What if the officer was not satisfied with me saying A was my son?
• I felt hurt, having the loving relationship of A and his "Apapa" boiled down to: "AN OLDER WHITE MALE DRAGGING A YOUNG AFRICAN AMERICAN MALE INTO THE HOUSE"

*******

I have just now rehashed this AGAIN with Bill (who is trying to sleep).  We realized that this incident is perhaps the first time we were actually being treated like everyone else in our community.  I was feeling sad for myself, when really the officer was treating us just like our neighbors are treated.  We live in a low income, primarily African-American community.  It is an almost daily occurrence to see a black man pulled over by the police (usually by SEVERAL patrol cars), spread eagled on a cop car.  Our friends and neighbors (men and women) get pulled over and questioned for much lesser things than the five minute scene at my doorstep every day when they are completely innocent (don't get me started).  We have lived here almost nine years in complete privilege and this is our first negative encounter with the police.

And for my sweet K (and A), this is likely just the first of many times the cops will intrude on their lives because they are black.  I realize that this is why I am sad.  I am sad my neighbors, for my boys, for the immense injustice of it all.

Brothers

 

It seems my boys might grow up hearing "Are they brothers?" asked from the mouths of many (the physical therapist, librarian, checkout lady at the grocery store, nurse, potential school teacher, etc).  I don't understand 1) why that is such a necessary piece of information or 2) why people still ask that question after it has been established that they are both my children (that would make them brothers, right?) or 3) why folks don't realize the insensitivity of that question.  BUT we get asked that A LOT.  I know the real question:  "Are they BIOLOGICAL brothers."   In our case, yes, they happen to be biological brothers, but the question still throws me back a bit.  Agenhu already knows what the word "brother" means.  I am sure he understands the question.  What is going to be the impact on my boys of having to hear that question throughout their lives?  

I don't remember anyone asking my mother whether my two brothers and I were siblings.  Yet I clearly remember an instance where I felt less than a full sister and it broke my heart.  Technically and biologically speaking, I am the only child between my mother and father.  My brothers, Juan and Oscar, whom I grew up with, were of my mother's second marriage.  Technically and biologically speaking, they are my half brothers.  My sweet brother Oscar, 7 years younger than me, learned this technicality at about age 5 or so.  I overheard him tell someone he had one brother and one half-sister.  He was just learning this information and was trying to get things straight.  I took it to mean I was less-than somehow, that I was only half a sister, when in my heart, I loved him completely, without any qualifications.  I cried and cried, like only a twelve year old with a flair for drama can.  My mother had to explain to me that my brother meant no harm and my sweet little brother promised me he wasn't going to call me that again.

Why that story?  Because I remember it to this day.  I remember the pain of feeling like my technical siblinghood did not reflect the emotional siblinghood and connection I felt to my little brother.  What will happen when the technical and biological relationship of my boys gets questioned over and over?  Will they not even think about it and get used to the questions?  Or will they wonder sometimes about the legitimacy of their relationship?  Will they feel they have to prove it?  I don't know, but as a mother, my heart hurts for them.  

Two little Ethiopian boys out with their Brazilian/American mommy and their American daddy.  We are a family.  We love each other.  We don't have to prove it.

Funny Friday

So far, we haven't been out in public that much with the boys, so we have not opened ourselves up to the random questions or comments that so many adoptive parents talk about receiving regarding their family.  We have gotten some funny comments, though, from a child next door and from another child at the park...

We are coming home from yet another doctor's visit, I am struggling to get K out of his car seat and the next door neighbor boy (about 6 years old) comes over.

Me:  Hi, Rodrico.
Rodrico:  Whose baby is that?
Me:  He's my baby.
Rodrico:  Huh?
Me:  They are both my babies.
Rodrico:  How come you got a walking baby?
Me:  ????

What I think is funny about this whole exchange is that Rodrico didn't ask how I got a black baby, just how I got babies that were big and walking.

The other day, I was at the park with A and my sister, Victoria (who is six):

I see a little girl (lg) I recognized from church.  She had never said two words to me and I didn't even think she would recognize me.  She is ahead of us on the ladder to the big slide and stops midway.

lg:  Is that the boy you adopted.
me:  Yes, it is!  You remembered.
lg:  And who is she?
me:  My sister.
lg:  Wait, that's not possible.
me:  Yes, she is my sister.
lg:  Are you married?
me:  Yes, this is my husband right here.
lg:  How old is SHE?
me:  She's six.
lg:  But how can she be your sister?

I didn't quite follow her logic, but thought it was a cute exchange.  I eventually explained that Victoria was adopted, just like A, but I still think she didn't buy that.  It wasn't adoption that struck her, but the age difference.  Kids!

And now, for the gratuitous kid pics: