ADOLESCENCE
As I matured from childhood and my life experiences expanded, I transformed into a cactus. The center was still tender, soft, vulnerable; but it was now protected from the harsher elements of my expanding environment with a prickly exterior. I was growing to recognize that I was not the center of the universe and, significantly, not everyone in the world was conspiring to make me happy.
The starkest evidence of this new paradigm was revealed with my incarceration in elementary school. The teachers were like guards who kept me from escaping the toxicity of the classroom; but worse than the guards was the other prisoners. My siblings and I were social lepers who were isolated from the main population presumably because we were so different. Most were the children of town people, college professors, doctors, and other professionals while we were from a chicken farm, we dressed funny and smelled bad. My cactus exterior was a defense to keep the marauders at bay.
Junior high school reinforced my view that school was a penal complex, and I was even more defensive during those years. Eventually, I came to understand that other people don't think about us nearly as often as we think they do--that most people are wrapped up in their own thought and worries, and that most are pretty nice if you give them a chance. I also started to realize that being so thorny was blocking all possible relationships, not just the undesirable ones. Gradually I succeeded in loosing the thistles and the hard exterior. It basically took the balance of my school career, but not long after graduation I had transformed myself into a shrub.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Metaphors of Life (part 1)
As I contemplate the course of my life, I am confronted by the question "Am I in the desert or in a tropical rain forest?" A very few short years ago, I was living in the desert and wondering how I had come to be there. In this reflection I am examining the stages of development that have made me the person I am today.
CHILDHOOD
As a child, I was a sponge. I didn't make use of critical analysis; I didn't think for myself--I just took everything in as fast as I was able to absorb it. I accepted my surroundings and my family routine as the way things ought to be. There was no questioning or reasoning. As far as I knew, everyone in the world lived on a farm where the whole family would work together, pray together, and where the parents loved their children. It never occurred to me that there was great turmoil in the world, that forces outside of my narrow experience were virtually wrenching the country, the world, apart. I couldn't have realized it at the time, but I was very fortunate that my world was loving, supportive, and nourishing. As a sponge, I would have readily accepted into my psyche any life experiences that my parents exposed me to. There is no denying my great blessing to have had such a positive experience; it helped to shape my character. I learned to trust people, to appreciate laughter and happiness, and to see the good in others without judging what may have been shortcomings.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
A Real Mother
“I have some news for you. There is a baby, and she needs a family!” There was excitement in her voice, but I had heard it too many times before. I wasn’t going to get my hopes up this time. For 16 years we had worked to become parents, but I had resigned myself to the reality that it wasn’t going to happen in this life. She didn’t share my resignation. Oh, she got discouraged, and she often felt that we would never have a child of our own. But she never did surrender; she wouldn’t accept the idea that there was nothing else we could do. And now she was telling me that another baby was in need of a family and she knew we were the right family.
We met with the lawyer; he gave us some background. I listened, but remained skeptical. He started typing up the legal documents and explaining fees; I heard his words, but I was dubious. She was excited, deliberate, and determined, while I cooperated half-heartedly, not wanting to get my hopes up again, only to have them dashed--as they had so many times before. The lawyer was telling us that we needed to travel to Las Vegas, and stay there until preparations were complete and the Adoption Agency there placed the baby with us. I was trying to calculate the costs in my head while wondering how to get so much time off on such short notice. I didn’t believe our dreams were finally coming true; I was only going through the motions of being supportive to my wife of sixteen years because she hadn’t yet accepted that we would live our lives without a child.
As we drove south along Interstate 15, I reflected on the course of our married life, and our quest for progeny. After the first couple of years, we began to seek out specialists who declared to us their successes with other couples. We spent fortunes which we didn’t have, and still we weren’t having a baby. We stopped in Beaver for some lunch and she asked me if I was excited. “Sure, I am.” I sounded unconvincing.
“You don’t believe it’s really going to happen, do you?”
“I’ll get excited when they sign the documents and put the baby in my arms.”
She reassured me, “I just know this time it is going to work. I can feel it.” I wanted to believe her, to believe we were getting a baby, but there had been too many disappointments. We had been to adoption agencies. Each encounter had started out full of promise, but the process was grueling. It was almost like having open-heart surgery without anesthetic, then they would lay your heart out on the table and dissect it right in front of you. And when you had completed their requirements, they would put your name on a waiting list, and you waited. Nothing ever happened, you just waited.
We had to stop in St. George to fax some documents to Las Vegas. While on the phone to the agency, she found out a little more about the baby. Born on the Fourth of July, her blood test was positive for an illegal drug. She was a beautiful little girl, with a full head of dark hair. In short, she was a sharp contrast to Andrew.
Andrew was eight months old when he came to live with us. Frustrated by the slow progress of the adoption process, we got licensed to provide state foster care, and Andrew was our first placement. He was fair-skinned, very blonde, and very much in need of a family. When he had been with us for 3 months, the state said his parents were not going to be able to get him back. Parental rights were going to be terminated, and Andrew would be available for adoption. When he had lived with us for six months, the trial was started. It dragged on for weeks. The decision took forever; all the while, the state said we would be able to adopt Andrew. When the judge made his decision, it was a tremendous blow. “The level of neglect does not outweigh the rights of the parents to keep their family intact.” He was saying that Andrew had been and would continue to be neglected, but it wasn’t bad enough. Just before he had lived as our son for a year, he was gone. That was about the time I stopped believing. I continued to support her in her quest, because giving up was too hard for her, but I didn’t believe it anymore.
After a sleepless night in a small motel room, we went to the office and did the paperwork and got the medical records and talked to the case worker. The more we talked, the more my mind started to comprehend that this was really it. Still I resisted the notion; it would be too painful if it didn’t happen. Suddenly there was a commotion in the next room. We looked up to see a precious bundle had been carried into the office. As I watched her hold the baby for the first time and declare “this is the most beautiful, perfect baby in the world,” I realized that our baby was finally here. She had endured a process much more prolonged than pregnancy, profoundly more painful than childbirth, and much more intense than I could ever abide. If it had been up to me, this precious, priceless, perfect baby would never have become ours. She had willed herself to become a mother, and she had succeeded. God bless her for her refusal to give up. Thank heaven for motherhood.
We met with the lawyer; he gave us some background. I listened, but remained skeptical. He started typing up the legal documents and explaining fees; I heard his words, but I was dubious. She was excited, deliberate, and determined, while I cooperated half-heartedly, not wanting to get my hopes up again, only to have them dashed--as they had so many times before. The lawyer was telling us that we needed to travel to Las Vegas, and stay there until preparations were complete and the Adoption Agency there placed the baby with us. I was trying to calculate the costs in my head while wondering how to get so much time off on such short notice. I didn’t believe our dreams were finally coming true; I was only going through the motions of being supportive to my wife of sixteen years because she hadn’t yet accepted that we would live our lives without a child.
As we drove south along Interstate 15, I reflected on the course of our married life, and our quest for progeny. After the first couple of years, we began to seek out specialists who declared to us their successes with other couples. We spent fortunes which we didn’t have, and still we weren’t having a baby. We stopped in Beaver for some lunch and she asked me if I was excited. “Sure, I am.” I sounded unconvincing.
“You don’t believe it’s really going to happen, do you?”
“I’ll get excited when they sign the documents and put the baby in my arms.”
She reassured me, “I just know this time it is going to work. I can feel it.” I wanted to believe her, to believe we were getting a baby, but there had been too many disappointments. We had been to adoption agencies. Each encounter had started out full of promise, but the process was grueling. It was almost like having open-heart surgery without anesthetic, then they would lay your heart out on the table and dissect it right in front of you. And when you had completed their requirements, they would put your name on a waiting list, and you waited. Nothing ever happened, you just waited.
We had to stop in St. George to fax some documents to Las Vegas. While on the phone to the agency, she found out a little more about the baby. Born on the Fourth of July, her blood test was positive for an illegal drug. She was a beautiful little girl, with a full head of dark hair. In short, she was a sharp contrast to Andrew.
Andrew was eight months old when he came to live with us. Frustrated by the slow progress of the adoption process, we got licensed to provide state foster care, and Andrew was our first placement. He was fair-skinned, very blonde, and very much in need of a family. When he had been with us for 3 months, the state said his parents were not going to be able to get him back. Parental rights were going to be terminated, and Andrew would be available for adoption. When he had lived with us for six months, the trial was started. It dragged on for weeks. The decision took forever; all the while, the state said we would be able to adopt Andrew. When the judge made his decision, it was a tremendous blow. “The level of neglect does not outweigh the rights of the parents to keep their family intact.” He was saying that Andrew had been and would continue to be neglected, but it wasn’t bad enough. Just before he had lived as our son for a year, he was gone. That was about the time I stopped believing. I continued to support her in her quest, because giving up was too hard for her, but I didn’t believe it anymore.
After a sleepless night in a small motel room, we went to the office and did the paperwork and got the medical records and talked to the case worker. The more we talked, the more my mind started to comprehend that this was really it. Still I resisted the notion; it would be too painful if it didn’t happen. Suddenly there was a commotion in the next room. We looked up to see a precious bundle had been carried into the office. As I watched her hold the baby for the first time and declare “this is the most beautiful, perfect baby in the world,” I realized that our baby was finally here. She had endured a process much more prolonged than pregnancy, profoundly more painful than childbirth, and much more intense than I could ever abide. If it had been up to me, this precious, priceless, perfect baby would never have become ours. She had willed herself to become a mother, and she had succeeded. God bless her for her refusal to give up. Thank heaven for motherhood.
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