Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
The Original Nana: The Sweet Influence of Grandmothers
Today, I miss my mother-in-law. It’s Passover and I miss her. She was the only person on earth who ever loved my husband more than me and because of that, she was formidable in all ways. First of all, she was completely, totally, through and through Jewish. I could feel her heartache looking at me across the room — oh, I was nice enough, but….you know, she had really hoped…where were all the nice Jewish girls?
Instead there was me. And my 11-year old daughter. And then there were the Nica kids – one, two, three. And she became everyone’s Nana.
And if she ever had any reservations about how we built our family, she never said so. Instead she looked like this the night Jhosy landed at Mitchell Field.
She started a new tradition of big family seders — and I mean, massively big, with cousins no one had ever met before, a dozen courses, and girls hired from the neighborhood who would clear the dishes for us.
She set it up so my husband and his cousin would lead the seder – practicing for the tradition that we would carry on for the sixteen years since she died. Someone still searches for the afikomen and we all wait for Elijah.
And so I’ve been thinking about my mother-in-law today. How she accepted me. How she made my daughter her granddaughter. How she never missed a beat with our crazy Nicaraguan adoptions. How she piled on the Barbies. And bought gifts in really big boxes.
I thought about her while I was cooking the brisket for tonight — which, for you amateurs out there, is not so easy — and I felt a whole lot of gratitude and awe.
My mother-in-law taught me something that I didn’t know I needed to learn — how to be generous – with money and time, and approval. When I think of her — that’s the word. Generous.
We all aspire to be better, smarter, richer. I’ve been working on being more generous. And being a better Nana. Fortunately, the original Nana left pretty good instructions.
Don’t Read This, Bevan Baker
This is my granddaughter, Alita. And I have reason to believe that she has fallen asleep in someone’s arms every night of her life. Tomorrow she will be 5 years old.
I raised four kids. All of them slept in their own beds. In their own rooms. One child spent a night in bed with my husband and me the night I brought him home from Nicaragua. He had scabies and diarrhea. My husband did a “him or me” thing and that was the end of that.
But Alita? She has lived a different life. And it started here.
The day she was born.
She falls asleep with her people. She did then. And she does now.
My son and his wife never made any decision about this…..this is just what they do. They’re not captive to any “what you should do” thinking (this is both good and bad in the larger scheme of things).
Now she will bring her nearly five year old self to my lap, settle in with a blanket, and go to sleep. Later, I’ll put her to bed. There’s never any crying. This is so different for me, a refugee of Dr. Spock’s admonition to put the child to bed and let her cry.
I don’t know what this means. I just know that I’ve gone along with it. That it feels better to have a child fall asleep in my arms than just about anything on earth. That this practice – as unintentional and maybe careless as it has been – seems to have created a child who is relaxed and happy, who expects love but never demands it, who trusts her people and can rest easy.
So different than what I thought should be done. So different from Dr. Spock or all the other baby-raising manuals.
So ‘no end in mind.’ So ‘what makes sense right now.’ And it adds up – somebody holding this girl every night for five years.
What a way to start a life.
Red Letter Guy
This guy is crazy. He is crazy. He’s been crazy. He’s made a career out of being crazy. Developed it into an art form. And this chick with the long black/henna’d hair in the red commencement gown is Exhibit A on the evidence table.
If he wasn’t crazy, she wouldn’t be here.
Once Jhosy’s orphan picture was put on the refrigerator, Howard became a driven man. In the picture, she was six and serious, sitting on a bench at the orphanage, a little Dutch boy haircut with straight bangs, wearing a dress with white socks and orphan shoes. Her story — which I might tell some day if she says it’s ok — was about hard, hard, hard times. But the urgency was about her health.
She had had rheumatic fever. Her heart valve damage was diagnosed by Nicaraguan doctors by listening because, at that time, they had no more sophisticated diagnostic equipment. They were also unable to do valve repair or replacement surgery so the only option was to find a way to send Jhosy to a country with first world medicine.
Emboldened by our initial health victories with our two sons adopted from Nicaragua – one with heart defects and the other failure to thrive – we impulsively agreed to adopt Jhosy.
Then the back and forth started. How sick was she? Remember, this was 1993. No cell phones with cameras. No email. Phone calls were expensive and chancy. Think two orange juice cans and a string. All we had was the fax machine.
As luck would have it, there was a Canadian man who volunteered at the orphanage who agreed to be a go-between us and the doctors. He sent us this fax saying that, no, Jhosy only needed valve surgery, she didn’t need a heart transplant.
I nearly fainted at the phrase heart transplant. My husband jumped for joy. Oh God, I thought. We’re going to adopt this girl and she’s going to die. I figure if a doctor even mentions the term heart transplant, you’ve got trouble. As in Holy Crap….they think she doesn’t need a heart transplant???
Howard? He figures we’re home free. No worries. What’s a valve here or there?
Full court press.
He’s on the phone. He’s negotiating. He’s arranging. He’s pushing. His eyes are on the prize — Little Miss Orphan stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet from the gas station. Meanwhile, I’m backpedaling, finding reasons why not, questioning his sanity, looking for the escape hatch.
So, is it any mystery that the first person to wish Howard Happy Birthday this morning is the girl in the red gown?
She doesn’t really know this story. But she does. She knows that I love her. But what she really knows is that no matter what, her Dad will never quit on her. Undeterred, always. Crazy.
Slow Scab: Adopted Kids Don’t Forget Being Left
A few weeks ago, a two year old girl was found alone at a McDonald’s on Milwaukee’s south side, no parents or relatives around; police were called and her picture was put up on the evening news. Because she looked amazingly like our older son’s daughter, my husband decided, as he often does, to “mess with him.” So Dad texted son.
Dad: How could you leave Alita at McDonald’s?
Son: what are you talking about
Dad: Somebody left a kid that looks just like Alita at a McDonald’s in Bay View.
Son (responding within seconds): Oh yeah i just heard about that this morning how could someone do that well guess my mom can 🙁 n joes and jhosys but whatever we are better off without them
Of course, right away I’m thinking he’s talking about me. As if I would leave him anywhere….but immediately realize he’s talking about his birth mother who did, in fact, leave him when he was six months old. She left him in a hospital, in good care, and, I believe, because she felt she had no other option. This is what we were told. This is what we told him. We also know that his picture was printed in La Prensa, the Nicaraguan national newspaper at the time, asking people to come forward with information about his parents.
No one stepped forward. He was placed in an orphanage. We adopted him nearly a year later.
He was a boy adored by the orphanage staff. He was tended and worried over. The Nicaraguan government expedited his adoption so he could receive good medical care in the U.S. The Nicaraguan women who worked in the orphanage held him and cared for him. I know this because I met people years later who remembered caring for him in the orphanage; their faces would soften and crease into smiles talking about Nelson Bravo, the beautiful boy.
What did this little episode teach me about adopted people — even 26 year old, self-sufficient adult adopted people? Scratch them and it’s there. It doesn’t get resolved. It doesn’t get explained. It forms a slow, sketchy scab that can catch in anything — a song, a phrase, a text message — and rip off.
We adoptive parents – with all our books and conferences and support groups – think we know. But we don’t know.
But I’m really glad I got told.
BTW, use of the text message was ok’d by the sender. 🙂
Oh….and his Dad’s response: Well, U r still my boy. And u still owe me money.
I Saw This Boy
There were children sleeping in trees. I saw them myself, riding around Managua after dark with my comadre Christina and our dear sponsor, Miriam, in February 1994. During the day, the kids rushed cars stopped in traffic, crawling up on hoods to squeegee the windshield, hawking gum and cigarettes from trays hanging from their necks just like the old Philip Morris ads but they were in dirty T-shirts and shorts, barefoot. Thin, aggressive, feral. And very young.
At night, they retreated to safety in the trees.
Stop the truck. Roll the window down. “They’re up there.” See the leaves rustling, little glimpses of feet and arms.
I remember feeling guilty. Guilty, conspicuous, rich, and wrong. I remember thinking that the boy washing the windshield knew more than me, was tougher than me. His aura was all necessity and drive. He didn’t ask to wash the windshield. He leapt up on the car and did it — expecting that the shame of not paying him would force the driver to ante up. I remember thinking what the hell is going on in the world when my two sons who look just like the one on the hood of the car are back home in Milwaukee eating Oreos and teasing the dog.
What separates my two boys, adopted in 1986 and 1988 from Managua, Nicaragua, from the boy yelling “Chicle, Chicle” outside the car window? It isn’t me, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m dumb to all of this. I just showed up and went where I was pointed. There was no rescue. Heck, I was the one rescued (but that’s a different blog). It was an utterly random slice of luck that culled them from the sea of abandoned children and plopped them in an orphanage.
While they were growing up, we would talk about Nicaragua. But not wanting to make it sound bad, we de-emphasized the poverty. It was and is a beautiful country with a social and political and literary history that makes it unusual and extraordinary and that’s what I wanted them to think about their home country. I didn’t want them to think bad things about home.
Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t make it sound like Paris. I told them that poverty was a big part of their mothers’ decisions to give them up to the orphanage. But I never told them that the boy on the hood of the car and the boy I bought my Marlboros from made me sad and scared and nervous. That seeing them made me feel wrapped in a blanket of ignorance and selfishness. That I saw them, picked up my daughter, went home to Milwaukee, sent money to relief groups every now and then, and went on with my life.
Until I heard that Anthony Bourdain was going to Nicaragua in his next No Reservations and that he was going to talk to kids rifling through trash at the dump looking for food and I wondered, “Should I have the kids over for dinner and watch it together?”
I just don’t know. I really don’t.
Mistaken Identity
You might have heard — there is a lot of controversy in Wisconsin right now about the collective bargaining rights of public employees. I’m not a public employee but I’ve often been mistaken for one.
Various people have assumed that I was a social worker, child welfare worker, probation officer, and school principal. These cases of mistaken identity occurred when I was with one of my kids, usually at their school. (For the uninitiated, I am white, some say, super white – northern European. My three adopted kids are from Nicaragua.) I’ll never forget standing in the hallway of Milwaukee High School of the Arts having a nice chat with one of my kid’s teachers, walking away and hearing him yank my son back to ask, “Is that your case worker?” “Uh, no, that’s my mom.”
I started thinking it would just be better to be the social worker. Why fight it? Be a social worker. Flash that badge. Get all the info. Talk like an insider. Keep the school professionals from e-nun-ci-a-ting like they tend to do whenever they meet up with mominsweatpants.
If I just go along with being the social worker, I can avoid the story.
Because if I tell a nosy person the story, it will surely be like giving a Moose a Muffin or a Pig a Pancake. If I start with the plain fact that my husband and I adopted from Nicaragua, it will lead to the reason why, then it will lead to making it clear that we didn’t pay a lot of money for our kids, that they were abandoned and without options, that they were sick, because, of course, I would then want the person to know that I’m not a rich white imperialist thinking I can just buy children who belong to another country, and then I’ll have to answer questions about their ‘real parents’ and how they feel about that which I won’t be able to answer because I don’t actually know, and whether they have ever gone back and looked for them, and how much do I know about their past which is practically nothing. And I will feel like apologizing and my child, whichever one it is, will be slinking down the hall wishing he/she had never been born in any country because the big, giant JULY 4TH AUTO SALE spotlight will be shining on them and it just isn’t f**king worth it to explain.
So I just decided to be the damn social worker or probation officer or whatever. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really have an attitude about it. I never really got mad at people who asked questions because I figured it was plenty weird seeing me and my kids. (My husband – different story — he can pass as the Dad. Me, no chance.) Plus I figured that actually having these kids was like the most massive stroke of luck in the universe so I was ok talking about it.
Still. It does really make you feel like you are wearing a bikini at a PTA meeting. Really.
So, anyway, several months ago, I walked into a group home where my CASA (I’m a Court Appointed Special Advocate for a girl in foster care) girl lives and one of the group home girls said, “Is that your grandmother?”
I loved that. I really did.
Joe
Monday was my #2 son’s 24th birthday. When I first met Joe in 1988, I had no idea he would morph into this.
Or this.
I had no idea that the place that he would end up feeling most at home would be on a stage looking out at a full house and waiting for a cue.
All the while he was growing up, the joke about little Joey was that he would run from any group picture. If captured, he’s twist around and turn his back to the camera. No way no how did he want anyone looking at him.
That changed. In a big way.
Joe often says that he needs to find himself. Me, my opinion? For what it’s worth.
I think he already has.
Golly.
Last night I had a dream that featured my balancing on a tall pole holding my 6-year old daughter, discovering that her leg was made of balsa wood, seeing that her leg had burned and needed repair, looking for someone to fix it, meeting Jimmy Carter in the hallway and shaking his hand, trying to stop a rolling car with my hands and finally jumping in it to hit the brakes, worrying about the child I’d left behind, trying to get back to her, riding a bike down a street that turned into the ocean, mucking my way through dead fish, trying to climb a steep, grass-covered wall, and realizing that she had probably gone off with someone else.
I never have dreams that I remember. Never.
This was an adoption dream. I’m sure of it.
Maybe this signals a new period of not being repressed. All hell could break loose now.
Nobody Would Pick Us
On Facebook today, Adoption Resources of Wisconsin posted a link to a young couple’s adoption recruitment site. So I clicked on it, looked at their happy pictures and their essays about what good parents they’d be. They had an 800 number for pregnant women to call. They were advertising themselves basically.
I looked at their info and I wondered how long and hard they must have thought about how to look like they’d be great parents. They’d want to look happy, for sure. And financially secure. With a decent house. Fun-lovers. With a dog. I thought they looked nice. I could see them being my parents or my kids’ parents. They looked like a couple already checking out summer camps and breaking in their mini-van.
I can’t even fathom the amount of acting and stagecraft that would have had to go into our “ad.” We were mismatched as a couple, impulsive, and constantly contradicting each other. We couldn’t have been more different – in looks, values, backgrounds, the food we liked, our accents. Everything about us was enough off to be worrisome to someone looking for a good home for their baby. We had unstable and temporary written all over our foreheads and down the front of our shirts.
Nobody would have picked us.
When we had our home studies, we felt about as exposed as people can feel. Everything about our lives was fair game for questions. The biggest challenge, though, was just keeping a lid on ourselves – to not let the social worker get a full glimpse of the disarray. But these folks — with their beautiful photos and their website and the 800 number — they’ve put themselves right out there.
I really hope somebody picks them.
Just Another Weird Thing
Tomorrow morning, I’ll get up, go downstairs, and make a pot of coffee. I’ll ground beans out of this bag and, like I have dozens of times, I’ll look at the name Zeledon and like it. The name Zeledon. I like it. It’s the birth surname of one of my kids. Zeledon.
Every day, it’s the same. I make the coffee. I look at the name. And I wonder if my Zeledon is related to the coffee farmers.
And then I wonder if he looks at the name on the bag of coffee and wonders if he’s related to the coffee farmers. Oh, we kid about it. We all stand around in the kitchen and talk about how we should go back to Nicaragua and find his rich relatives. But what I wonder is — does he think about it, like I do, every day.
Is there a connection? Who are the coffee Zeledons? Is it just a coincidence or a sign? Is the coffee there to remind us or lead us somewhere? Or is it just coffee. Probably.
After all, there are Snyder Pretzels and that never led my husband anywhere.
It’s hard and not always worth the trouble to sort out what’s weird from what’s meaningful. Even harder to distinguish what would capture my preoccupation if I was an adopted person from what my kids actually worry about. I can’t be in their place or see the world through their eyes no matter how much I read or think or talk to them.
Which is fine. Because they have no idea I’m preoccupied with the coffee. And buy it even though I like Layton Avenue Market’s special blend better. It’s all about the name. Zeledon.
Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
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