Remembering to Start

12 years ago today, I watched in confusion and then horror. I drove in my car on I-40 from Chapel Hill to Raleigh fearful of the skies. I arrived in the Meredith College dance studio, my church, my temple. And we prayed as dancers do...with our bodies, quietly, on our knees with foreheads pressed to the floor, connecting to our breath.

I think we all had a difficult time finding our way back to our work, back to finding purpose, didn't we? I was just days away from heading back to Charlottesville, VA to start a new dance project. It was to be my first evening length project with hired dancers, fund raising, produced, directed and choreographed by me.

It felt so trivial, so small.
I kept asking myself: Who cares?

And then, I just did what we all did. I showed up to work. And the dancers showed up to work. And we committed to our process, and we framed questions and then we questioned the frame. We sweated, and moved even when we didn't want to, even when we felt we couldn't. We didn't wait for a spark of inspiration to ignite us, we trudged ourselves into the scary dark woods of the creative process daring inspiration to keep up with us.

We decided to shine our own lights, the divine spark of our humanity, in the only way we knew how. We danced. We let our bodies process things our hearts and minds could not. Those days were raw and hard and beautiful.

Isn't it curious how life moves in spirals?

For the last few weeks, I've worked to carve out more time to write because that seems to be my creative process now. I have some ambitions goals, but I just can't seem to work up the courage to put the thoughts crowding my brain out into the world.

The last months have been raw and hard and beautiful.
Who cares?

I had no idea twelve years ago 9/11 was also the Ethiopian New Year. I had no way of knowing twelve years ago how my children would change my life and the way I see everything.

Today I'm remembering to start again. To show up, to do the work, MY WORK, to be courageous, and to put my work out into the world.  It is my job, it is what I do.

Today I am remembering to start my journey back into the scary dark woods of the creative process. Inspiration, I dare you to keep up with me, but I'll shine my light so you can try to find me.

Who cares? I do.
And for now, that is enough.

An act of kindness, please...

"A child born to another woman calls me mommy. The magnitude of that tragedy and the depth of that privilege are not lost on me." - Jody Landers

One year ago today a woman who loved her son so much she named him "Gift from God" passed away from this world. There is only one photograph that exists of her. Her grave is unmarked. I don't know if anyone in her family will think of her today and remember her, because life just doesn't move in specific dates and times like it does here.

Today is the one year anniversary of Wynray's birth mom's passing.

Today I have been grieving for Wynray's birth mother. It has been an emotional day to say the least. I've been thinking about her last few days in this world and what she endured. I imagine how terrified she must have been, leaving her precious boy behind. Of course, Wynray has no real understanding of today (that I'm aware of. just keep reading), but it doesn't lessen the importance of what today means for this family. A year ago today, life switched tracks for Wynray. Today I am aware that a family's tragic loss gave me the most precious gift imaginable. The conflict and confusion of that statement leaves me breathless.

I have been dreading this day for months. Perhaps it is because Wynray is unaware of today's significance that the last few months have been so hard for me. Yes, I can hear the selfishness in that statement. Today shouldn't be about me, but up until just a few hours ago it was. It was about my guilt, my helplessness, my sadness and it was immobilizing. We'll get back to that realization in a minute.

Today I started the day, bearing the burden of grief alone, cloaked in sadness for a woman I've never met. Despite having never met her, I see her smile everyday on the little boy who is our son. Today I have felt the unfairness of my white privilege. Today I have been aware of how much I take for granted having access to medical care, food, shelter and water. Today I have been aware of heartbreaking injustice, poverty, and loss.

Today I felt a desperate need to remember Wynray's precious birth mother and honor her until he is able. Until this morning, I felt I needed to be grieving for both of us. Today, like most days, I feel unworthy of the gift of mothering Wynray, and I feel the need to be extra present, extra patient, extra kind. On the days when I'm not extra present, extra patient and extra kind (most days) I feel extra guilty. Sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in guilt because let's be honest, most days there's not enough time and energy to be extra anything.

Speaking of mothers, Wynray has been holding out on calling me mama. The fact that he can say "more banana" but not "mama" has not been lost on me. To me it is a word of honor, and I knew he would call me Mama when he was ready. So this morning, my goofy-happy son came running down the hall yelling what I thought was "Mama! Mama!" and my heart began to soar, and then I remembered the significance of today and then my heart stopped. It just felt WRONG that he'd start calling me Mama today of all days. To my momentary relief he actually had been saying "more food, Dada."

Then later this morning he climbed into my lap, got uncharacteristically still, gave me a kiss and said the word I've been longing to hear since the day I met him.
Mama.
He called me Mama.
Holy inappropriateness, Wynray! Of course then I wept, but not for the reasons I had imagined. I wept with crippling guilt, unworthiness, and sadness. I felt myself slipping down a spiral of despair and it felt bottomless.

And then that smiling boy just kept calling me Mama. And smiling, and kissing me. And it's hard to be sad when Wynray smiles or gives you a slobbery kiss. It reminded me of what we know about his birth mother. His birth father revealed to us that she had a beautiful smile and a great sense of humor. He said he missed her smile most of all. Wynray's birth mother's humor and the light she gave others lives on in our son. Wynray's smile, her smile, started chipping away at my sadness, and that's when I realized perhaps I've been approaching this grief all wrong. While it IS my job to gather as much information as I can about his family and culture, and hold that information dear in my heart, it isn't my job to grieve for Wynray. I will help share the burden when the appropriate time comes, and I will walk with him through it, but it should be his privilege to grieve his birth mother as he chooses.


Maybe Wynray finally calling me Mama today was a gift from her. Maybe it was the signal I needed to know that it's okay to feel joy, and be joyful. From what I know about her, she would want that. While I will always try to be mindful of how Wynray became a part of our family, I need to let go of the crippling guilt. It's hard to parent from a place of sadness much less initiate positive change. And I want to initiate positive change.


So here is where your help comes in. I had originally planned to observe today in private and then Wynray had to go and call me Mama, and get up in my face with that dazzling smile of his, and it changed everything. Rather than feeling helpless, sad and guilty I realized the simple act of a smile changed everything for me. I accomplish nothing to honor his birth mother's memory by crying alone in my home, feeling guilty for the privilege of being Wynray's mom, but I CAN honor her memory by asking something very small of you all.

I would like to request one act of kindness from each and every one of you in honor of Wynray's birth mom. Hug someone, tell a joke, hold a door, give someone a dazzling and beautiful smile...no kind gesture is too small, because we all know kindness is infectious. It grows and expands and it changes the world. Just like Wynray sitting and smiling in my lap today changed my entire perception of how to honor his birth mother, your smile could change a life...even if just for a second. Wynray's smile has changed mine.

Help me remember the precious woman who gave Wynray life, and his beaming smile. Shine your light. Go be kind.

In her wildest dreams...

For the last two nights I slept sandwiched between my two kids in my childhood bed, in my old room, in my parents' home.

Surreal, I tell ya.

In the wee hours, when the little bed hogs kept me awake as they claimed more of the bed, I thought of the girl who grew up in that room and the hopes and dreams she cultivated in that space. I thought of how she could have never dreamed the perfect grandness of that exact moment; sleepless and grateful, snuggled between my Swedish-American daughter and my Ethiopian son. Never in her wildest dreams could she have dreamed up my reality.

Humbled and grateful.

I'm sorry. I lied.

Two posts ago I wrote one of the really wonderful things about being an adoptive parents is NOT projecting your gifts and expectations on your child, and allowing the child to reveal the person they are meant to be.

Last night I dreamed about Wynray as a young man. We were sitting at an outdoor cafe in New York City, sipping tea and still glowing, completely blissed out from the yoga class we'd just taken together. He was dressed like a hipster, with a knit hat framing his handsome and kind face. We were discussing important arty stuff. He was happy, interesting, and completely content spending time with me. I'm sure if I'd slept longer we would gone to a museum.

...and then he invited me to be his date to the Oscars. (Okay, I didn't dream that but that would be kind of awesome too.)

Yeah, about that not projecting nonsense...

Thoughts on adoption ethics...

I've been trying to find a way to broach this subject, and today I came across this post that sums up what I've been thinking and worrying about since we began Wynray's adoption process. Let me preface the link by saying we continue to wholeheartedly support international adoption, and IF we do walk down the adoption road again, we will look to Ethiopia and use the adoption agency we previously used.

I have seen first hand an orphanage with babies upon babies languishing in cribs, in a region in Ethiopia where adoption is not an option for them at the moment. I know they are not there because their birth parents were coerced, lied to, or misled.  There is no demand there, no waiting lists for babies from eager do-gooders (like me) in America. Those babies need families. However, I have heard story upon story of families (birth and adopted) living the nightmare of finding out the stories they were told by their agencies were completely false. Not just a few, but MANY. So many that one starts to believe in the adoption world that an ethical adoption is the exception not the rule. I feel overwhelmed with guilt that just by adding our name to a waiting list for a child, we in some way contributed to the DEMAND for babies.

But as I said, I have seen the need first hand, and I am not willing to throw the babies out with the bathwater. I am not willing to turn my back on those children I met in Awassa who still keep me awake at night. Despite the sad state of adoption ethics, they still deserve a family. An institution is not a proper substitute for a family. I have also seen first hand the PRECIOUS older children who have been waiting and waiting. There are no waiting lists for them.

We had a really good, if not long, process with our agency. We switched agencies in the middle of our paperwork when we saw some red flags with our previous agency. This slowed us down tremendously. But truthfully, we would have waited much longer to ensure transparency, or even walked away from the process if we sensed anything that seemed unethical.

We didn't NEED to adopt, we wanted a child. And we wanted a child who NEEDED us. I don't know if it was luck, or hoping and praying, or finding the right agency, or asking a million questions, or meeting the birth father, or sending an investigator to our son's birth village. But we feel completely confident the process with Wynray was transparent and completely ethical...and that he NEEDED us.

Let me be clear, we are not heroes, and Wynray is not lucky (that's right nurse in the pediatrician's office who kept telling Wynray he had won the golden ticket. *&^*%!!). We are just a family who wanted another child, willing to open our hearts to the adventure and blessing of adoption. We participated in an industry. An industry where big bucks are being moved around, and there is a great deal of corruption.

While I believe everyone comes into your life for a reason, I don't subscribe to the magical thinking Wynray was "meant" to be our son. We are Wynray's plan B. We will rise to the occasion and make his plan B the very best plan B we can be. But if I could turn back time and give his birth mother the medication she needed, I would do it in a heartbeat. It would probably kill me, because I love him more than I could have ever imaged. But I would do it because babies are meant to be with their mothers. There is magic though, and the magic is the tremendous love that grows and flowers, and seeps in through the cracks of your heart to find places you didn't know exist. The magic is making a family, an unlikely family, work and thrive and love.

Wynray's history and culture have become precious to us. But so have the lives and families of all Ethiopians and all humans. It is VITAL that we work on keeping families together first and foremost rather than offering up sending children away as the quick fix. As adoptive parents we must demand transparency, we must ask REALLY hard questions of ourselves, of our agency, and of the birth parents, we must be willing to walk away if it doesn't look or feel right, and we must verify with our very own hearts and eyes.

And we must educate our friends who might be considering adoption.

Please friends, read.
http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2013/05/14/examining-adoption-ethics-part-one

Redefining Genius

After having a little girl for 2.5 years before Wynray became part of our family, I often worried I just wouldn't "get" a little boy. Of course, this was after spending my entire pregnancy with Kysa worried if we had a girl I wouldn't "get" her either. I think in reality I was just worried about being able to connect with my kids, but I now think biological or adopted child, you get the kids you are suppose to have.

Most certainly, one of the joys of parenting an adopted child is you just never know what their "gifts" will be. While this is true with a biological child too, you still might have some clues.  For example, Kysa loves to dance and is really verbal. Shocker. But she's also a night owl and I'm a morning person.

I love that Wynray is a blank slate of expectation for us, He has none of my or Fredrik's "gifts" transposed on him with expectations. Every day is a new day for him to reveal a little more about himself, and for us to learn more about Wynray. This morning we learned he is a GENIUS.

Now, it hasn't taken me long to appreciate Wynray's gifts like his fast twitch muscle fiber super-soulful hugs, his lightening quick kinesthetic awareness, and his loud and expressive communication (screaming) done while running top speed through the house or climbing something treacherous like the stove, or his ability to carry heavy objects (like a skillet) through the house while I'm showering.

This morning Wynray did something extraordinary that earned him a place of reverent respect in my book. We co-sleep with Wynray, and he woke me at 6:30am with a love wack and hair tug. We snuggled for a few minutes and then he sat up and looked at me as if he had something very important to say.

....he grunted.....and I grunted back. He giggled.

....he roared.....and I roared back. He smiled at me knowingly as if to say, "ok, we're playing THAT game."

....and he growled.....and I growled back. He looked perplexed. He got a far off look in his eye that clearly asked "hmmmm how can I stump Mom?"

....then he locked eyes with me, took a deep breath, arched his back and farted....then gave me a look that said "top that"

Fredrik was awake by this time and we both cracked up as Wynray's face turned smug and triumphant. His wit was so QUICK, and his comedic timing was so SPOT ON.

So my friends, it is my humble opinion that humor is one of the highest forms of intelligence. Add to the superb comic timing the ability to control one's sphincter, and you have in my book an act of true genius.

I think I'm starting to "get" my boy.
You bet, I'm one proud mama.

Disclaimer: I realize there's been a lot of potty humor here lately, probably the lowest forms of humor. So while my son if proving to be a genius, his mom's brain cells may be dwindling. My apologies if I offend, but it's the reality I'm currently living in. I'd also like to point out I (used to) read LOTS of books, watch Downton Abbey, CBS Sunday Morning, and listen to NPR (though mostly these days I'm just turning up the volume to drown out the screaming while I stare off into space).

Today is for her.

Truth be told, I've been dreading this Mother's Day. Let's just cut to it. I became a mother this year because Wynray's first mother left her body and this physical world, leaving her husband, extended family, and precious baby boy. Truth be told, it was hard to put my feet on the ground this morning and go through the motions of being celebrated by my sweet family.

Today I dedicate to her.

And today I will give thanks for Aguwa, Wynray's great grandmother who was the midwife for his birth and who celebrated the life of our precious boy by making him beaded bracelets and a necklace.

Today I give thanks to the nannies who cared for my son so graciously, and loved him so well as he transitioned from his birth family to us.

And I am thankful for Cat, our adoption coordinator and "midwife." I have never laid eyes on her, but her kind voice brought me to my knees when she told us that we had a son on the other side of the planet.

I am also thinking of, and am thankful for the women (and men) who mothered Kysa when we left her to bring our sweet boy home.

And while today I'll be thinking of all the women who have mothered Wynray and Kysa, I think of Wynray's birth mother ALL the time. She is with me ALL the time. When Wynray is crying not only do my maternal instincts kick in, but I drop what I'm doing and run to him for her. When he took his first steps I squealed and hugged him an extra long time for both of us. When he's asleep in my arms I breathe him in and stroke his cheek knowing she did it first. When I am exhausted and my patience is thin, I remember her and dig a little deeper into my reserves.

Today I honor the mothers who have passed on, the mothers who have made sacrifices beyond what our hearts can comprehend. I honor the women who have lost their children through death, unethical adoption practices, or whatever choice or non-choice has separated mother and child. I honor the women who are sacrificing and struggling to feed, clothe, and provide a home for their children. I honor the blood, sweat and tears. I pray for healing.

I also honor the women who have not had biological or adopted children of their own, but still embody the verb "mother"...the women who educate and care for our children, heal our sick, create art, protect our planet, steward our animals, and soothe our souls.

And today I'm thinking of my sister experiencing her very first Mother's Day. And my own mother, and my ever present grandmother, who has been gone from this physical world many years, but makes her presence known through flowers and little girl magic.

This year the word mother has become a complex concept for me. This year becoming a mother has become a gift I can never repay.

Just now Wynray and I lit a candle and placed it beside a photo of his birth mother. I whispered "mama" and he pointed to her and smiled his sweet Wynray smile.

And then he rested his head on my shoulder.