Nellie

Nellie her first year home

It all started with an ad in the paper.

Well, not really. It all started when we adopted two kids. They hadn't been here long before we realized every kid really should get to grow up with a dog. I was a vaguely known entity in the local animal rescue community, had helped re-home a few before, so I imagined one would come our way. And one probably would've, but then I saw this ad:

Female black lab mix free to good home. Has shots. Spayed.

Ads like this bother me. First of all, I don't like to think of any creature being rejected. Secondly, "free" animals around here are all too often sacrificed to fights. Combine all that with an early childhood spent with labs, and you can guess what happened next. I made the call, and we haven't looked back since.

Until now.

Nellie is...was...to my kids what my dog, Misty, was to me. Misty was not a lab, but rather an Australian Shepherd we got when I was young, sometime after Barnaby, who was a lab, was lost to complications of Parvo. Despite her fear of cows (admittedly not a great feature in a herding dog on a beef farm!) and one entirely too-close call with a passing car, Misty lived a long, full life. She was smart, funny, and occasionally brave – at least when it came to defending her red pick-up truck! Most of all, she was my constant companion, a girl's best friend. More than one chapter of my life closed when, during my senior year of college, she finally crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

My kids had that with Nellie. Like me and Misty, they've literally grown up together.

Nellie going gray

The only thing is, Nellie being a dog and all, she didn't just grow up – in fact, one could argue that is the one thing that didn't happen in her fourteen years! She grew old. The seizures she'd always suffered lessened, but she lost a third of her teeth. Her heart, the physical one, began to fail, even as the other, the heart of love, continued to beat strong. On the last day, the one we'd feared for months yet never could imagine, she got up, had a snack, and stretched out for a nap. It was a morning like any other, except this time, she didn't wake.

I've said before that it is hard enough to lose a pet, that it's a thousand times worse to see your kids losing one too. I imagine most of my readers know such pain entirely too well. So rather than dwell on it, I thought I'd share a few snapshots that reveal Nellie as she is was, show why we loved love her so:

• Whining from inside her crate at our lion-maned cat as, dangling from the top, he taunted her.
• Stealing a bologna sandwich and swallowing it whole.
• Standing at the back door barking, usually around midnight, her hair –and mine!– standing on end.
• Basking in the admiration of friends, strangers, and passers-by: "Look! There's a dog at Niagara Falls, and it's smiling!"
• Taking off hell-bent into the woods, hot on Cooper's and later Roxie's tail, even if we suspect she rarely knew what she was chasing.

  

  Nellie and Roxie

• Sheepishly belly-crawling back into our yard after sneaking off for a bite or two of new-lain horse apple or stinking fresh green cow pie.
• Getting skunked, and good, right smack in the face.
• Looking at me mournfully through yet another round of wormer – she never could quit those pasture snacks!
• Curling by my feet as I slept fitfully on the couch, keeping vigil through another night of illness, usually hers, sometimes the kids' or mine.
• Leaning on my knee, gazing up goofily with her snaggle tooth and her bugged-out eyes.
• Snoring. Clicking toenails. Clandestine crunching of cat food. It's way too quiet now.

I know this post needs some kind of end, but I've had about enough of things coming to an end here in black cat land, so let's just say to be continued. We'll catch the rest when we meet again, somewhere across the Rainbow Bridge.

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My Uncle Doug

"It makes me so happy that you call him that," my grandmother said.

"What?" I asked, confused. I don't remember what I'd said, only that I truly was perplexed. It was just another ordinary conversation, and I had mentioned my uncle Doug.

"That you refer to him as your uncle."

"Well, he is, isn't he?!" I replied, now more irritated than confused.

I don't know what we said or did next. I only remember how I felt. But now that two or three decades have passed, I have some idea of what she meant. After all, I can't count the times I've heard some version of "oh... you're the mom." Blood relations are a given. Other ones are not.

Except in my family, they were. My grandparents were all about fostering and adoption, long before it was in the news, long before it was "a thing." Doug, he was one of the foster kids. For the longest time, I didn't know, or didn't know I knew. To me, he was a beloved uncle, someone to make me laugh and give me sweets. Sure, I knew his last name was Mason, that he wasn't blessed with the Dennis neck –or lack thereof– but it never occurred to me that for some people, that might matter. Not, that is, until I adopted three kids. Our family's "normal" is still, for far too many people, strange.

This sense of family has been much on my mind lately, partly because I'm trying to write a book, partly thanks to my work with the ATN blog, where every week I get to share other families' stories. This week, though, it's almost entirely because, well, Uncle Doug died, and with him, a piece of my family's collective heart. I know he's better off now, enjoying a long-deserved rest after a life filled with his infectious smile, but also hard work and many sorrows. I can see him rough-housing with his dog, Jake, laughing with his wife, my aunt Joan, and their daughter, Donna, two beautiful souls he lost far too soon. Plus there's my grandparents. How good it must be for all of them to be together. I miss my kids after only a day. They'd been apart for years.

Still, it hurts, the pain made worse by the fact that I can't get to the funeral, won't be able to say a proper goodbye. Maybe this will work instead:

Thank you, Uncle Doug, for loving me and my kids, not like we were your own, but because we were. Goodbye for now. Someday we'll meet again.

Great-Aunt Jean and Grandma Ruth

my great-aunt Jean

My great-aunt Jean died this week. It's a loss for all of us, including my mom. She had a special connection with Jean, and not just because Jean brightened and warmed the world for everyone she met. And it's not that my mom didn't have a great mom of her own –she did–, but Jean gave her something too, something no one else could, or did. This post is in honor of all the Jeans, the women who, perhaps unbeknownst to them, helped our moms raise the rest of us up into the men and women we are today.

For me, one of those women is my father's mom, Grandma Ruth. For a long time, she was "just" Grandma to me, but as our family got more complicated, the addition of her first name made it easier to keep everyone straight. I often worry that Grandma died without knowing the influence she had on my life, partly because I hadn't yet lived enough of that life to understand it myself. I didn't realize that all the things that make me, well, me, they have to come from someone, and one of those someones is her. She's been on my mind a lot lately, and Mother's Day seems a good time to give credit where credit is due.

Me with the women who made me: Grandma Ruth, Mom, and Grandma Florence
(more about Grandma Florence in a future post...) 

Here are three of Grandma Ruth's gifts to me:

1) She showed me I can be my own person. Be a Democrat in a red Republican sea. Cheer on the Red Sox when just about everyone else is wearing Yankee blue. Camp in an Argosy when other travelers are towing an Airstream. If you're more a writer than a farmer's wife, so be it. She actually got to live the dream of seeing her name in print.

2) Music, reading, writing, art. She loved all these things, and judging by a girlhood diary, she loved them her whole life through. We even loved and loathed some of the same things. We found ourselves baffled by modern art, transported by soaring arias. Little Women is the book that defined our lives. We cried when Beth died, admired Marmie's and Meg's steadfast motherly devotion, frowned at Amy's frivolity, and most all, wanted not-so-secretly to be Jo. I, like Jo, like my grandmother, have filled diary after diary and now, however tentatively, I too am trying to make my way in the writerly world.

Grandma Ruth with three of her boys, my uncle Doug, my uncle Steve, and my dad

3) I never thought that families had to look or be any one particular way. Her father left their family in a time when such things weren't really done. I imagine that led to a different, harder life than the one she once dreamed of and deserved. Yet she grew her family all the same, through birth, foster care, and adoption. She wanted to be Jo March so much that she literally filled her house with boys. I parted ways with her there, certain I had at least one daughter out there in the world (turns out I have two!), but I kept the idea that families can be born not just of blood, but also shared experiences, lives built in community, and above all, love. I may not have grasped it at the time, but my desire to expand my own family through adoption surely had its roots in her example.

I could talk about so many other things I shared with Grandma Ruth. Shared loathings: migraines, fear of heights, how computer solitaire won't let you cheat. Shared loves: key lime pie, coffee, black labs and white-faced cows. And yet, we used to butt heads so bad. Sooooo bad. I was young and foolish and so let myself be impatient, selfish, even unkind, sure she could never understand the person I was and wanted to become. It's hard to admit that, much less put it into words, yet here I am, following her lead to do just that. I don't know if they read blogs in heaven, but if they do, Grandma Ruth, this one's for you.

Yeah, this is real too

A child, maybe 12, moves across the parking lot. Progress is slow, weighed down as he is by a leg cast and bulging backpack. He places his crutches carefully, looking up every so often, only to drop his eyes again when he sees how much parking lot remains.

The other parents stare, first at him, then at his mother, waiting alone by her car. 

"How long has he been crossing this lot, anyway?"

"I'd never let my kid get away with that."

"Bless him. That'd stop if he just got a little extra attention and love."

"That kid needs a good whipping. Then he'd move!"

If you are horrified, you should be.

If you think this cannot possibly be real, you are probably right. At least I hope you are. After all, what kind of person would criticize a child so obviously in pain? What kind of jerk would blame his parents because a broken leg had slowed him down?

Yet thousands of families endure something similar every day. Every. Single. Day. Not because of something visible, something obvious like a broken leg, but because their child suffers from wounds unseen, some of which were inflicted literally from the very first. Some combination of hunger, abuse, trauma, and neglect caused the child's brain to develop in unexpected ways, with a broad range of maladaptive behaviors to match. 

For parents of these kids, the phrase "pick your battles" takes on a whole new meaning. They have to pick so often and so quickly –yet somehow also carefully–, that I can just about guarantee they're not picking the ones you want. Yet trust me, they believe in love and discipline and everything else that goes into making a family work. It's just that their normal looks way different from yours. They can't waste time apologizing for something that isn't their fault. Like the mom whose son is wobbling around with cast and crutches, they have bigger fish to fry.

Please give them benefit of the doubt, accept that they are actually doing the best they can, however imperfect that may be.  

Remember, the support you give the family is love you show the child.

When you see a family like mine...

I think this may be the first in a series. Only time will tell. I also want to write some posts on the theme of "Everything I need to know, I learned from an orange cat," but that loss is still too fresh. For now, I'm just letting the muse strike when and where she will until I summon enough energy to impose some discipline on her.

To give you a frame of reference, I am 5'9",  blond, blue-eyed, like an extra in a Scandinavian movie. My three children, on the other hand, were born in India and have darker skin than I do, with black hair and dark eyes. They are also shorter in stature.

 

Here on some tips on what NOT to say, especially when meeting us for the first time.

Question: Where are they from?

Answer: Kentucky.

Alternate answer (available only if I think it's relevant): Kentucky, but they were born in India.

The voice in my head: Stop being so dang nosy. If you had children from India, I bet you'd find a different way to phrase your question.

Question: Are they yours?
Answer: Yes.
Alternate answer (snarky, paired with theatrical scanning of surroundings): Are what mine? Oh my God! Them?! Why do these people keep following me?
The voice in my head: You probably want to know if they're adopted. If you also have a transracial family and/or adopted kids, you might have grounds to ask. MIGHT. Otherwise...

Question: Do they look like their dad?
Answer: Nope.
Alternate answer (highly snarky, accompanied by feigned scrutinizing of children): You know... now that you mention it, they sure don't. Wonder how THAT happened?!
The voice in my head: You want to know personal details about my family and think you've found a clever way to ask. You haven't.

Question: Are they adopted?
Answer: Yes.
(No other answer is necessary.)
The voice in my head: This question is usually fine by me, as long as it's asked kindly and respectfully, and as long as it's not followed by any of these...

Question: Couldn't you have your own?
Answer: They are my own.
Alternate answer: I already do.
The voice in my head: Please tell me you are not actually asking me about my sex life and/or reproductive health. Do you hear me asking you about that?!? I didn't think so.

Question: Did you try magic beans/ IVF/prayer/sacrifices to pagan goddesses?
Answer: No.
Alternate answer: Actually, I chose adoption first. I wanted to be a mother and there were kids who needed parents. It was a perfect fit.
The voice in my head: Why are people so stinkin' interested in getting what I would consider TMI? Seriously! That is so NOT okay!

Question: How much did they cost?
Answer: stunned silence
Alternate answer: Ummmm.... You do know that I didn't BUY my children, right? I paid fees to lawyers, agencies, orphanages, immigration services, and more.
The voice in my head: What in the heck is wrong with you? Who asks that? How much did your pregnancy cost? What about the delivery? What? You don't want to answer? Why not?

I could go on, but you get the point. If you wouldn't say it to a married, heterosexual couple with 2.5 kids who look exactly like them, then don't say it to me. Deal?

Shadow mothers

True story: I never expected that my kids would forget their birth mothers. That's just not reasonable. I have always known those women would always be a very real and important presence in their lives.

What I did not realize is that I would spend so much time thinking about their birth mothers too.  So much so that it is not really a stretch to say that I feel like I too have a relationship with them, even if we have never met and are unlikely ever to do so.

I spend a lot of time sending thoughts and prayers through the universe, hoping that somehow my children's birth mothers will catch them and know that our kids are growing up healthy and strong. And once in a while, my thoughts seem to reach their intended destination, for I sometimes feel what I can only define as a presence. The strongest manifestation of this happened just after I dropped off my eldest for an overnight stay at a prospective college. Just as with any time my kids hit a major milestone, I sent a thought out to her birth mother.

About halfway home, I no longer felt alone in the car. Somehow, I felt like my daughter's birth mother was trying to tell me that we'd done it. Our girl was going to make it. That was all, but it was enough to make me cry. I turned off the radio to see if there was more. There wasn't.

"Shadow mothers" probably sounds ominous or sad, and maybe it is, but really, it's just how I've come to think of the women who brought my children into this world. They are here, with all of us, as much a part of our family as the members I can touch and see.

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Author's note: While searching Google Images to find the images that accompany this post, I learned of a book entitled Shadow Mothers. This post was developed independently of and well before that discovery, and in fact is about another topic entirely.  Also, I want to give credit where credit is due, but can find no attribution for the first image, which appears on numerous sites, as does the second, which I believe was taken by Ruth Malhotra. Whoever they may be, thanks to the photographers for their excellent work.