My Elliot

RAD has kicked my ass.  For those who are blissfully unaware, RAD stands for Reactive Attachment Disorder.  RAD.  It doesn't sound bad until it has turned your world upside down.  RAD.  It sounds cool.  The car is so rad.  Radical.

It. Is. Devastating.

To sum RAD up in oversimplified terms, a person diagnosed with RAD will lash out at the ones they love most. I love you. I hate you.  I want to live at home. I want to kill you.  It is a dizzying experience that leaves you with whiplash and in a constant state of confusion and wondering. RAD had told me no one would want to be part of our family.  We were the problem and our family was incapable of loving enough to fix brokenness. RAD is what is left of the skills needed for her to survive.  War.  Famine, Illness.  Unimaginable loss. RAD is the war that continues to rage once the one with guns is no longer a threat.  RAD recently delivered a blow that left me down for the count.  I was done. Knocked out. The referee was pounding the mat and I could hear the countdown...1...2...3...

And I did not care.

I was reeling and numb at the same time.  Life continued. Demands of the other kids.  Work. In the midst of this, I went to visit a German exchange student I was supervising.  His placement was not working out and he was broken in a different way. 4...5... Not down for the count, but lonely in a strange country with strange people.  Lost.

He needed a new home and it was my job to find one. I felt inadequate.  How can I care for anyone else when my own family felt so broken?  I was not able to care for my own kids, much less an exchange student. After hours of conversation, I told him I would find him a new host family.  I was weary.  We looked at each other.  Knowing he couldn't go back.  Not knowing how to go forward.

I called JoAnne.  She said to bring him home until I found a new host family.  I was unsure.  RAD had convinced me I was not capable of caring for others.  I looked at him and stated he was welcome to come to my home but there were things he needed to know. I am gay.  He did not care. We have 4-5 children, depending on the day and RAD's mood.  We have a plethora of animals. We are loud.  I was trying to talk to him out of it.  Warning him of things RAD had made me believe.  He said he just wanted to be part of a family.  I wondered if I was capable of making him part of the fragments that remained of my family.  Regardless, we loaded up in the minivan and drove home.  I doubted.  Immensely. 6...7...

The comfort I had was knowing this was a temporary arrangement.  He would stay until I could find a new host family.  We could fake it for a week.  Supervising exchange students, I often have families ask me if I have ever hosted.  My answer was always no because our kids are too young.  Our family is large.  Maybe when they have moved out. We want to but we are going to wait a couple of years. Answers that hid truth. Our family is under RAD's siege.  We are getting through right now.  We can't fit anymore in our lifeboat.

Leroy moved in. We were tentative at first.  Very polite.  Moving in familiar patterns but with a new influence.  Then Ben hugged him.  Kuker smiled that smile. Caleb opened up his room. Kennedy tried to sway him to Team Jacob. JoAnne was calming and stable.  It was like the munchkins in the "Wizard of Oz".  How they all creep out tentatively and all of a sudden there are millions of them and everything is alive. I saw our kids come alive. They were not as gone as I had feared. I saw our kids open their hearts and home in ways I did not know they were capable of after being so wounded during RAD's reign. We settled into a natural rhythm.

It wasn't just our kids.  Leroy came alive too. Leroy has a way of relating to each one of

the kids with such tenderness and kindness.  They soaked him in.  We were happy.  We were capable of being a good family.  A family a boy wanted to be in and felt safe in.  A family he chose and trusted to take care of him.

After a week, it was time for Leroy to go to his new host family.  We could not let him go. He did not want to leave.  The kids begged to keep him.  Like he was a puppy.  They made all the promises to care for him.  Leroy promised to be a good puppy.  After much conversation, we knew he was supposed to be part of our family. We kept him.

When I was little, I loved the movie "Pete's Dragon".  The dragon's name was Elliot.  His job was to go from family to family and help them heal. Once they were established as family, he went to another family to help them. I often think of Leroy as my Elliot.  I know he is only here for a short time and then he will have to leave.  But we are better because of him.  And, he is better because of us. He is part of a family.  Which is exactly what he wanted.  We found ourselves as a family again. Which is exactly what we needed.  We were not ready to host an exchange student.  It didn't matter.  All we needed to be was open. 8...9...I am standing.  No longer reeling. Healed in unexpected, amazing ways.

Leroy has since told me I "over warned" him about our family.  What?!?! No one has ever said they had too much warning in reference to our family. Oh, you really over prepared us for the invasion of your family said no one ever. Healed in unexpected, amazing ways. All we had to be was open.

Broken Whole

I have been broken this year.  My partnership of almost 9 years ended at the end of 2011. Attempts to live with Lori, after we dissolved as partners, ended with her with her saying "this is too hard".  And it was hard.  And it is hard.  Relationships are hard to nourish.  It is also hard to watch them die.  It is hard to maintain a strained relationship for the sake of the kids.  It is hard to release that relationship for the sake of the kids. Lori chose the release.  She was right to do so.

I have been broken this year.  My mom role, my most treasured role, shattered as I had to extract myself from the kids to allow time for Lori.  The extraction harder than anything I have known.  My mom role broken as I released my child to foster care.  Not just released, but instigated the contact with Child Protective Services.  An agency I worked for for 10 years and never dreamed of being involved in on this side of things.  Not just released her, but initiated and advocated for her to be taken into care.  Extraction.  Too hard.  

I have been broken this year.  Trying to meet all the needs of the kids when they are in conflict with one another.  To keep Gomah in the home would be to jeopardize all others.  The depression and fear of the other kids due to Gomah's inability to step out of trauma.  Despite love.  It is not enough. Or counseling. Or medication.  Sometimes it is too hard.  

Broken thoughts.  Reduced to fragments.  The story to heavy for a full sentence.  Must be told in pieces in order to be told at all.  Gomah who tried to kill.  Kill us.  Wound us.  Destroy us.  She was taken to a juvenile detention center.  Then placed in a foster home.  Then another foster home. Then hospitalized.  I had a child removed from my care because her needs exceeded my ability to meet them.  It was too hard.  Too dangerous.  Too scary.  I wanted her gone. I wanted to walk forward and not fear explosions. I wanted to focus on my other children.  I wanted to be the parent to them I had been denied because of management of Gomah.  Beautiful child. Who laughs and offers to help.  Who curses and sits in my lap.  Who hates and loves vehemently.  Who bullies and comforts.  Who hits me and kisses me.  Wants me and then denies me. All are her truth.  Beautiful, broken child.  I understand.  I cannot tolerate. 

Broken. Not what I thought my love and life would be.  Protecting against and parenting the same child.  Released from a life of 9 years because it was too hard.  Relinquished to a place that felt even harder.  

Lori and I now look like every other divorced couple.  Minimal conversation.  Saying what needs to be said about the kids.  I raged. She was the target of my brokenness.  I was for her as well.  Our fears realized because of our own doing.  We are moving beyond brokenness, but we are no longer family except around the children. Community understands this animosity.  Many people did not understand why we would continue to live together, to continue to love, when our partnership had ended.  Even our kids wanted a "normal divorce like their friend's parents".  They often inquired why we couldn't be normal, just once.  Normal is too hard.  

The incredible thing about being broken is I got to put myself back together.  I have found a love like I have never known. In an amazing friend who has become more than I knew to dream.  

Picking up pieces.  Tossing my mistakes.  Holding tight to the lessons they gave.  Learning how to parent four individuals.  Parenting Gomah means letting her fall.  Picking up the pieces as we go.  She calls me when she is in trouble. I parent her without being her victim. I tell her story to every doctor, therapist, foster mom and teacher.  I advocate for her.  I am her voice.  Her protector.  From a distance. I hold her pieces until she is able to put herself back together.  I know she will.  For now, I make sure she has my voice in her head.  Telling her I love her. Telling her right from wrong even if she continually chooses wrong.  I want my voice in her head.  I parent her in every way I can even though I never imagined my role as her mom looking like this.  I will follow her.  To every foster home.  To every race. I will be there for all her victories and all her failures.  She will come home.  Holding tight to the lessons learned while forgiving herself of her mistakes.  

I have been broken this year.  I have been healed this year.  I have loved even when it was too hard.  I have failed.  I have succeeded.  As this year draws to an end I will shoot a gun, pop a cork, light a Chinese lantern, eat black eyed peas and usher in this new year with all I have got.  I have been broken this year.  I have also been made whole this year.  And I am grateful. 

  

Kuker and Ben. Yin and Yang

I have two sons. Ben is a fair skinned, freckled face, blond haired, blue eyed child.  Kuker is a dark skinned,  brown eyed, black haired, sweet faced child. They both love to play soccer, wrestle, ride bikes, wear hoodies and watch movies.  Sometimes, when they sleep, they intertwine and resemble the yin and yang symbol.  They are two energies, feeding off of one another, connected by their family circle.

Ben used to argue he was "a little black".  Kuker would get furious that Ben was claiming blackness.  Ben would scream he WAS a little black.  Kuker would scream he was NOT black, he was peach. Toe to toe. Back and forth they would go.  Each yelling louder to convince the other of Ben's race.  The root of their argument was really Ben worshipping his brother and wanting to be like him in every way. Racial conflict due to loving a person of a different race so much you want to absorb them.   Not destroy them. 

In the wake of Trayvon Martin, I have thought a lot about what it means to raise an African male in this culture.  How can I keep him safe? Teach him to be less threatening? How much does he have to shrink to have acceptance and safety? How could Trayvon have been less threatening than jeans, a sweatshirt, skittles and tea?  My loving child who holds the door for me, guides his Nana in the dark and hugs frequently.  I cannot fathom him being intimidating due to color or height or the deepness of his voice.  Yet I know he will.  

More than I have thought about raising my African son in today's society, I have thought about how I will raise my white son in today's society.  The burden is on Ben, not Kuker.  Ben needs to continue to embrace being "a little black".  To never force anyone to talk or smile or dress or wave in a certain way so he does not become fearful and shoot. Or not hire. Or relegate to a lesser position.  Or cross to the other side of a street.  Or follow a minority around a store to make sure they do not steal.  

Ben will be a white man.  He will redefine that role without knowing he is redefining. He will teach his children without knowing he is teaching.  Being a little black will be so natural for him, he will not know to be uncomfortable or scared or superior.  He will be a white brother who loves his black brother.  The burden is on Ben.  He does not feel the weight.  He does not know about Trayvon.  He knows Kuker.  He will be the change.

I am amazed that white people fear black people.  I am amazed that a teenage child walking on a sidewalk was a threat.  When did black people lynch white people, strip them of rights, enslave them or treat them like property? It was a long time ago.  It is still being lived out today.  

Systematic change is virtually impossible.  History can't be changed. The present day killing of Trayvon can't be changed.  The fact that a black man shooting a white man would have lead to the immediate arrest of the black remains true to this day. A white man with a gun is a different story.

I will raise my children to walk differently in this world.  I will teach my white children to never expect another race to be less than for their comfort.  I will teach my African children not to shrink to accommodate fear.  I will teach all of them to walk tall, be true and do not shift for the comfort of others.  They see family when they look qinto a face that is a different color than them.  My kids intersect and intertwine with each other, changing energy and changing the way it  feeds.  They will be the change.  They are a good start.  

A Child Shall Lead Them

I didn't grow up in church.  I do not know all the words to "The Old Rugged Cross".  I do not have the books of the bible memorized.  Sometimes I get confused as to why Jesus turned over the tables.  Greed? Blasphemy? I do not believe in the virgin birth. I get so pissed at God for social, global and economic injustices that I swear him off like cigarettes or alcohol.  A bad habit I must break.
I didn't always want to swear off God.  I am only angry because I had my heart broken.  Pain, fueled by anger.  Anger, fueled by pain.  I do not think one can exist without the other. My love for God shifted to pain and anger.  My passion for God remained.  Channeled by different emotions.
I was 15 when I fell in love with God.  I was transformed by the power of the love I felt.  I hear people talk about God's love now and I remember, although I cannot claim to know that love any longer.  My relationship with God lasted into my twenties.  I struggled with my sexual orientation.  I experienced so much judgement from churches/organizations that had previously nurtured me.  Organized religion became the mistress that tore us apart.  I was left broken. In a pile.  On the floor.
I remain on the outskirts of organized religion.  I am continually pulled into relationship with church and with God.  I wade through religion.  I remain in shallow waters.  Not wanting to get out.  Not wanting to go deeper.
I wade through church.  I go enough so the kids have a basis to form their own ideas about religion.  I stay away enough so I do not remember what it once was to me.  The only problem is that I am the mother of Kennedy.  The most inquisitive, compassionate, spiritual child I know.  Kennedy has recently decided to be baptized.  Ugh.  Why can't she want to pierce her tongue or get a tattoo? She wants to go to church more.  Why doesn't she want to sleep in and eat pop-tarts?
She wants to get baptized.  I get it. I am scared for her, but I get it.  I am drinking a whole lot of the blood of Christ but I get it.  I hear her voice.  It use to be mine.  I see her eyes dance at the understanding of something bigger than her.  I recognize the dance.
I know what she feels right now.  I am certain I will not be able to love God with the reckless abandon I did as a youth.  I know things will be different for Kennedy.  I know Kennedy is greater than I ever was.  I know God did not break my heart.  The ones who say they love God did. I know Kennedy can go forward where I stopped.  I know that despite the pain, being in relationship with God is the love of all loves.  I know that once you have experienced that love there is something about it that will not let you go.   Even if you swear it off daily.
Kennedy has brought me back to faith.  Faith my journey does not have to be her journey. Faith she can be one that loves God and does not destroy in his name.  Faith, that as I watch my child being baptized, I know that something in me will heal.  Something in me will move to deeper waters.  I am not ready for this.  I will need to schedule her baptism on the same day as communion.  I will need the blood of Christ on that day.  :-)

The Kids Are Alright

I have written this a dozen different ways but there is no way to say it other than Lori and I are no longer partners.

What happened? That question has been asked of Lori and I a lot over the last week.  It is a question we have asked ourselves.  We arrive at different answers. We  arrive at the same answers but for different reasons.  We arrive at the same answers for the same reasons.  Friends and family want to assign blame and align.  Chose a side.  If we are breaking up someone must be at fault.  Someone has to be the villain.  Someone has to be the victim. Right and wrong has to be in place.  

For Lori and I, there is no victim.  There is no villain.  We are both responsible for our falling apart.  I love Lori tremendously.  She is my family, my co-parent, my friend.  She and I cannot continue as partners for reasons only she and I will fully understand.  We love each other despite the shift in defining ourselves as partners.

Because of the love we still have for one another, we have decided to focus on the commitments we made to one another as family and as parents.  We have decided to continue to live together so we can raise our kids without  having to divide them between us. We function in amazing ways when we are operating as parents.  Operating as family.  

We told our kids we were separating holding each other's hand, crying and assuring them, and us, that our love as a family would continue.  Just because we were breaking up as partners does not mean that we have to break up as a family. Our kids, initially cried out, and then were soothed to find out our divorce would affect them very little.  Holidays, birthdays, day-to-day interactions and even vacations would not be any different for them than they have in the past.   They would never have to chose between us.  Lori and I would never be apart from them.  The kids are alright.  The kids will be more than alright as we live out our words.  Showing them that families shift but that does not mean you stop loving one another.   Our family is changing.  We are loving differently.  We are defining divorce without dividing.  We have really hard days.  We have really good days.  We stumble.  We rise.  

Our family could never be defined as normal but this is not how I imagined living my life.  Living with someone I am not partnered with.  Divorced.  I have felt extremely broken.  I have felt dreams lift up and disappear.  I grieve the loss of Lori as my partner.  The new space has been awkward in spots.  Familiar in others.  Lori and I are trying to configure this new identity with one another.  I think we are doing as well as one can hope.  Brokenness permeates.  Hope is on the perimeter.  Hope that we can love each other better as family than we were doing as partners.  Hope that our kids will have the stability and peace on this side of our journey that we were unable to sustain as partners.  Hope that Lori and I can nurture one another in ways that we had lost in our own blame and hurt.  

I write this because it is too hard to tell this story over and over again.  I write this knowing Lori and I are in a new space and unsure how it will unfold, but trusting we can bridge hurt and build on the love that remains.  I write this for accountability.  I write this out of brokenness. I write this out hope that Lori and I can do this differently than we have experienced it in our own lives. I write this out of need to put words to a hard, scary space where words are not serving me well. I write this because I need to write this. I write this because, in many ways, I do not know what else to do.  

Crazy Mom

As most of you know, we recently hatched baby chicks.  Here is a quick lesson on hatching eggs.  Chickens will sit on eggs certain times of the year for a certain amount of days. If the eggs do not hatch within 21 days or so they abandon their nest.  Mission aborted.  There is one type of chicken that will sit on eggs anytime of the year and never abandon their nest.  These super maternal (or broody if you really want to talk chicken) chickens are called silkies and I have two of them.  I knew ( if I bought fertilized eggs from another chicken) my silkies would sit on the eggs regardless of whose eggs they were, the kids would get to witness something cool and I would have more chickens.  The end. 

I did not anticipate how invested my kids would be in this process.  They checked the eggs daily.  We monitored their growth online.  We talked about them constantly.  When it was time for them to hatch, we moved them into the garage.  We gathered around and watched these baby chicks peck their way into the world.  For hours, my kids sat perched on recycle bins, lawn mowers and wagons.  We huddled and cheered and worried as each chick emerged.  Statements of excitement.  Statements of concern. It's out! It's not moving! It's moving! It's wet! It's dry! Don't touch it! Can I hold it?!?! By the time we staggered out of the garage, we were exhausted. 

I did not anticipate how maternal one of my chickens would prove to be or how she would nurture these chicks once they emerged from the eggs.  My chicken, who we shall call Buff, (because that is her name) took maternal to a whole new level.  I bought eight fertilized eggs thinking each silkie could sit on four.  Buff was not going to let that happen.  She consistently took the four eggs from the other silkie and would sit on all of them.  Silkies are small birds and she was unable to cover them effectively, only three hatched.  Buff drove Kennedy crazy with her insistence on sitting on all of the eggs.  Kennedy would separate them and Buff would push them back under her.  Kennedy looked at me and said, "She is a crazy mom just like you".  I chose to take her statement as a complement. 

I did not anticipate the bond between Buff and the baby chicks.  She is protective, fierce and nurturing.  The baby chicks adore her.  They run to her, climb on her back and seek her in all circumstances.  When they are separated they squeal and squawk and pace and it is heartbreaking.

I did not anticipate the affirmation this process would give to my family.  Gomah and I were outside watching the chickens.  She said, "Buff thinks she is really their mom".  Her words hung in the air.  I asked Gomah why Buff wasn't their mom.  Her response was because they were not her eggs.  I asked Gomah to keep watching them and decide if that mattered or not.  Gomah smiled and we were done talking as we watched the chickens live out the bond of a mother and her children.

I did not anticipate having our adoption story reflected in the hatching of the baby chicks.  I did not anticipate the real life cliche of "love makes a family" lived out in our coop.  I am grateful, in a way words cannot carry, for the lessons and affirmations I did not anticipate. I am a crazy mom. I utter statements of excitement and concern so rapidly I sound bipolar as my desire to keep my children close bumps up against my desire to let them grow. When I am separated from my children, I squeal and squawk and pace and my heart breaks. I did not anticipate a love like this with my kids. I did not know to anticipate a love like the one I hold for my children. I am grateful I get to live out the bond of mother and child with my four "chicks". I know I am "really their mom" even though some of them were not my eggs.  Keep watching us.  Decide if it matters or not.

Dreams. I Have Dreams.

I have not driven with the windows down in I can't remember how long.  Just to drive.  The windows are loud when  rolled down  (is it wrong to say "rolled".  We don't really roll windows down.  We push a button to make them go down, but windows pushed down sounds so odd.  For the sake of this entry, I will say rolled but I am open to more up-to-date suggestions) and I can't talk on the phone.  It blows the hair in my face and when I arrive for appointments I look like I have just rolled out of bed.  Or I resemble Gary Busey.  Not the look you want when going to homes to discuss the welfare of children.
I have recently fallen in love with driving with the windows down. I love driving to the country each weekend. Everyone in my new rural community drives with the windows down.  Or in the back of trucks.  Or on tractors.  Or they are parked on the side of the road in RV's.  Whatever.  Stopping at lights and exchanging pleasantries with others who do not care that I look like Gary.  We do not have the isolation of the glass and it has opened up a whole new world for me. Small talk ( nice day, good weather, how ya doin'?) waiting for the light to turn green. 
I love watching a storm come in over a lake.  The smell.  The slow, melodic ping of rain on the metal roof.  The rhythm gaining momentum as the rain sweeps past.  Sitting on the porch.  Making time a friend instead of being a servant.
I laugh as I watch my kids inquire about ice trays.  Really?  Smiling as they try and crack them, refill them and place them back in the freezer-spilling most of the water on the linoleum (yeah. I said linoleum.  The kind you can stick down one square at a time.  That is how we roll).  Ice doesn't just come out of the door of the refrigerator. Believe it or not.
Neighbors wave and do nice things just because you live close.  The kids have gotten in the habit of waving to everyone.  They don't get the same reception here as they do at the cabin.  People are slow to wave.  Suspicious of what they might be communicating. What is that foreign hand signal?  Ben was waving to everyone as we walked through the parking lot going into Kroger.  Amazing how many ignored him.  Roll down the windows.  We are driving to the country.
The cabin does provide more complications.  More responsibility.  More bills.  But at the end of the day when the boat is docked, the fire is smoldering, the kids are dirty and sticky and the cabin is bursting with people...dreams are realized.
Dreams realized in the form of a small, simple cabin at the lake.  A cabin were family and friends come and pile in bunk beds, tents, air mattresses and couches just to be together.  Kids do not take a bath unless it is in the lake. Stars shine bright.  Dreams are realized.  Playing marbles instead of Wii.  Okay.  Still working on the joy of marbles compared to Wii, but I am hopeful.  People washing and drying dishes together.  Or stacking them high enough to be dangerous.  Hearing a car approach from a quarter of a mile away on a gravel road.  Dreams are realized.  Watching an owl hunt at night.  The hum of window units and box fans.  Dreams are realized.  Breathing.  Dreams are realized.  Being.  Creating space to be.  Recognizing.  Grateful...