A Closet for Christmas

(left to right) Lauren, Nana, Me and Jason during a visit

My brother, sister and I spent almost 5 years in foster care. We lived in a home with several other kids and 6 children of our foster mother's. We called her Nana. The information in the "blue folder" described her as a loving person who cared about us a great deal. I don't really remember her that well. I do remember that she was an older lady. Her daughter's helped take care of all of us. It was a busy house. There was always something going on, kids in and out. It was very loud. We lived downstairs and weren't allowed to go upstairs for any reason. My room was a large closet in the front of the house and I slept in a crib from 8 months old until we left when I was almost 5. I remember Nana cross-stitched or did some kind of crafting and there were a bunch of those popcorn tins in the house. I remember watching some kids get adopted before me. They were younger than me and didn't have any siblings so they "went" quicker than my siblings and I. That's about all I remember about foster care. I don't have a terrible feeling when I try to remember that time of my life. I believe it was a safe place.

I've always felt so grateful for being adopted. Not many people could have adopted kids of our age and background. Most people wanted babies or very young children. And not a whole lot of people wanted more than one. My adopted parents would tell me that from time to time. I am not sure why they did that, but they would always follow it up with, "we picked you guys", "we wanted you guys". Moving into their home was an experience I remember well. My brother got his own room while he was there and my sister and I shared a room. I had a bed for the first time in my life and an actual room. I remember that well.  Our parents slept on a pull-out couch in the living room while renovations were being made to the house. They were building an addition onto the back of the house and a room upstairs. When my brother was sent back, I moved into his room.

The house was built before the Revolutionary War and sat on over 12 acres of land. A lot of the land was wooded with pine trees. It was a fun place for kids to grow up. You could have an adventure every day. The floors in the house were actual wood planks and the exterior was cedar shingles. There was a "trap" door in the hallway floor that led to a makeshift basement. It was made of the same wood the floor was made of an opened from the floor up. It was a great house. I remember a picnic we had there when we moved in. We met a lot of the family and that was a happy day because everyone seemed so excited to meet us and spend time with us. The other thing I remember about that day is chasing my brother around the house. It had to be spring because I remember the smell of the grass and the sun was shining bright. It was a good day.

(left to right) Lauren, our new dad, me 1st Christmas, 1981 

Our fist Christmas came along and our parents asked each of us what we wanted. Jason had already left
before Christmas and I don't remember much. But, my mother said that when she asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I told her a closet. I wanted a closet. Of all the things I could have and that was what I wanted. A closet for Christmas might sound funny to most people but I think it was me trying to get some normalcy back into my life. I had slept in that crib in that closet for years and that was what I knew. I never had my own room until we moved into our new home. I so appreciated that room and that bed. I was happy to share a room with my sister. That was until she began to have a hard time adjusting, then it became a little violent and unsettling in that room. I was still grateful though. I was happy just to be there.

My entire life I have been so grateful for anything I've had or that has happened. I have known my whole life how it could have been had I not been adopted. I have known my whole life how it could have been to be without parents. I was told when I was six that our birth mother had committed suicide. I will never forget that day. It was when I first began to understand loss. Throughout my life I expected only the minimum because I believe that even the minimum was enough and was a blessing. And disappointment wasn't something I felt too often because anything was better than foster care. I got used to loss way too young. I had become accustomed to adversity way too young. I learned how to deal with feelings of inadequacy way too young and most days I woke up not knowing how defeated I was. I didn't know God then. He wasn't a topic of discussion in our home. I know now, it would have been easier had I been introduced to faith earlier in my life.

A closet for Christmas. Think about what your children want for Christmas. I think of what Madyson asks for and it blows my mind. I think she asked for a phone at age 5. Either 5 or 6. I never even knew to ask for materialistic things as a newly adopted child. All I wanted was a closet. A darn closet. People often accuse me of being "overdone" or "two passionate". You can't come from where I come from and not be. You can't lose the people I have lost and not appreciate so much the people that stay and the ones who you connect with. I was so grateful for that closet just as I am so grateful for every blessing I have been given throughout my life. It's true that you can not know happiness until you become grateful. So many of us work hard to find the negative things in our life. We spend time dissecting what others have done to us, or haven't done for us. Somehow we just squander the blessings that God has given us and even laugh in the face of his mercy and grace. We forget that there are people in this world who are happy to have anyone to call family. We overlook that there are children out there who are just excited to get a closet for Christmas.

You Look Just Like Your Dad

Madyson, almost 2 :-)

When Madyson was born she had dark hair just like me. I loved it! I wanted her to look like me. I couldn't wait to be a mother. I wanted a bunch of kids, a large family. Moreover, I couldn't wait to have a blood relative. I know that sounds weird to most, but it meant a great deal to me. By the time she was born I had lost every remaining blood relative to death or estrangement and I was desperate for some true family. I needed someone I could relate to and say things like, "you have my eyes" and "you get your skin tone from me" or "you have your dad's teeth". I never heard those things growing up because there was no one to compare it to. I didn't have any pictures of my parents when I was a child or young adult, those pictures didn't surface until after Mady was born and I went on a search to find the truth. I hoped that having a daughter with even just a few of my physical characteristics would fill a person void in me. And I knew it would help Mady to know who she was and where she came from. I knew from watching other families that we could connect through sharing these stories.

Me, not sure what age.

I am sure you have heard the saying, "you can't know where you are going, until you know where you came from." That is such a true statement. It is true down to the core of physical characteristics as well. For me it wasn't just about where I was born, and who my parents were, but it was about who I looked like. As a child, I would look in the mirror and wonder where I got my nose from and why my feet were so big. I wanted to know which one of my parents had dark hair and if I got my eyes from my father or mother. Those things were important to me. I think they are important to most people, but most people take those small things for granted. It was always strange for me and my sister because people who didn't know that we were adopted would always try and figure out who we looked like. People would say "Stephanie, you look just like your dad." I found that funny. My parents and I would just look at each other and smile. But deep down it just made me long to know if I really did look like my father, my birth father. It became obvious to me at a very young age that physical traits were important in identifying yourself and who you belong to. It also became very clear to me that how you looked and who you looked like would affect how people treated you. That is just the truth about people and their judgement. I think we have all been a victim of that.

My birth father, not sure what age

I have one daughter. My plan for a large family wasn't in the cards. I always say if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. I was only meant to have one daughter and she is my everything. That is how it is supposed to be when you are a parent and it is how God intended it for me. She doesn't only look like me. She has some of my physical traits and some of her dad's. I always tell her she got the best of both of us, inside and outside. I can tell it gives her a sense of belonging and history knowing that and being able to recognize it when she looks at herself in the mirror.

Almost every day I am able to give my daughter something I didn't have as a child. Giving her my traits and being able to tell her about the day she was born and where she gets her big feet from are a couple of those things. It's an amazing blessing and something I don't take lightly.

Becoming Foster Children

That's my birth mother behind the table.
This is the only photo I have of her. That's Jason in the middle 

When I was 23, I became a mother. My daughter Madyson was born and I was thrilled. I was completely overwhelmed with emotion. I was feeling emotions I had never felt before. I looked at her and felt a closeness and unconditional love that I never had before, not with any person. All mothers can relate to that. But for me, being a mother also came with a lot of questions. For the first time in my life, I realized that my childhood was not normal. I couldn't understand why a mother couldn't take care of her children. I couldn't wrap my head around that. How could that happen? Why would God allow it? Where was God when all of this was happening? Something had to have been terribly wrong. I realized that I didn't know that much about my birth parents and I wanted to know if my birth father was still alive. I wanted to meet him. My birth mother had committed suicide (drug overdose) in 1983, roughly two years after we were adopted. But, my birth father was still a mystery, so much of it was a mystery. All we knew was what was in a blue, coffee stained folder.

Left to Right, my birth Father, his mother and his brother

When we were adopted, my new parents were given a blue folder with 5 sheets of paper in it. On those 5 sheets of paper was the story of how we came to be foster children . The story explained that my birth mother was very sick and couldn't really take care of us. It revealed that Jason, born prematurely, had been seen in and out of the hospital for "bumps and bruises" throughout his early childhood. It described a mother who was married three times, to each of our father's, and had a lot of "sadness" in her life. It read on that Jason "had tried so hard to take care of his little sisters, and was such a good little boy, but it was too much for him to do at his young age." It exposed what our father's did for a living and what our mother looked like. Later in the story, it talked about my father and his desire to get help for us kids. He was instrumental in placing us out of harms way. His name was Stephen, he was a cab driver, and he knew that he and my mother "couldn't take care of us". There was not much information about Jason's or Lauren's fathers except that Jason's dad, Raymond, was Native American and Lauren's dad, Lawrence, was a pipe fitter.

My adopted mother kept this folder and every now and again when I had questions, she would bring it out and reread it to me. Lauren didn't ask much, she remembered a lot more than I did, but didn't and wouldn't talk about it. I on the other hand, had this thirst for the truth, the whole truth. And when I become a mother, that thirst became almost an obsession. I had to know what happened, what really happened. I knew if I could understand the circumstances then I could also understand finally why Jason had to leave us. He was much older than Lauren and I, and I had to know what he went through while living in the house with my birth mother and sometimes her mother. I wanted to know everything because I knew that would explain the hard time my sister had adjusting and it might explain why she was also so sad and angry growing up.

I began a search that would answer all my questions.

Loosing Jason

Left to right, Lauren (2), a cousin, Jason (5), a cousin

When I was five I watched my brother be taken away by social services. It happened much like a scene from a movie. My sister and I sat, each of us with one of our new parents. I, with our new mother and Lauren with our new father. The people came into our new home and took our brother and in one day we went from being a family to being broken. What I remember about that day is sadness and confusion. What I mostly felt was abandonment. As if this 11 year old boy could do anything about what was happening to him or to me. I remember watching people that had handed us over to our new family, take my brother back. He wasn't going to be a part of our new beginning. He wasn't going to have the chance I had to grow up in a better situation. I can still see it as if it were yesterday.

Jason was older than Lauren and I. When we were taken from our mother he was 5 or 6, so he had already been through that once and remembered it, I am sure, much the way I remember him being taken from us. My sister was not even 3 and I was only 7 months old when we were all three put in foster care together. By all accounts and recognition, Jason was our protector. He was the quintessential big brother. I don't think Lauren and I knew how much that day affected us until later in life when my sister began to have trouble adjusting and when I, after having my own daughter I began to question "what the heck happened" and "how could a mother leave her children".

That day is forever grained in my memory. It is one of my earliest childhood memories. I didn't see my brother again much after that. I remember a few meetings here and there and I remember him giving me an E.T. figurine once. But mostly I just remember my adopted parents keeping us from him. I didn't know why they did that when I was a kid, and as an adult it just made me terribly mad. Many years would go by before I saw Jason again.

The story of these foster kids has many different layers, adversities, tragedies, losses and triumphs. The story of my life is one of searching and revealing. It is a story of forever trying to replace Jason in my life. Many relationships and friendships have come and gone and through it all I have realized that my entire life and the outcome of my future relationships were changed on that day. My trust for people, for authority figures, for loved ones, for people who said they loved me; was gone. It would be years before I would learn to trust again.