True Family

The bond that links your true family

is not one of blood, but of respect and joy

in each other’s lives.

-Richard Bach

Not a Saint, but a Mother: Pam Blackburn’s Story

Pam with daughters Hannah (left) and Melissa (right),
and husband Ron.

"Ordinary things caught my attention and I realized how lucky most of us are to be able to do the ordinary, mundane, boring, tedious everyday things we do. I noticed construction workers with jack hammers able to work incredibly hard, men on top of tall buildings creating new sky scrapers, children walking alongside their mothers picking up leaves from the ground, people riding bicycles, walking their dogs and driving cars..." (Pam Blackburn)

Pam Blackburn is the mother of five children, both by birth and by adoption.  Three of her children have special needs, including daughters Hannah and Melissa whose stories she tells on her website, http://mydaughtersvoice.com.

Pam’s daughter Hannah, 26, has Down syndrome and autism.  Her daughter Melissa, also 26, has cerebral palsy and is partially-paralyzed.  Both Hannah and Melissa are nonverbal and, on her website, Pam explores and describes their thoughts and feelings from her own perspective.  At 52, Pam describes herself as an “older mother,” but it was as a young woman when she had serious health problems, the kind usually experienced by people in their later years.

In her twenties, Pam Blackburn underwent emergency surgery ("emergency," although the tumor had caused her debilitating physical and emotional symptoms for some time) to remove a brain tumor.  Not long after coming home from the hospital, she had to return, this time with meningitis.  The experience changed the course of her life.

“It was on the trip home from this hospital stay that I first realized all I have taken for granted. Ordinary things caught my attention and I realized how lucky most of us are to be able to do the ordinary, mundane, boring, tedious everyday things we do. I noticed construction workers with jack hammers able to work incredibly hard, men on top of tall buildings creating new sky scrapers, children walking alongside their mothers picking up leaves from the ground, people riding bicycles, walking their dogs and driving cars,” Pam writes in a blog post.

“The grass was greener, the sky bluer, the clouds more pronounced, and I was in awe. I remember thinking that if I ever recovered I would appreciate life much more, spend more quality time with my children, family and friends, stop to smell the roses, and help others to see all that is perfect with the world. The truth is it would take me a long time to recover and many more years to learn to appreciate all I had in spite of the small deficits. … It is because of this experience that I first thought of welcoming children with special needs into my life.”

Pam’s passion is helping others “gain understanding, acceptance, and compassion for my (adult) children with special needs as well as others who are considered to have disabilities or 'special needs.'”

After I adopted Mia, who is typically-developing, people sometimes approached me and said, “You are such a good person to have done this.  She is so lucky that you adopted her.” Their intentions were kind, but the message in such comments is that, somehow, Mia didn’t have the right to a family, but that it was a favor we were doing her to give her one. I saw the wonderful film, “Lovely and Amazing” not long after Mia came home from Guatemala.  It’s the story of a family, and one in which Jane Marks, an “older mother” with grown children, adopts a young daughter, Annie. I love the line in the movie when someone praises Jane, played by Brenda Blethyn, for adopting her daughter. 

“She's lucky to have you,” the person says.

Jane responds, “She's not lucky. She’s entitled .  Every child's entitled to a mother.”

(Amen.)

If people, such as the fictional Jane Marks, are regarded as angels for adopting typically-developing kids, what sort of sainthood is thrust on parents who adopt children with special needs? Pam Blackburn is adamant: “If there is anything I would love people to know about adopting kids with special needs it is that we are not saints, we aren't perfect, we make mistakes, we get angry and frustrated, laugh and cry, have joys and challenges -- just like all parents.”

“I can't tell you the number of times people have come up to me and wrapped their arms around me and said, ‘I'm hangin' on to you 'cuz you're going straight to heaven!’ Sarcasm and humor are my friends, but it took a long time to get to that point,” Blackburn said.

She also bristles when people expect her children by adoption to “somehow carry gratitude in their hearts every day” for being adopted.

“I get somewhat fired up about this because first and foremost all children are chosen. Abortion and birth control are our rights (not that I advocate abortion, but it is a choice), and placing a child for adoption is a choice as well. So, in my mind, if you are raising a child whether through adoption or birthing (or fostering or whatever), that child was chosen,” she said.

“Meeting Melissa was life changing, and she has become my greatest teacher. I admire her attitude, unconditional love, fighting spirit and love for life. She is much more of a survivor than I ever was. She refused to give up where I would weary of fighting. She adapted where I was stagnant, was brave where I was fearful, and was happy where I was miserable. She has taught me more than words can express, and showed me how to love, laugh and appreciate life again. My challenges have made me stronger and happier, and I’ve learned not to take anything for granted. I truly appreciate and am grateful for each day that I wake up and know I am incredibly blessed.”

Thanks Pam for sharing your story.  

You are blessed indeed.

However motherhood comes to you, it's a miracle.

(Valerie Harper)

Children are...

Children are the world's most valuable resource 

and its best hope for the future.

(John F. Kennedy)

Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.

(Oprah Winfrey)

The House Grew More Alive

Once the children were in the house the air became more vivid and more heated;

every object in the house grew more alive.

(Mary Gordon)

I’ve been thinking about Empty-nest syndrome a lot lately, even though my youngest child is only eight. This fall, I’ve watched friends return from dropping children off at college. I’ve seen how the repercussions of those goodbyes quiver through their lives.


A few seem almost giddily excited to have more time with their husbands. They are taking a fresh look at their own interests, attending graduate school, or just moving room by room through their houses, finally organizing the closets and putting those pictures into albums.


Others are not so sanguine. They admit that now that the dust of a bustling family life has settled, they look across the table at their husbands and feel a lump of disappointment and loneliness throb in their chests.


This past summer, I talked about mid-life with a few women who are approaching sixty. They are smart and accomplished, and the jarring experience of finding their children grown and gone is in the rearview mirror for them.


One of them is Dale Hansen Bourke, whom I had the privilege to interview for her.meneutics, a blog published by Christianity Today magazine. When she was describing what “Empty-nest syndrome” felt like to her, I sat up and took note.


“There is a point in life when we say, ‘Wait, a minute ago I had my children here. I was making their lunches and being their mom and suddenly, they’ve left. They’re gone.’ It hits you hard,” she said. She went on. “It’s amazing how you go through the first half of your life so busy with your kids and then — it’s all gone. All the things you felt you were good at don’t matter anymore.”


I read the Mary Gordon quote, see the little foam Nerf bullets scattered under my piano bench, find a candy wrapper on the arm of the sofa, put my phone down on a sticky patch of drying, spilled juice on the kitchen counter. 


Sure, it’s messy sometimes, this life. It’s noisy. There’s brittle arguing when the little sister insists on singing the same two lines from her favorite song at full voice while the older brother sits at the computer with the periodic table of the elements in front of him, trying to figure out something about numbers of ions.


“Mom!”


It's more heated with them here. And more alive. And someday, I’ll be on the other side of this time.


And I’m glad that I've been able to savor it, at least most of the time.

For those that do not believe you have labor pains when adopting, let me fill you in on a secret: The labor is worse when adopting! I have done both and know that the physical labor pain goes away quickly, but when adopting the pain starts when you decide to adopt and does not end until that baby is in your arms! (Maria Hickman)

The Red Thread

An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet,

regardless of time, place, or circumstance.

The thread may stretch or tangle, 

but it will never break.

(Chinese legend)

Bookshelf: Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other by Scott Simon

This week I've been reading a pristine hardcover copy of "Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other: In Praise of Adoption" by Scott Simon (author and host of NPR's Weekend Edition), along with a few other books...a galley copy of my friend and fellow Redbud Writer Anita Lustrea's "What Women Tell Me: Finding Freedom from the Secrets We Keep" and a beat up paperback copy of "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight:  An African Childhood" by Alexandra Fuller that I got on half.com.

I'm trying to hurry through Simon's book -- but every time I sit down with it, I come across a line, a description, a passage that makes me stop short. Because one of my best friends has adopted three times from China, in some ways I feel like I've made that trip myself. And I've been there on the other end, watching from outside of customs at O'Hare for the doors to slide open and the arrival of a new little person into our extended, chosen family. A little person for whom we've waited so long.

So much for hurrying through the book...in spite of eagerly anticipating my friend's reaction to this book, reading Simon's descriptions of everything from his daughters' reactions to being placed in their parents' arms for the first time ("room service") to his articulate (and fresh) exploration of transracial adoption is an experience worth savoring.

Here's a little taste of the book, to whet your appetite. In fact, this is how the book begins:  

"Adoption is a miracle. I don't mean just that it's amazing, terrific, and a wonderful thing to do. I mean that it is, as the dictionary says, 'a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.'"

Read more about Scott Simon and his work here.

Somehow destiny comes into play. These children end up with you and you end up with them. It's something quite magical.

Nicole Kidman 

                                                                                                                   

We look at adoption as a very sacred exchange. It was not done lightly on either side. I would dedicate my life to this child. 
                             Jamie Lee Curtis