Posted in Adoption, Cambodia, International Adoption, tagged Kiva on January 10, 2009| 1 Comment »
If you’ve not yet heard of Kiva … an organization I support … please take a few minutes to watch the video linked to below and learn a bit.
Of course, since my kids are Cambodian-born, their work in that country is special to me, but Cambodia is far from the only place they make such tremendous contributions.
A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball on Vimeo.
Please also read the blog post that goes with the video. (Thanks, Kieran!)
Posted in Adoption, Cambodia, Children, Family, Friends, International Adoption, tagged sick kids on December 5, 2008| 1 Comment »
Cj ... one happy girl!
Seems she’d tossed her cookies, then stoically tidied and moved.
What is it with this kid?
Never in my life have I known a child as calm and collected as my Cj, and I can’t help but wonder how these traits will serve her as she grows.
She’s the happiest kid I’ve ever known … if given the choice between happy or un, she chooses happy every time, and happily. She smiles even when fighting tears, or tries to, and pulls herself together after tragedy faster than most adults.
A few hours later, she was crying. When I went to her she only said, “I want my Sam”, so I helped in to her brother’s bed again and she immediately settled and slept peacefully until 5:30 this morning, our usual wake-up time.
(Have to add here that dear Kim … off to London for a week … called Calina, and it seems she was ill last night, too. She was on about being all brave and stuff … right up to the point that Calina reminded her that Cj is THREE. Oops.)
Is there a genetic element to Cj’s stoicism? Some influence from me? Did spending the first 13 weeks of her life in an orphanage somehow toughen her up and make her determined to always look on the bright side?
Or is it just who she is?
Not that it matters.
We are all, when it comes down to it, no more or less than the sum of parts, and who we are.
I just happen to have the supreme good fortune to add to who I am the title of Cj’s mom”.
Posted in Adoption, Children, Family, Friends, International Adoption, orphans, The United Nations, World politics, tagged AIDS, Dallas Cowboys, San Francisco 49ers on December 1, 2008| 2 Comments »
Wear YOUR Red Ribbon
I’m from California, as longtime readers know, and one thing we Californians have experienced is the devastation AIDS has brought to families, friends, communities … the love lost, the hearts broken, the bonds torn.
I don’t know anyone from home who hasn’t been personally touched by this disease. Not one.
I lost a cousin and dozens of dear, dear friends over the years, and to this day not only miss all, I still have with me … although halfway around the world … my darling Robbie, who has been living with AIDS for 26 years.
Robbie is one of my oldest friends. We worked together at a zoo in California where we both loved the same chimps and orang utans, and where we did almost everything together.
After his partner of 17 years died of the disease, he moved in across the street from me, and every night we would watch movies and talk and eat and have a beer or two, and every Sunday during football season we would hang out on his bed and watch every game we could. (He’s a big Dallas fan … I was hot for the 49ers)
I did my first AIDS Day march with him, then every year after, and he was sitting next to me the first time I saw “Philadelphia” … made me wonder if when I went to see Syble if I shouldn’t have done that with someone with a multiple personality.
Through my work writing in the adoption world, I have had the good fortune of knowing families who have adopted HIV+ children, intentionally, and since the disease in Western nations no longer conveys an immediate death sentence have had the wonderful experience of adding these little wonders to their lives.
AIDS. Learn about it. Do something about it. Support efforts to do what can be done to rid the world of this illness. Speak up when issues come up. Encourage those you bring into office to take on the challenges and support research, education and treatment programs.
Here are some links to follow for more info on how to be proactive in this fight:
Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Children, International Adoption, NaBloPoMo, orphans, The United Nations, World politics, tagged BBC, Congo, Cultural genocide on November 25, 2008| 6 Comments »
Getting back into writing on issues of the world’s children, I’m struck this morning by a story the BBC is running today on the present state of affairs in the euphemistically named Democratic Republic of Congo.
Anyone who has been paying any attention at all is aware that, like the ongoing situation in Sudan, the DRC is a mess in large areas of the country and has been for years.
Of course, the children get the short end of the stick … or the sharp end, as is very often the case … and if you can stomach it, you can watch a vid on the page that illustrates the point.
This is NOT news … well, not to me. But it does seem to come as a surprise … surprise, surprise … to the UN.
Good old Ban Ki-moon is doing the usual Sec. Gen. tap dance thing of announcing a report … 28 pages of a report … that expresses concern.
Big whip! And SO too little and too late.
In his 28-page report for the UN Security Council, Mr Ban says the human rights situation in DR Congo is a “cause for grave concern”.
He states that elements of the Congolese army and national police “were responsible for a large number of serious human rights violations during the reporting period, namely arbitrary executions, rape, torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”.
Rebels, including Gen Nkunda’s Tutsi CNDP and the Rwandan Hutu FDLR militia – some of whose fighters are believed to have taken part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide – are meanwhile accused of perpetrating “serious human rights abuses with impunity”.
These include “mass killings, torture, abductions, forced recruitment of children, forced displacement and destruction of [refugee] camps, force labour, sexual violence”, the report adds.
The Congolese national civilian and military intelligence services are also accused of making arbitrary arrests, followed by “torture and extortion”.
Do I hear a “duh” resounding?
The Security Council did just approve sending another 3,000 “peacekeepers” to an area that has seen somewhere around a quarter of a million people displaced … no one knows how many are dead, so don’t need to bother with becoming refugees … so, gee, that should make a big diff. Or not.
Once again, I’m forced to harp on the useless of the UN and wonder how many children who have been orphaned, tortured, raped, pressed into soldiering, prostitution, starvation or other horrors most would rather not think about.
I’ll also drop in a bit about the impossibility of offering any of these children a family while I again wonder about the segment of the world that considers international adoption a bad thing … cultural genocide that robs a child of their birthright to die in the country that bred them.
Gee. Why is this a one-note song?
Posted in Adoption, Cambodia, Children, England, Family, Friends, Fun, International Adoption, Island life, NaBloPoMo, Seychelles, Uncategorized, tagged Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Skype, Sri Lanka on November 24, 2008| 5 Comments »
Kim (South Africa), Sam (Cambodia/Seychelles/UK), Calina (France) ... all together on my couch.
Not only did we have people from Seychelles, Cambodia, the US, the UK, Norway and Australia here, Sam also received birthday greetings … via Skype, facebook and emails from a whole bunch of folks in America, Sis … New Zealand-born, now living near Portland, OR … Sas and Miss B … born in India … in Luxembourg, Liv-Synnove in Norway, Calum in Kenya, Nadiera in Sri Lanka, Mervyn in China, Clint in Lebanon, Oscar in Finland, and friends living here from France, South Africa, and so on.
The fact that the world is small should be an easy one for all to take onboard, but one that appears to elude far too many on this tiny, interconnected planet. Our differences pale in comparison to our similarities, yet seem to get most of the focus outside social networks like facebook and myspace, and blogs, where people tend to go to look for like-minded folks to share with.
We’re a simple species, apparently, and although we can conceive the most amazing ideas and birth creatures that bring us together in ways unimaginable just a few years ago, we tend to lose the plot more than we follow.
I can only hope that the closeness that happens when people from so many different places and backgrounds communicate … I’m not talking about the pinheaded fools who try to turn chat to porn every chance they get — boring, stupid gits, they are — but those who build bridges and lifelong friendships with people they never would have had a chance to know before the world shrunk … will eventually make a huge difference for the positive and lead us away from our base nature and move us into a new realm where we are happier to share hugs than lob grenades.
And send birthday wishes to a little boy in Seychelles.
Cool.
Posted in Adoption, Children, Family, Friends, Fun, International Adoption, Island life, NaBloPoMo, Seychelles, Uncategorized, tagged birthdays, divorce, Magnar Mork, Thanksgiving on November 23, 2008| 10 Comments »
Sam’s birthday was on the 10th, but that fell during his time with his dad, so we decided to do a birthday redo today, the first weekend home again.
I have to admit that the day had a tang of the bittersweet for me, and I suffered with that taste in the back of my throat through the morning. Not only did I navigate the first family celebration as a single parent since Jenn and Jaren were young, I also did my first non-spontaneous party, meaning that the tag-team Mark and Sandra show was obvious in its absence. The dance that we choreographed over 15 years that had him doing the food while I did drinks and entertainment was today a pas de one … a difference, a change to be recognized, new steps to be learned.
Stick today on top of the mountain that is Thanksgiving looming … my favorite holiday that has me bumming myself out every year I’ve lived so far from my original family … and, well, it’s the Blues grabbing me by the heart and tugging.
Had a good cry while Skyping with Sis, then sucked it up and made the day fun and love-and-laugh filled. Friends gathered. Kids played. Magnar manned the BBQ. Stan toted and tidied. A good time was had by all.
Tried to load a vid, but it won’t work. There are photos on my facebook page, though.
Posted in Adoption, Expat Living, International Adoption, Island life, NaBloPoMo, Seychelles, tagged cars, divorce, Magnar Mork on November 20, 2008| 12 Comments »
I got my new car today.
That may sound like an easy thing to those who don’t live on an island in the middle of nowhere, but here it’s quite the feat. Won’t go into details and tremendous costs for a vehicle that in the rest of the world would be considered reasonable, but will say that I like it.
One biggie about it is that it represents another severing from Mark. We no longer have a car as bait for bitching. He has the company car … a French piece of shit with windows that pop out and wing mirrors that haven’t worked for 3 years … so less shit to toss at me as ammo.
I now have a cute little zippy number that is all mine.
Plus, it has a great music system that lets me blast out “low down, cheatin’, lyin’ man” country music at full blast … and I’m belting out tunes all the way up La Misere and down Les Canelles. (Rock on, Reba. Take it, Tammy!)
Goodie.
Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Children, Entitled to opinions, Family, Friends, International Adoption, NaBloPoMo, Older Parent Adoption, orphans, Writing for a living, tagged Adoption Under One Roof, Coco, Crushing Krisis, OURadopt on November 18, 2008| 3 Comments »
I had so many comments … both on the blog and privately … on yesterday’s post that I reckon some addressing is due.
First, I’d like to thank everyone who has voiced the opinion that my voice is still valid in the adoption world. That is tremendously encouraging. The fact that even Coco lent encouragement is huge for me … thank you, Coco … and I’ll tell you why.
The online adoption community is notoriously fractious, and in my years of writing on the subject I have made no few enemies … some who have taken their level of vitriol so far beyond the realm of polite reason that mud blobs with my name on them stuck to the net will outlive me.
So much of this has felt counterproductive from the early days of my writing on the subject, and I refuse to pussyfoot my POV, as healthy debate has always seemed a good way to forge links that might eventually provide foundations for bridge building.
A conversation with Gershom, an adoptee who wrote what for all intents and purposes … and title … was anti-adoption, ended up in a dialog that encouraged everyone involved to participate in supporting the right of adoptees to their identity, and I’m pleased to say that she and I have developed respect for each other … a friendship, even
Coco and I also have had issues, but although we differ greatly in attitude, we have found the common ground and mutual respect that will eventually provide the only means to true reform that will protect those needing protection without cutting children needing families out of the equation completely.
Both of these relationships forged in fire where the inspiration behind the formation of Adoption Under One Roof, the community I helped found … then felt unworthy of continuing to contribute toward (although I hope and plan to reenter soon) … that was based on the idea of bringing all notes in the adoption triad together to learn to sing harmoniously, rather than harp on discord … or dis”chord”, as I think of it in these terms, “triad” also meaning a group of three notes on a chord, not simply opposing positions of those whose lives have been touched by adoption.
Of course, I also thank the adoptive moms that formed the backbone of my readership years back and continue to grow in numbers that form a protective circle around me as they close ranks and ‘get my back’.
And I’m pleased as anything to find new readers like Peter … an amazingly talented musician and writer with no adoption affiliation, as far as I know … adding his related experience to the mountain of support I find myself clinging to these days as I lurch my way up and out and toward the light that leads from the depths to the heights.
Thank you all.
Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Cambodia, Children, Family, International Adoption, NaBloPoMo, Older Parent Adoption, Seychelles, Writing for a living, tagged divorce, Magnar Mork on November 17, 2008| 11 Comments »
Magnar teaches Sam and Cj to groom a horse
This reality, the one that has them having another place that’s home-like with the man who is their father, along with some woman I’ve never laid eyes on … and a baby on the way … is one that I never saw coming back when Mark and I were going through the adoption processes for them.
I’m not going to whine on here about ends of eras or dashed dreams or bumpy roads. In fact, I’m not going to whine at all.
I will, however, touch a bit upon how pulling rugs out from under the feet of children who began life with loss impacts, and how unfair it all still seems … to me, yes, but also, and more importantly, to them.
I was a child of divorce, so unlike my husband who conveniently assumes that “they’ll adjust” because “kids are resilient”, I know the consequences that come from abrupt shifts in the world, and I see the effects creeping in.
Although they are happy, healthy, smart and funny little people, emotional bruises are showing.
A few examples:
Cj now asks many times a day if I love her.
Every drive to school has her asking, “Will you pick me up?”
Sam refuses to mention one word about anything that occurred during his week away from home, as if it’s all one big guilty secret he must keep.
None of the signs I see are blatant examples of emotional upheavals, but all show cracks that weren’t there before their dad walked out. Their trust levels are way down, while their worry levels are way up. Stress, in other words, has come to their lives.
As long time readers have noted, I no longer write much about adoption, and since I used to post about 2,000 words per day on up to six different sites, this has been quite the drop-off.
The reason? I feel a bit a fraud touting the gifts it brings since I can no longer offer the bubble of security and protection I thought I was assuring when we brought them from Cambodia to Seychelles, promising, I thought, happy ever after.
Okay, life happens. I know this. And I also know the long term advantages of learning early that life is hard and that adjustments will have to be made as one makes their way down whatever path is put at their feet.
That was an easier take with my bio kids. For one reason, I was younger and less concerned by outcomes years down the pike. For another, they were the results of what had always been a crap shoot. Neither was planned, so their existence felt meant-to-be in ways beyond my scope.
Sam and Cj came to me through great and concerted efforts that involved much inward examination of motives and well-laid plans for futures based on foundations forged in determined ground that was to hold solid for them.
There is no lack of love around them … Mark does love them … and, in fact, they are getting love from sources that wouldn’t be showering it upon them now had circumstances not put people like Magnar in their lives.
And they are doing well, according to all observers, from teachers to friends to me and their dad. But they do, again, know loss, and that hurts them.
I may again take up the adoption torch and advocacy roll that had me so active, and in some quarters so hated, but I’ll enter that fray from a different angle now and with a cautious optimism that my kids will make it through the upheaval in their young lives and learn to live with a family much less the “Brady Bunch” than I’d hoped.
Not all sunshine and lollypops, for sure, and that’s a drag when learned at 5 and 3. But learned it must be, and I’m working like hell to keep the lights and goodies coming while helping them navigate the unfamiliar waters of a family broken.
Life is what it is, and theirs has already had such drastic twists and turns. I can only hope the result for them will be like it has been for my brothers and me … a capacity to roll with the punches and make lemonade.
Posted in Adoption, Children, Family, International Adoption, Island life, Older women, Seychelles on October 8, 2008| 5 Comments »
So, there’s a new computer on the way, and in the meantime I’m using Sam’s. It does the job, thankfully. It’s Gay’s old one … another Mac, of course … so I’m able to do most of what I could do before, but am reticent to pack it full of my stuff when its real duty is to let my son draw and paint and play “Green Eggs & Ham” endlessly.
That’s for starters …
Moving right along, if you’re a facebook friend of mine you already know that I’m madly in love and within days of living happily ever after. Yep. That light at the end of the tunnel I thought was nothing more than the headlights of an approaching train turns out to be the brightest point of a very bright future. Wow. I’m stunned and can’t wipe the silly grin off my face. Details to follow.
And … learned today that Mark’s girlfriend is 7 months pregnant, which means she managed to purchase her insurance policy minutes after he moved out of the house. I’ve wished him well and offered to babysit.
Sam and Cj are doing well, and although it’s not been easy getting the ground under their feet to steady, it’s been so worth it. Cj is loving school. Sam is brilliant, as always. Both are movin’ with the groovin’.
The wrap? Life doesn’t suck, after all, and it often makes a lot of sense when you look at it backwards.
A collection of my short stories:
I'm in this one, too ...
And I'm in here, as well ...
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | 31 | ||||
Paradise Preoccupied 