Her name is Teenasia.
After more than eight years
of writing about our foster daughter, “T,” our family will finally be adopting
her on September 30, in the same Children’s Court where we spent countless
hours in hearings as her biological parents were offered chance upon chance to
meet the conditions for her return. For eight years, I have protected her
privacy as a foster child with the simple “T.” With her adoption comes the same
freedom to use her name that I have for our other three children. She is
Teenasia. She has always been Teenasia. She will be our daughter on September
30, 2011, just as surely as she became our daughter the cold March night in
2003, when she was first placed with us as a toddler; just as surely as she
remained our daughter even when we were twice required to give her back to her
birth family for another try.
Our joy is so deep that it
bubbles up in unexpected places: A spontaneous adoption rap begun by the boys
in the middle of what would normally be a mundane Monday night enchilada
dinner; little Jamie’s 12-foot long, taped-together, construction paper
portraits of everyone in our extended family, including the pets, with stars
around Teenasia’s face. Teenasia tells everyone she can about her good news,
and the playground supervisor congratulated me in the parking lot this morning.
“She is glowing,” she told me. In a recent paragraph Teenasia had to write for
her spelling challenge words, she managed to link together neglect, annual, basically and
contract among others, to effectively tell the story of her foster care
journey and upcoming adoption.
With any adoption comes a
list of needs on the part of the adoptive parents. Parents adopting infants
need a bouncy chair and a pack-and-play; they need diapers and fuzzy-footed
sleepers. Parents adopting from oversees need a passport and plane tickets. And
what do Bill and I need, adopting our almost 10-year-old, who we have parented,
off and on, since she was one?
We need a sacrament.
Every major life event comes
with a sacrament and while baptism works very well to mark the adoption of an
infant or small child, Teenasia was baptized and received her First Communion
more than a year ago.
A sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give
grace. As we adopt Teenasia, I look back on the past eight years, and see
Christ’s presence in so many of the events that brought Teenasia back to us. I
have felt God’s grace in the people sent into our lives to support us during
our difficult times. I have seen God’s grace embodied in Teenasia, who is
making her way back to her true self after enduring profound trauma.
And that’s why I want a
sacrament for the adoption itself— give me fire, water, holy oil, vestments, a
ring—some outward sign that what is going on here is sacred; has always been
sacred. Our church fathers were wise indeed. But with more church mothers—especially
foster adoptive mothers-- we would
probably have the Sacrament of Adoption.
Our adoption of Teenasia will
feel closer to the sacrament of marriage than an infant baptism. Bill and I
understand the commitment we are undertaking and we are choosing to go forward.
Teenasia, too, will need to commit. Her new life will be one of learning to
trust— halfway through her childhood— that from now on, she has a forever
family. She will need to learn to believe that this love will not go away. Her
childhood so far has been punctuated with the question marks given to her by
the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare and a legislative system that does not
respect children’s need for permanency. Our family will need to work together
to extract these question marks that have lodged in her soul like stubborn
fishhooks.
On Teenasia’s adoption day, the
courtroom will be packed with friends and family. Teenasia will wear a
gold-hued dress embroidered with delicate flowers. Bill and I will make
promises to our daughter, and our other children will read statements of love,
as witnesses. Teenasia will make promises to us. We will give her a gift—an outward sign of
our love and fidelity. I expect that God’s grace, which has carried us through,
will be palpable in that room.
The moment of Teenasia’s
adoption will be sacramental.
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