September, 2006: Teenasia a second time? We'll see

Few women know instantly if they are pregnant. For most women, waiting to find out whether or not they’re pregnant requires waiting between a couple of weeks and a month. As high-tech as pregnancy tests have become, most cannot accurately detect the pregnancy hormone before a woman has missed a period.

            For women either especially eager to have a baby or especially eager not to, those weeks of waiting can be torturous. Every day is a question mark. Every free moment is a mental journey into the land of What-If. Those hoping for a baby try to hold down their hopes and quash their thoughts of pastel sleepers so as not to be too disappointed if it is not to be this month. Those praying not to be pregnant spend a month trying to assure themselves it won’t be—it can’t be. And yet their minds take them to a place where indeed it might be — and what then?

            I have somehow joined this group. Not because I’m pregnant, but because we received a phone call from our past foster daughter’s mother. T is in foster care again, haven been taken from her father’s home where she has lived for the past two years since leaving our family.  

            Teenasia lived with us for over a year, and when she left, we promised both her and ourselves that if she would ever end up in foster care again, she would be as welcome here as our own three children are.

            For a month and a half, Teenasia has been in a foster home with an elderly woman. For some reason, when she was taken from her father’s home, no one checked her records to learn about her year with us.  I have spoken to her social worker almost daily since Teenasia’s mom called us, and the social worker and her supervisor have been trying to cut through the bureaucratic red tape to transfer Teenasia to our home. Hence the waiting. I feel like I might be pregnant with an almost-five year old. An almost-five-year-old whose past two years may have very well been more difficult than anything I will experience in my life. Knowing the signs we received before Jamie came as a foster daughter, Bill and I are looking for signs in this situation. We’re finding them.

            Several days before her mother’s call, Bill had a dream that we adopted Teenasia. Both of us dream of her every so often, and I didn’t think too much of it when he told me about it. The morning following his dream, though, he went to give platelets. There, at the Blood Center, he saw an enormous picture of an African American girl who looked very much like Teenasia. Later, walking out of the Blood Center, he saw another photo, this time a close-up, of the same girl. When he got home, I asked him how it went. All he said was, “Something is up with Teenasia. Something’s wrong. I can feel it — we need to call her.” That day was Liam’s 8^th birthday though, and we were busy with the party. The next day was my high school reunion, and we didn’t call then, either. Driving home from the reunion, though, Bill and I planned to call T the next day to set up a visit. Her mother called us early the next morning before we had that chance — called on my birthday.

            The weeks that followed that phone call were (and still are) emotionally-charged. Bill started going to daily Mass to pray for T and for God’s will to be done in her situation. The first day he went, the first reading was from Jeremiah, all about lamentations of a hurt daughter. That same day, I picked up a newspaper I rarely read, glanced at an article and found it was about children just being in our care for a short time—that they belong to God and we should consider all children as our own. While Bill was watching Jamie in the kiddie pool section of a water park, a small African American girl walked up to him and after asking if Jamie could swim, said simply, “It took me a long time to get here,” and walked away. And the next day, I picked up a bowl at my sister’s house and noticed words on the rim. I tend not to like pithy sayings and got ready to make fun of it in my mind as I read it. “There’s no such thing as somebody else’s child,” it said. I put it down carefully.

            With days to go until we find out if Teenasia will be moved here, there’s not much we can do except pray and wait. If she does come, she will come as a foster child. If she does come, she will likely live with us for awhile, only to be returned to her father after he once again completes the requirements needed to get her back.

I once wrote, when Teenasia lived with us the first time, that when Jesus said, “Love one another,” the words did not come with a guarantee that there would be a future with the ones we love. I wrote that Jesus’ commandment is a promise that love transforms, but is not a contract for a tomorrow with those we love.  We’ll see if I can believe those words one more time. We’ll see how we do at living with the heartbreak of loving a child and then letting her go, once again. No matter what, our pain will be easier than what Teenasia will go through, and that’s what I plan to remind myself of, during the difficult days.

Am I pregnant with an almost five-year-old? I’m preparing, but with hesitation. I’ve bought some size-five clothes and some shoes, but not too many. We have a bed ready, but I haven’t cleared out drawer space yet. We’ve told our children she will probably come, but if it doesn’t work out, we’ll keep visiting her, just like we did before.

Preparing with hesitation, I have joined a group of women who wait to know if a child is on the way. A group of women who know that if the answer is yes, everything will change.          

September, 2006: Plumber saints

I think we need to start praying to the regular saints. If a saint is, as the Catholic Church defines the word, anyone who has died and is in heaven with God, there are a lot more saints up there than the few famous ones the church has canonized. Heaven must be filled with regular folks who led very good, and in many cases, exceptional, lives but might not have had friends in high enough places to recommend them for canonization by the Church here on Earth. The Church recognizes them anonymously, in the “Communion of Saints,” but let’s face it — people like St. Therese, St. Anthony and St. Francis are the celebrities of the Catholic Church. Everyone hoping for a favor rushes to them to put in a good word to Jesus.

            I have decided that all these other unknown saints, who are in just as much of a place to pray for us, should be just as much of a part of our daily faith as their more famous counterparts. While I don’t know the names of these saints, I can guess at their professions, and I have to believe they must take a special interest in things going on here on Earth that are connected to their professions.

            Take all the saints who were teachers or principals during their tenure on Earth —how many people call upon them? What a powerful group of saints. If we have a child who is struggling in school, shouldn’t we pray that a saint who was a teacher intercede for our child? That teacher-saint probably knows better than anyone what our child needs, and can be a firm ally.

            I have prayed to social worker saints for “T”, a child who used to be our foster daughter and is now going through a hard time. I’ve also prayed to the all parents in heaven who made some bad choices on earth but who now see the error in their ways. I am currently praying that together, the social worker-saints and the parent-saints figure out what would be best for T, and advise God accordingly. I imagine a big meeting, where, since this is heaven, everyone is listened to and everyone is giving ideas truly in the best interest of the child.

            I’ve prayed to saints for things that seem trivial — very human concerns that I can’t quite see bothering Mary or Jesus about. I’m not sure if I believe that for the small stuff,  the saint is interceding on my behalf or if saints can just take care of small things themselves. When Jacob pitched for the first time this year in the little league majors, I figured that somewhere in heaven was a kid named Jacob who had played little league. Sheer numbers and the popularity of the name Jacob told me he had to be there. “St. Jacob the Pitcher,” I prayed silently from the bleachers as my Jacob stood on the mound, “just let him do okay. He doesn’t need to be amazing or strike everyone out, but for his first time, just let him do okay so he doesn’t feel he let his team down.” Jacob pitched a no-hitter for the innings he was in, and struck out the best hitter in the league. I thanked St. Jacob the Pitcher. I didn’t call on him again that season until the play-offs when I just needed him to help Jacob get a hit in the last inning when there were already two outs. Jacob hit a grounder and made it safely to first. I didn’t ask for a win, though, and Jacob’s team lost, but I feel it’s important not to be too greedy.

            I’ve prayed to plumber saints about clogs and author saints when I needed a title for my book. I’ve prayed to doctor saints for an aunt who has a serious health problem, and mechanic saints when it was 30 below zero and our van wouldn’t start 250 miles from home. And I prayed to all the saints who struggled with cancer when a dear friend of mine was diagnosed.  Does everything always turn out the way I want? Of course not. But praying to these unknown saints gives me a sense of the amazing community of believers I am a part of. It reminds me that the millions or billions of people in heaven are mostly people not so different than the people I see around me. It reminds me that the folks I come in contact with each day — the grocery clerk, the mailman, my next door neighbor — are souls who might one day be saints. Praying to saints makes me think of all the very much alive people I know who are so quick to lend a helping hand. During difficult times, praying to these ordinary saints helps me remember that our time here on earth is just a small slice of eternity. Important, yes, but not the final word.

In our relationship with God, we can only glimpse what those who have gone before us can now see fully. Our friends, our relatives, our neighbors, and many, many people we haven’t met, are living with full knowledge of God’s love. They stand ready to guide us in our journey — eager to help us find the place they know so well. They have walked the very roads we walk now, and they understand what it is to struggle and be human. They stand ready to help. We only need to ask.

August, 2006: Late to piano lessons

We’ve come rather late to music lessons. I’m not a musical person myself, and while my husband had years of piano lessons, I’m the one who generally scans the recreation department booklet for summer and after-school activities, signs the kids up and carts them to and fro. With soccer, baseball, swim lessons and an endless parade of birthday parties, I thought our plate was full enough, and I didn’t pursue music. It wasn’t even a conscious choice, completely. It was an idea that fell off my radar. (And if truth be told, after it fell off, it was probably run over by the minivan as I backed out of the driveway to yet one more sports practice.)

            Last summer, though, we moved in across the street from Hy Pitt, a retired man with a gregarious personality and strong opinions.

            “Your children should be taking piano lessons,” he told me one day.

I told him if he could work it out for me that I wouldn’t have to drive them one more place, I would be happy to sign them up.

            So it came to be that Jacob and Liam are receiving weekly piano lessons from 80-something Hy Pitt. Shortly after the boys started their lessons, Bill’s parents decided their piano would get more use at our house than at theirs.

            So now we have two boys who have each had approximately 30 piano lessons. And the theme of our home is Beethoven’s “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.”

            A relatively easy melody, “Joyful, Joyful” is the first song Jacob received from Hy that he had actually heard before. Hy uses either his or his children’s old piano songbooks to teach the boys, which means easy children’s songs popular in the fifties, when his children were young, or in the twenties, when he was young. Either way, our boys had never heard of the songs they were playing until “Joyful, Joyful.” Liam isn’t quite up to the “Joyful, Joyful,” level yet, and is still playing songs about random ducks or “crunchy flakes.” A child of the 70’s, I have never heard of them, either.

             The strange thing about Jacob’s piano habits, though, is he never sits down for a half-hour of practice. Instead, he grabs a few minutes here or there, and pounds out “Joyful, Joyful.” Often, he chooses to practice just as we are about to leave for an activity. Faster at finding and tying his shoes than his little brother and sister, he is ready to go a couple minutes before them. Transition times are not Jamie and Liam’s best periods of the day, so the scene becomes a strange mix of screaming and fussing to classical music.

            Joyful, joyful, we adore thee.

            “Liam, get your shoes on now!”

            God of mercy, Lord of love.

            “I can’t find them. They’re gone. Oh, Jamie has one! Give that back!”  

            Hearts unfold like flowers before thee.

            “Jamie, give Liam his shoe, please.”

            “NO!”

            Opening to their sun, above.

            Eventually, all shoes are on the correct children, and “Joyful” is abandoned as we rush to another sports practice or something.

            Later in the day, Jacob will hit the piano again — at a different transition time — say, Jamie and Liam’s bedtime, which is forty-five minutes earlier than his. For whatever reason, my mind always picks up on the line he left off on last time he played. I guess this is helpful, as it provides a different background for the fussing.

            Melt the clouds of sin and sadness.

            “She walked into the bathroom WITHOUT KNOCKING!”

            Drive the dark of doubt away.

            “My toothbrush!”

            Giver of immortal gladness

            “No, that is MINE. I don’t want YOUR GERMS!”

            Fill us with the light of day.

            Sometimes, I notice that if Jamie and Liam’s argument escalates, Jacob plays faster. It’s all Bill and I can do to get the two little ones in bed before they are launched into orbit by sheer emotion, and I worry that Jacob could actually break the piano by playing too hard and too fast. 

            Every so often, though, when all things align, Liam and Jamie have a transitional moment that gives me a glimpse of hope. Jacob’s playing slows, becomes beautiful, and I am so thankful that when I backed over the potential for music lessons, I did not crush them completely.

            Thou art giving

            “Goodnight, Jamie. Could I have a hug?”

            And forgiving.

            “I love you, Liam.”

            Ever blessing

            “I love you, too.”

            Ever blest.

            Ever blessed, indeed. Not because things are always joyful, joyful. But because every once in awhile, hearts do unfold.

July, 2006: Liam is Catholic

Liam, our seven-year-old, is all about being Catholic. Having recently received his First Communion, he is coming off a school year where discussion of the sacraments and Catholicism were front and center most of the time.

            Interestingly, Liam often uses “Catholic” the way many people use the word “Christian,” as a way to describe a person acting in a compassionate way. The first time I noticed it was a couple of weeks ago, when he and I were walking to his little league game. About a half block from the field, we encountered a little girl who was crying because she couldn’t find her mom. I asked the girl a few questions and then helped her locate her mother, who had just run to the car to grab her sunglasses. When we were out of earshot of the little girl, Liam turned to me.

            “Wow, Mom, that was really Catholic of you,” he said. “That girl stopped crying when she saw her mom. You helped her to stop crying.”

            I thanked Liam, and wondered if I should address the fact that what I did really wasn’t specifically Catholic, or even Christian. It was just the right thing to do — the thing that almost any adult, regardless of their faith, or lack of faith, would do in a similar circumstance.

            But I didn’t say anything. While helping the girl wasn’t specifically a Catholic action, it was in its own small way, in keeping with Catholic values. I decided I had plenty of opportunity to correct Liam for the many other things he says that really are wrong (most to his little sister or older brother) and I should to let this one go.

            But in the next few weeks, I noticed “Catholic: The Adjective” cropping up quite a bit in Liam’s day-to-day speech.

            “Jamie, thanks for sharing your chips with me. That’s very Catholic of you.”

            “That cartoon has people fighting. It doesn’t seem very Catholic.”

            “Mrs. Doerr smiles all the time. She is really Catholic.”

            Every time I hear Liam saying something like this, it’s jarring. On one hand, I feel that Liam is exactly right. TV shows with violence aren’t in keeping with Catholic values, but sharing and smiling are. If Liam could grow up associating being a Catholic with how people should be acting in their day-to-day life, Catholicism will have done its job. Without understanding what he’s saying, Liam is right to assert that to be Catholic should be synonymous with being very good. Being a good Catholic so much bigger than just noting the rules that make Catholicism different than other Christian religions. Too often, when I hear someone described as “very Catholic” or “a good Catholic” it relates to only one thing— the many children in the family. If we truly look at the teachings of the Catholic church, however — teachings on poverty and social justice along with Humane Vitae — we find that being “very Catholic” can look a lot of different ways, but all of them will somehow involve reaching out to others.

            The thing I don’t want for Liam, though, is for him to grow up thinking that Catholics have cornered the market on the truth. While right now, due to his Catholic school and Catholic extended family, he has very limited experience with non-Catholics, we are working on broadening his horizons. I went to a funeral of a friend’s grandmother a few days ago, and left the order of worship on the table.

            “Christ Episcopal Church,” he read, sounding out Episcopal syllable by syllable. He paused. “Do people who are Episcopal believe in God?”

            I laughed, thinking of the service, where the only thing different than the Catholic Mass seemed to be that we knelt to receive Communion. It was a good opportunity to teach Liam about the many Christian faiths. This led to a discussion about the many Orthodox Jews in our neighborhood and how, while they do not believe Jesus is the messiah, they and we share the same belief in God.

            That night, when I was tucking Liam in bed, we said prayers together. He had a long list — the school secretary who has cancer, his great uncles, his previous foster sister, and Bill, who was finishing his eighth grade report cards that night. After Liam finished and I kissed him goodnight, he smiled at me in the darkness.

            “I love being Catholic,” he said. “Everything about it is right. Not that the other religions are wrong. But I love being Catholic.”

            I closed the door, feeling that Liam put into words my own belief about Catholicism. There’s a piece of the truth here. And saying there is truth here does not diminish the truth that can be found in other religions. But this is what I have. And like, Liam, this is what I love.