A Letter written by Liam to Teenasia

This is Liam's writing, to his younger sister: 

Dear Teenasia,

            Four years ago you officially entered my life with a bang. On September 30, 2011, a judge struck a gavel against a block of wood, and that crisp sound meant that you were officially part of my family; you were finally adopted after years in foster care. As incredible as the moment of adoption was, it was not as significant as the hundreds of much more ordinary, everyday experiences we have had together before and since that moment. These experiences—from the endless bike ride in Washington, D.C. to apple picking near the Kettle Moraine—have defined you as a member of my family and my sister. On this fourth anniversary of your adoption day, I want you to know how fortunate I feel to have you as my sister.

            You are an incredibly talented person. Your perseverance amazes me, your athletic ability impresses me, and your love and dedication to your family never ceases to astound me. You are very different from the average thirteen-year-old girl and I mean that in the best possible way. You catch the humor in everything, whether or not it was intended. You are undoubtedly the most observant person I know, while also being one of the most sensitive. Your optimistic and charismatic personality—still intact and not dimmed even after years of turmoil from different houses, foster families, and court cases in your first nine years of life—make you an inspiration. I know I do not always acknowledge your resilience, and it is commonplace that we start our day bickering about who gets to use the shower first, but that does not change how I feel. Our brother-sister competition is often frustrating and irritating, but it is part of being siblings, and deep down I know that as we overcome our differences, we will be closer as we get older. You are so deeply my sister—I feel it in everything we do, yet sometimes I notice the world has trouble recognizing that we are related. I know you notice it as well.

            We never talked to about the family trip in California--  what happened when we took the ride on the cable car. Mom paid for the cable car tickets, and we all found a space to stand as the car started to move. About two minutes later the ticket collector came back and said to Mom, “Excuse me, but which children are yours?” It was an understandable question, the operator couldn’t be expected to assume that a Puerto Rican girl, an African American girl, and a white boy were all siblings. Although I understood the ticket collector’s confusion, it still saddened me. The reality of the matter is that there is an image of what families are, and adoptive families don’t always fit that image.

            Adoption is a beautiful thing, and there is no reason why it should be so unusual. I am blessed to have you, Jacob, and Jamie in my life, and I would not have it any other way. I play, fight, eat, and pray with all of you and I treasure my unique relationship with each one of you. From my experience, adoption is the optimal gift, as both parties are on the receiving end. I was lucky enough to receive a sister, Mom and Dad were blessed with a daughter, and you got a loving family. This ultimate exchange is nothing short of miraculous, and it is something that can always be looked to as an example of the grace of God.

            In adopting you, Mom and Dad were putting complete and absolute trust in God. They couldn’t go on Consumer Reports and research until they found a daughter that fit their desired criteria, they had to believe that God would help them find a child that needed them, and just as importantly a child who would be able to prosper under their love, direction, and support. Prospering wasn’t easy, you had to learn the ABCs once as a todder, and learn them again when you came back after your years away, as a kindergartener. Moving back and forth has left its impact, but I have watched with joy as you have been able to climb your mountain of challenges, swim through your river of painful memories, and cross your desert of doubt. Your journey from one household and way of life to another hasn’t been easy or fast, and it is certainly not over, but though heaps of hard work, you have made an incredible amount of progress. You have prospered. You are amazing, and anyone who knows you well understands this. The years since your adoption have flown by and I have trouble accepting that you are already in eighth grade—last night during dinner I barely stopped myself from making a remark asking why you were talking about high school. Yes, I had to tell myself, she will be in high school next year. She’s not a little kid anymore. Your adoption is something incredible. It is an action that mirrors God’s love for humanity and I count myself blessed to have you in my life.

Love,

Liam

Big brother and little sister, from the beginning

            Over the summer, cleaning out big plastic tubs in the basement, I came across some newsletters, put together by Liam’s K4 teacher, Linda Kihslinger. Each day, Linda would have five children tell her about what was going on in their lives. She’d write down their comments—just couple sentences—and Xerox the page each day to be sent home to parents.  As I sat on the damp basement floor and re-read the newsletters, I was startled that the time had passed so quickly. Liam and his classmates were to be seniors in high school this year. It didn’t seem possible that it was 13 years ago that I was the parent helper in Mrs. K’s room, wiping the tables, cutting out large alphabet letters, pouring milk. Sitting on the floor, reading Liam’s words, as transcribed by Mrs. K, I remembered what was going on in Liam’s life, as a kindergartener.

            When Liam was four, Bill and I had just finished the final round of training and licensing we needed to become foster parents.

            “I’m going to get a foster child baby!” Liam said in the December, 2002 newsletter. “We saved Jacob’s and my crib for the baby. We needed to go to some classes and the teachers tell you what you need for a foster baby. I hope our foster baby will come on Christmas vacation.”

            What was significant to me, reading Liam’s entries, was how much ownership he took of the process. It wasn’t just Mom and Dad who were receiving a baby, it was the whole family. We all went to classes. We all needed to learn what to do. In the rite of baptism, the priest asks the parents, “Do you truly understand what you are undertaking?”  In adoption (which I believe should be a sacrament), we would do well to ask this of the entire family,  “Do you truly understand what you are undertaking?” because the whole family needs to be invested in order for there to be a successful outcome.

            “We almost got the baby two times, but not yet,” Liam reported in February of 2003. “We still have to wait. Maybe the next day you wake up. We got the car seat that I was using when I was little. It does not fit me any more.”

            Four-year-old Liam had no idea back then that toddler Teenasia would come into his life within the month, would live with us a year, only to be placed with her biological father for the following three years. Little Liam, preparing his old crib, lining up his stuffed animals in a welcoming pack, could not have imagined that Teenasia’s journey back and forth from her biological home to ours would go on for years, delaying her adoption until she was almost 10 and Liam was 13.

            “Somebody came to our house today, I do not know her name,” he reported in the spring, referencing the social worker who checked in each month. “She is one of the people who tell us who Teenasia will be with. I was watching her talk most of the time. Teenasia was crawling.”

             Most of Liam’s entries about Teenasia, though, have nothing to do with foster care and adoption. They are remarkable only in how deeply ordinary they are. A four-year-old boy talking about life with his one-year-old sister. “Now today, my mom and my baby were reading two pop-up books and my baby ripped one just by touching it. Then we gave her three baby books. She loved the baby books. Then we made lunch. I made cheese, bread and turkey.”

            And its the ordinariness of Liam’s life with Teenasia that is part of the undercurrent that kept Teenasia afloat even as the Bureau of Child Welfare and the State of Wisconsin botched repeated opportunities to prevent abuse and neglect. Whether Teenasia understood it or not, and whether Liam remembers it or not, Liam’s clear vision of Teenasia as sister helped carry her through those difficult years away from our family. Our life together in 2003 and 2004, with kindergartener Liam, second-grade Jacob and toddler Teenasia was nothing dramatic. It was a life of apple juice, Bob the Builder videos, and runny noses. And thankfully, Liam recorded a good deal of it with Mrs. K.

            In May, 2003: “Now because it’s warm, we can have a picnic, because when the sun shines warm, my baby doesn’t get cold.”  Was Teenasia able to hold onto some of the warmth from the sun that day, even as the Bureau and the State later placed her in a situation where she was deeply hurt? I believe she was. Not all of it. Some of that sun was eclipsed in the traumatic years that followed. But some of the warmth was retained. Warmth from a brother who was mostly was nothing more than regular, nothing more than ordinary, to his little sister.

            But most importantly, also nothing less.

            “Me and Teenasia took a bath.”

            Thank you Liam.

Why am I Catholic, really?

My friend recently asked me as part of an email conversation, why I stay in the Catholic church.  “If that sounds confrontational, it's not,” he wrote in his email.   “At least not yet. I am genuinely curious.”  My friend was raised Catholic but is not currently a practicing member of any religion. He credits the Jesuits with saving his life in high school, went to Georgetown University for undergrad and married a Catholic woman he met there. They now have four children. His wife is still a practicing Catholic and brings the younger kids to Mass and religious education. Bill and I are godparents to their third child.

My friend’s question is a fair one. He’s not asking why I’m Christian; he’s not questioning my faith in God; he’s asking me why I belong to a religion that has some elements that he knows I disagree with. He knows, for example that I believe the church should ordain married people of both genders, along with men and women who choose celibacy. He knows I believe the question of birth control and family planning is complex and should not be simplified into a one-size-fits-all teaching. He knows that Bill and I have a depth of understanding of the ramifications of all types of child abuse, and yet have chosen to stay with a church whose leaders failed to protect children from the most egregious of abuse. He knows I hold dear our gay friends and colleagues—that I believe they should be as welcome at the Eucharistic table as they are at our own dining room table.

And yet I’m Catholic. Passionately Catholic. And I could no more change to another Christian religion than I could peel off my skin and exchange it for a different tone with a better hue.

Why am I Catholic? I may not embrace or even agree with all the teachings of the church, but I believe in all the sacraments. I believe in God's grace working through them. I've felt the grace; I've seen it. I’ve received Communion and have been grateful for the grace that carried me through a difficult relationship. Eucharistic grace that allowed me to be able to reach beyond the angry words I wanted to say to a difficult person, to the better words I needed to say to begin to heal the relationship.

I’ve felt the grace present in the sacrament of reconciliation. I’ve seen my children leave the church after going to reconciliation, feeling more peaceful, acting more loving, trying harder to be who they are called to be. Not leaving the church perfect, by any means—none of us do—but coming out of the sacrament, still imperfect, but full of grace. I remember Liam running around the parking lot of the church when he was about eight, after his first reconciliation, yelling, “I feel so light!” I have felt that lightness, too. It is grace.

It is marriage where I’ve probably felt sacramental grace most strongly. Grace times two. So powerful. Bill and I continue to turn to our vows; to our promise to God; to each other. I see the same grace in the marriages of my friends. One friend, whose husband made a hurtful choice, responded by upping her prayer; by turning to her husband; by recognizing not only her own pain, but his. She allowed his poor choice to propel them together more in search of God, rather than letting his behavior be a reason to drift apart. I watched their grace and it made me weep.

Some sacraments seem under-utilized. We do not need to reserve the sacrament of the sick for the dying. Any serious problem—mental, physical, emotional—can be a reason to receive the sacrament. I asked that my daughter Jamie be anointed when she was one—not because she seemed sick, but because I knew of her past history before she came to us as a foster child. I knew healing was needed. I asked for it. I felt the grace. I feel it now. In 11-year-old Jamie’s exuberant presence is God’s grace.

And then there’s ordination. God’s profound grace. Some of the most influential, inspirational people Bill and I have ever had the pleasure of knowing and listening to are (or were) priests: Fr. John Eagan; Fr. Bob Purcell; Fr. Melvin Michalski; Fr. Jack Kern; Fr. Bryan Massingale; Fr. Bob Wells; Fr. Pat Smith; Fr. Mike Bertram; Fr. John Naus; Fr. Andre Father Andre Papineau; Fr. Tim Kitzke; Fr. Joe Juknialis; Fr. John Fitzgibbons. These amazing people, in their homilies and in the way they live (or lived) their lives, inspired the decisions we have made and have deepened our own faith journey. Holy Orders is a beautiful, grace-filled sacrament. It’s just not expansive enough—we could have even more grace-filled people leading our church.

I couldn’t say all this to my friend in my email, because the email came in at work and I didn’t have time to respond. But I can say it now. I can explain that I stay in the Catholic church because of God’s grace present in the sacraments. I have seen how this grace has led to prayer, service and goodness in the world. This grace is present in Catholic Social Teaching, a beautiful set of letters and documents about how we are called to serve our world in a very concrete and practical way.

I am part of the Catholic Church because I see God’s grace-filled people, nourished by the sacraments; anointed with oil, splashed with the water of baptism, serving God in great numbers. They are teaching in schools; working for change in social service agencies; bringing about good in the public and private sector; they are housing refugees and giving food and shelter to the needy; they are bandaging the hurt and the broken; giving medicine to the ill; they are visiting those in prison; they are speaking out against injustice. I see them, and I strive to use my God-given grace as well as they are. That’s why I’m Catholic.

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