And the Cycle Continues.....

Last night I had the delightful honor of being present for my niece's graduation from high school. Given the fact that she lives about five states south of my home, that our school year is still in session and that my state testing scores need to be posted in the very, very near future, it was an honor the I don't share lightly. After the short and very official ceremony, I was ambling about the grassy lawn of Lander University 'people watching' as kids, their friends and families, teachers and acquaintenances enjoyed the dying evening sun as they snapped pictures and just soaked in their in their last moments as a school family. I had taken a couple of minutes to admire a beautiful 10 month old child newly arrived from China...the daughter of my sister's teaching partner. As we were headed back to the car someone else flagged us down from a parked car. A woman approached and asked if I was the 'famous sister she had heard so much about.' She was introduced as one of the high school teachers that had my neice and nephew as students in school. She proceeded to tell me a story that tugged at my heart strings and made my entire day....no week...um...maybe month.

She and her husband were parents of five children and had been going back and forth for a while about the 'wisdom' of initiating an adoption. One day in the last moments of a Science class, students were sharing pictures and my neice approached her to ask if she wanted to see a picture of her cousins and aunt. It was one of those 'teacher moments' she explained, when she had a six inch high stack of papers to go through quickly and would rather have not taken the time to look....but did. My niece handed her a photograph of her adopted Asian American cousins and went in their story...of how wonderful they were and how well their adoption experience had been for our family. And she said it was in that moment that she believed God had given her a sign that they should proceed with an internationl adoption. It has been three years. They are now the parents of seven - including two beautiful three year olds from Guatamala adopted at different times - and one more is on the way home from another South American country in another year. How wonderful that it was our adoption story that tipped this family in the direction of bringing even more into their loving circle. How wonderful for those three children that will grow up cared for and blessed and loved. You just never know when the hand of God is going to reach out and touch someone with your own life story......even if it's five states away.

Meet the Robinsons

Nina is the one that wanted to see it. She has wanted to see it for months. Daniel didn't. Neither did I. There was really nothing else showing, it was pouring rain and we had an afternoon off school together. I appeased Daniel by paying the extra bucks for a 3-D version. You know...the kind where they give you special glasses to use? Cost me the price of another ticket. Sigh. For a kids' movie. An animated one at that. I hate animated movies. But only because it's difficult to read their lips....something crucial that a hearing impaired viewer needs to be able to do. Actually the only animated feature I have ever been able to enjoy without interpretation was Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast'. Watch it some time and pay close attention to how well the words match the characters' lip movements. It's incredible. Haven't seen one like it since...and with two kids, we have seen them all. And so I resignedly settled into my seat, settled the 3-D glasses over MY glasses and prepared to snooze.

What a nice surprise. The movie was actually entertaining. The subject also - surprisingly enough - was one that is very dear to my heart. Adoption....and more specifically, older child adoptions. I didn't know why I didn't pick up on it sooner.

A little kid named Lewis, a brilliant inventor who was left on the door step of an orphanage as an infant, has entered a 'Memory Scanner' in the school's Science Fair. His reason for creating it is to find his birth mother so they can be a family again. Another character - Wilbur Robinson - whisks him into the future so they can stop another character from stealing the invention and save the future. Along the way Lewis meets and begins to care for the wierd and wonderful Robinson family. He learns that the future is rooted in his own present and affected by his actions. Along the way he has a chance to discover his birth mother and doesn't, finds a family and lives happily ever after.

I have read that adoption advocates do not support this Disney movie. They report that adopted children and their parents came away distressed about the scenes depicting Lewis turned down by 100 prospective parents. Birth parents have come away distressed that Lewis, when given the chance to reunite with his birth mother, chooses not to. I don't know really know how my own adopted sweeties took that aspect of the film. They never really talked about it. We've never really talked about birth parent abandonment at all. They thought it was a really, really good movie however - even Daniel.

I saw it as a story of a kid searching for a family and finding it in his own backyard. A kid who knew his potential, knew he was a genius and liked that about himself. He never blamed his birth mother for abandoning him....never hated her....and in the end, respected her decision to give him away.

We have a smidgen of information about Daniel's birth parents and nothing at all about Nina's. I wonder if they will ever feel the need to search for their biological roots? If that day ever comes we will do everything that we can to help them. But in the end, I hope they will know that their 'real' family is the one that has been in their backyard all along. The one that treasures their uniqueness and loves them....just the way they are.