I am lucky enough to know one of Julius’ sons.

Julius himself is sort of a legend. He was the oldest of a large group of siblings that were raised in a government run orphanage. Somehow he made it through those years determined to keep his brothers and sisters together.

In spite of the fact that institutions separated siblings in order to house the children by age groups — regardless of the fact that they had different bed times and day time routines — despite residing in separate cottages that were far apart on a large and lonely campus, Julius never let this little cluster of children forget that they were a family.

They all grew up. Julius became a well known, all-American type softball umpire – the kind that created stories for the players to tell for years. And there are now children and grandchildren. When Julius died, he was a great grandfather. Even though he is gone, he left a large, sometimes boisterous extended family who go to church, have important careers, raised their own children, and enjoy big reunions with an annual golf tournament.

The son I know became a mental health professional and a child welfare supervisor. He is a father and grandfather through birth and through foster care adoption.

We enjoy a healthier community because a boy in an orphanage … a mere boy … knew the power of family.

This week the office intercom announced another adoption by a military family. I can’t tell their story yet. But it reminded me of Ted and Mike.

Ted and I met when I visited a military base in Germany. He began his adoption journey by taking training when he was stationed in Alabama. His home study was completed while he was living in Germany. And a couple of years later he was assigned to the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. He was ready, so he called the county department of social services. And soon Mike was in his life.

Ted wrote about their journey for publications in one of our Heartlines newsletters:

“We met in June and he moved in on August 16, a little more than a week before his 9th birthday. . . Was it love at first sight – not hardly. Mike was a bit afraid of me and certainly didn’t trust me to follow through on what had been promised to him. Why should he? No one had before. He certainly went through a process of doubt, reluctance, embarrassment, anger and resignation before he finally realized that I just might be the ‘real thing.’

For me, I figured since I was an adult who had wanted children for a long time that this kid was going to finally (and immediately) enter my heart. He didn’t…

I’ll bet it wasn’t until Christmastime, fully six months after we met, that I can truly say I started loving him…

[Now] Mike and I have a loving relationship that is at least as tight as a birth relationship. I have been Dad from day one….now we both know what ‘dad’ means.”

They say it takes a village. And I think it has taken a entire population to raise me. Fortunately I’ve had some great coaches. I’m deeply grateful to each one of us.

Some of you know who you are because you had to grab me by the collar to get my attention. Others of you have taught me by the way you’ve lived your lives.

Bob has been one of my teachers. In the first decade of The Adoption Exchange, he made his legal services available pro bono. For anything we needed.

And then he volunteered his time to help raise money, plan events, and develop corporate policies and procedures.

Bob spent many, many hours, always smiling. He didn’t have an adoption history that I knew of. And he didn’t have self interests to protect. He just did it. So one day I naively asked him what motivated him.

“It’s the right thing to do,” he said.

Sometimes people hesitate to adopt because they think they won’t be good enough.

The children have already been compromised by abuse and neglect. The child welfare, mental health, education and court systems have let them down. Won’t it take really incredible people to be their parents?

We are tempted to think the children deserve super-moms and super-dads, given the trauma they’ve survived. But if we wait for that, they won’t ever have stability and love.

Helen Costello says that happy endings only happen in fairy tales. Then she goes on to say that happiness in some stories come after trials and turbulence.

And she should know. Helen has been an adoption professional, teacher, psychotherapist, and child welfare worker for as long as I have worked in the field. She has been an enabling presence in the lives of hundreds of Montana families.

When one family called and asked her to come and get their adopted daughter, Helen didn’t panic. And she didn’t get angry. She just said, “I can’t. She is your daughter.” Then she made an offer to help them be the kind of parents their child needed. Helen had seen families in crisis. She didn’t rush out and remove the troubled teenager. But she did spend the next two years helping the family get back on track.

One of the chapters in her book, From the Heart, is titled “Parenting.” Helen begins the chapter with a sort of definition of good parenting: “We are here for you! We may stumble, but we will not let you down!”

Helen is a good therapist. The real life stories in her book remind us that it doesn’t take perfection. It takes commitment.

Costello, Helen. From the Heart, Great Falls, MT, 2010.

Danielle Bush was a 16 year old in foster care when she wrote these words and shared them with members of Congress:

Our Cry
(Foster children of Today’s World)

We are lost, surrounded on all sides by pure
darkness
We are alone, with no one to follow
We look up to the sky and we call on our creator
We ask him to guide us to safety
We hear no response so we continue to stand
there in the darkness
We put our hands together and close our eyes
We try to think but our minds show us nothing
but the darkness our eyes see
We hear a voice in the distance but we can’t
understand what it is saying
We try to follow the voice
One by one we are swallowed into the blackness
that surrounds us
The voice continues to speak from a distance
There are two children left, they are trying to
find the voice
They cry out for help but the response is still
unclear
They continue to walk until one of the two
children is swallowed
The last child screams into the blackness

Did you even try to find us or did you just think we
would find you? Do you not understand that as we
tried to find you the blackness has swallowed us up
one by one? Did your heart not tell you to come
farther to find us? Did you not know that we were
blind and could not survive alone? When we needed
you the most you let us down. Now we have been
swallowed by this blackness and it will be
harder to reach us!

I believe that our actions form our reply to Danielle. In dedicating our hearts to the mission and our skills to the work of giving every vulnerable child a safe and loving family, we tell Danielle, “We heard your cry. We are listening. And we won’t give up for you.”

I’ve been thinking about milestones. There has never been a day in the last thirty years that I’ve wanted to be anywhere else or do anything other than what we do at The Adoption Exchange. But it’s time for me to look back over the past years and ahead to the next.

Families all over the country are celebrating bittersweet milestones this time of year. It’s the season for graduations and weddings. Parents, relatives and friends look with wonder at the faces of the graduates, brides and grooms. How quickly they’ve grown. Weren’t they tiny children just yesterday?

Once, not so long ago, we worried that they’d not be ready for today’s challenges. The tables have turned; and it is us who aren’t really ready to see these days arrive.

It happens so fast.

Thirty years ago The Adoption Exchange was made up of a dedicated group of child advocates, adoptive parents and adoption professionals. We knew we had to step up our efforts because children were growing up in foster care.

That was 6,946 adoptions ago. Today I can scarcely go anywhere without running into someone who has been touched by the work of this organization. In these short years it has grown into a pretty remarkable center for service and education before, during and after the adoption process.

Well, guess what. I grew and I got older right along with all of the children.

I used to think I’d know when it would be time for me to retire because I’d wake up one morning and realize I wanted to do something else. But that didn’t happen.

I thought I’d run out of ideas and energy. That didn’t happen, either.

But I’ve always had a need to plan ahead for The Adoption Exchange. And so the Board of Directors has worked with me to find and mentor my successor. And I’ll be retiring on August 15.

Kate Trujillo, Ph.D., will bring her talents to the position of Executive Director of The Adoption Exchange. With our capable staff, dedicated Board of Directors and incredible volunteers and supporters…and all of the adoptive parents…I know the work is in the best of hands.

I’ll be working a couple of days a month because I want to continue to be part of this great purpose, as I know you do. I’ll continue blogging for a while. I hope you’ll share your memories with me, as I’ll be doing with you.

Our work isn’t done yet.

For more information about what’s changing and what isn’t changing at The Adoption Exchange click here.

Kim tells me that she and her husband are moving.

As with every new thing, there are losses involved. Kim is expecting some rough times for everyone as they move to a city where they know no one. But they’re also excited about new opportunities. And Kim’s husband’s job is waiting.

There will be great new places to visit, a new house, and new places to play. And there will be losses when they say goodbye.

Of course they had to share this decision with their five children, some of whom are adopted.

They expected the kids to balk, and she knows they’ll have to make adjustments to a new neighborhood and new schools. But Kim was surprised at the reaction her seven-year-old son had when he heard the plans.

He was upset at the idea of leaving his friends! If you’ve not raised a child from foster care, you might not understand the thrill of being a parent of a child who balks at leaving his friends.

Kim thinks it’s a good sign for a child who’s had attachment problems.

And this time this little boy won’t be handling the losses alone. This time his parents are moving with him.

Jack Kornfield wrote a book titled The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace. He reasons, “Forgiveness releases us from the power of fear. It allows us to see with kindly eyes and rest in a wise heart.”

Who wouldn’t want to see with kindly eyes? Who wouldn’t want to live with a wise heart?

Adoptive parents know that forgiveness is the necessary beginning for healing. But knowing isn’t doing. It’s human nature to cling to our anger and fear.

In the world of adopting there is plenty to make us angry. We hate what has happened to the children.

We loath the abuses, neglect, systemic delays, and misguided good intentions. So we have lots of chances to exercise forgiveness.

Any of us who know Kathy are very aware that she and her adopted son, Wayne, are incredibly close. But loving from a wise heart took a bit of time.

In the first months after adopting, Kathy remembers how fearful she was to share with her husband that she wasn’t emotionally attached to their son in the way she thought she should be. The admission itself brought immediate relief. Hearing her husband express his own fears helped set the stage for her to forgive herself for not being the perfect mom.

The ability to see herself, her husband, and each of their children through what Kornfield calls “kindly eyes” began to take shape.

Thirty years have passed. Wayne’s disabilities mean that Kathy and her husband are not empty-netsters like most of their contemporaries. They never will be. And Kathy says, “That’s okay with us.”

I think Kathy learned long ago not to try to change everyone else. But love changes the one who does the loving. Today when Kathy speaks about her family and the future, it is obvious that her words are spoken from a “wise heart.”

And I’d have to say that she has in fact been the perfect mom for Wayne.

Brian recalls his initial meeting with Benjamin, who smiled, yelled, stomped his feet, screamed and refused to talk. In fact, experts had predicted that Benjamin might never speak…At their first meeting, Brian sat quietly across the room, holding a teddy bear and a book. After approaching him, giggling and running away repeatedly, little Benjamin shyly climbed into Brian’s lap, placed his hand on Brian’s face, and said, “Daddy!”

….It must have been a seminal moment for the little boy. When Brian recently asked Benjamin what his greatest memory is about the adoption process, he stated, “I remember calling you ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!’ because I was so excited.”

Voice For Adoption shared Brian and Benjamin’s story with members of Congress through its annual Adoptive Family Portrait Project.

Voice for Adoption is a national advocacy organization, based in Washington DC. Nicole Dobbins, it’s Executive Director, knows what she is talking about when she describes the children in foster care. A few years ago she was one of them.

She wrote, “Children in foster care especially deserve, and want more than anything, for someone to hold them close to their hearts, nurture and cherish them. It is amazing what miracles can do and how severe trauma can be overcome when these children are placed in such an environment where they are loved, embraced and given an opportunity to flourish.”

Click here for more information on Voice for Adoption.

Everybody in the family helps to make the adoption a success. Children in the family help decide who should be adopted. And waiting children speak up.

Here are some examples:

• When nine year old Vickie and her parents went to court, she told the judge she didn’t just want to be adopted – she wanted to adopt her family also. So the judge prepared an adoption document for her to sign, reminding her that being a successful family is about giving as well as getting. And she adopted them all – grandparents included.

• Heather went online and submitted inquiries for the children that she thought would fit in her family. When our staff responded and asked a few questions, Heather said that since she is 12 years old, she’d need to discuss it with her parents. She did, and they moved forward.

• Jacob was pretty impressed by a family he met at an adoption party. He and his siblings had been separated into two foster homes. They were so, so glad to see each other and get a chance to play together at the party. But Jason was working the room, so to speak. And he found what he was looking for. So he told his caseworker, “They’d be a good family for me and my brothers and sister.” He was right, and they’re a family now.