Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Is There A Teenager In Your Future?
The holidays are over. Decorations are packed away to make room for the new year.
Most of us got more than we needed. We can look at photographs and smile over the memories of the time we spent with family members.
But not Laura, who burst into tears and said, “I think I deserve to know what it is like to be loved.”
Hundreds of teenagers are waiting. I hope 2013 will be the year for Amanda, Breeanna and Glen. You can find their pictures along with 273 others who are over 13 years old and deserve to know what it’s like to be loved. Click here to browse our Children’s Gallery, fully searchable by age and other criteria.
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
The Lighter Side
Laughter is good medicine. Psychologists have noted that a sense of humor can also be an indicator of mental health.
I’ve often heard adoptive parents talk about helping to teach their children how to enjoy a good joke. There hasn’t been much to laugh about in their lives. So it takes time to relax and appreciate nonsense. And even longer to learn to appreciate a joke on themselves.
Family humor is great medicine. Groucho Marx said it works faster than an aspirin when you’re feeling a little pain. And as an outlook on the world, humor allows us to put life’s absurdities into perspective. Laughter helps us cope with disappointments, fears, failures, joys and tenderness.
It must be a fabulous feeling for a youngster who spent years feeling like he’s on the outside to finally be on the “inside” of a favorite family joke.
Author Henry Miller said, “A clown is a poet in action.”
So when I hear a mom say, “Okay, it’s time to quit goofing off,” I know there are some healthy poets in that family.
We should all clown around more.
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- Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Look what we’ve done together!
Wayne’s parents knew the dim prognosis, but that didn’t stop them from adopting him. A few years later I felt a chill run up my spine when I saw Wayne cross a low set balance beam. He turned around and shouted, “Mom, look at me! See what I did!” The smiles of his physical therapist and his mom were about a broad as they could be.
As The Adoption Exchange nears a big celebratory milestone – counting the 7,000th adoption match – we all feel a little like Wayne when he safely reached the goal and stepped off the balance beam.
Hey, look! Seven thousand children have been given the chance to discover they are loveable.
Wayne didn’t stop growing and developing. And neither is The Adoption Exchange. But for a moment we plan to stop and cheer for what we’ve all done together.
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Julius
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.
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
The Perfect Family For Paul
Barbara loves order. She is always neatly dressed, and you’d swear she just came from the hairdresser. When she worked at The Adoption Exchange, her office was always clean. I still find files with her beautiful handwritten notes.
But Barbara says that families don’t have to be just like each other (and they certainly don’t have to be like her) to be perfect parents for the children.
She remembers the couple who asked to adopt Paul. They lived in a tiny house in a very ordinary neighborhood. They liked to run barefoot in the summer. They weren’t joggers or dieters. Their little house was pretty cluttered, and they didn’t work out in the gym.
When she visited them after Paul came into their family, she was moved. It was impossible to tell which of their children was the adopted child. No one seemed crowded by the size of the house. There was a lot of healthy hugging, and she could see Paul was drinking in their affection.
Paul’s parents are grateful that he is in their lives. And Barbara says he got just what he needed.
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
I Am a Blessed Child
Those are the words she wrote. But it didn’t begin that way. Shanté came into foster care when she was eight years old. But she blossomed with the care and love of her adoptive mom. They met at school, where her mom-to be was a social worker.
“On August 28, 1991 we went down to the courtroom and everything was finalized. I was finally in a home to call my own. That’s where I stand now – in a blessed family and with friends.”
“I enjoy my family. I am a blessed child and it shows in everything I do, If there is anything in life that a child needs, it is a family. I think o child is to be lonely in these days. It only leads to destruction of a child’s life.”
Shanté is grown now, and a mother herself.
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Martin and DeShawn
The children and youth are often our best teachers. One such teacher materialized at an awards ceremony in Chicago.
Martin looked very handsome and a little nervous. He was dressed in a suit and tie and stood next to his mom at the podium. They had been asked to say a few words about their adoption and to assist in the presentation of a couple of awards.
Adoption professionals in the audience beamed as they spoke. Everyone was proud, and the pride was well deserved.
After the fanfare was over, Martin turned to me and asked, “Can I look at the picture book?” Of course the answer was yes. He was referring to the photo album filled with pictures and profiles of children who were waiting for families.
I guess the time to gloat was over. Enough of that – let’s get to work!
Martin went straight to the “D” section of the alphabetically organized book. He was looking for someone in particular. “I want to know if DeShawn is still in the picture book,” he said.
Martin was a good teacher. He kept my focus where it needed to be.
I asked him to tell me about DeShawn. “He was my foster brother, and he still needs to be adopted.”
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
A Special Gift
Marcia’s birth parents loved each other and loved her as well. But cultural circumstances were stacked against them. Perhaps in today’s society they’d be able to get married and raise their little girl as a family. But thirty-three years ago that wasn’t an option for them.
They made adoption plans, and they let their precious baby go.
Every year since then during the December holidays I get out a nativity scene that they gave to me. I remember them and think of Marcia. When they gave me this gift, I appreciated it. But it took some time for me to fully grasp that a nativity scene is the perfect symbol. There are all of the figures: a mother and father welcoming a baby under impossible circumstances.
Today I boxed up the nativity scene, and I’m mailing it to Marcia. I think it belongs to her. When she uses it, she’ll remember that she has always been loved.
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Military Families Also Adopt
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.”
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Superlatives
I’ve been reading through some papers I set aside. There are notes from children and youth and from social workers and from parents. Teenagers use superlative language in liberal amounts. We often hear their annoyances expressed in aggressive tones. But they are equally effusive about good things in their lives.
A couple of years ago this is what Kirsten wrote:
Hi! My name is Kirsten and I am on this Adoption Exchange! I am so happy with the outcome…I have found a family that I love…well, you guys found them. They are so good to me, and I feel so loved and cared for…
….Seriously, I am not too happy with a lot of things that come about the foster care system but I am glad I had high hopes and did not give up….I am so welcomed and loved here! ….
….I was in foster care five years….I have hurt a lot….and I strongly believe that foster are is o place for any kid to grow up in….I am so lucky and privileged to have a family! I honestly couldn’t ask for me! They are wonderful! You guys have found a wonderful family and I thank you so much! I am so happy here…happier than ever!
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