Dixie van de Flier Davis,
Founder & President Emerita
Waiting
No one likes to do it.
We’re impatient in line at the super market. We don’t want to wait for delivery of new item. On a diet – chances are we quit before we see results.
It is just hard to wait.
The wheels of permanence grind too slowly in the lives of the children who wait in foster care. Another birthday passes. Other children come in and out of the foster home as if their journeys have somehow taken on a faster pace, while teenagers wait and watch, and eventually are tempted to turn their eyes away.
As of last week the wait is finally over for Mandi. She’d been featured on television three times. Clearly she was growing up before our eyes. As the months dragged on, she watched her siblings be adopted. And now – at last – she has joined two of them in her own family.
As one adolescent said, “It feels like sitting down after standing up for a long, long time.”
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Dixie van de Flier Davis,
Founder & President Emerita
A Mother’s Joy
We have you home now!
Your shoes light up as you walk,
Just as my heart does.
Ann Fleming, Des Moines, IA
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Learn more about Dixie.
Dixie van de Flier Davis,
Founder & President Emerita
Birth Parents and Adoptive Parents
James and Maria have 13 children, though James can’t remember off hand how many are adopted. They’re just a family, even though their family may seem different than some.
Noel’s mother died when she was fifteen. That loss combined with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and other circumstances. Noel’s emotional state and her behavior left no place other than a residential treatment center for her to go. Except for one thing — James worked at that center.
Before long Noel joined James and Maria’s family. In the Native American tradition, the whole family joined together for a year of mourning Noel’s birth mother. At the twelve month mark, they all participated in a customary ritual to let go, and Noel was formally adopted into the family.
James and Maria are proud grandparents of children they would never have had in their lives if they hadn’t let themselves love Noel and her first mother, and a woman they’d never met.
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Dixie van de Flier Davis,
Founder & President Emerita
Jackie
Love is transformative for everyone involved. Jackie describes how she is impacted by her adopted children with these profound words:
“Hope may not see, but she can hear the birds sing and her eyes flutter when the wind blows. Matthew may not be able to walk, but his smile greets me every morning. Steven may not be able to speak, but I can hear him say he loves me hundreds of times a day.”
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Every Day is Grandparents’ Day
Among the gifts adoptive parents give their children are grandparents. Relationships across the generation gap are more than precious. They shape the future in big ways.
Seeing the daily challenges from a long view, they help their grandchildren learn to find their way. Lots of the lessons are caught, not taught, as Dromgoole artfully describes in his poem that follows.
The Bridge Builder
An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near,
“You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again will pass this way;
You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head:
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”
By Will Allen Dromgoole
Thanks to all of the grandparents. You gave the children parents, and you build the bridges they will cross.
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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
Frankie Is Loved
The energy level climbs when Frankie arrives on the scene. His grandparents are obviously thrilled to see him and can’t wait to show him off to extended family members.
Frankie is a little shy, but he warms up to strangers. He knows he is in a safe environment.
When the attention becomes a little too intense, he finds shelter on his mother’s lap. As his mom tenderly holds him, she whispers in his ears. And he melts into her embrace.
I wish every little boy and girl were safe and loved, like Frankie.
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
A Great Email
I could try to describe how adoption transforms lives. I might attempt to tell you stories to help you understand that we have the power to create the future. But it’s difficult to find words as profound as the truth.
But we don’t always need paragraphs or pages to describe how the world can change by our actions. Sometimes one sentence is enough to get a good idea of things that have happened through a series of hundreds of events over a dozen or more years.
This is an email message that made me smile and smile: “I was adopted through you, so it’s my turn to help!”
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Daniel’s Comments on Self Esteem
Things people say to us and the way we are treated as we grow up have a powerful impact on how we see our selves. Healthy people (young and old) are people who have been valued and thereby know they are loveable and valuable people.
Children who are told by gesture or words that they matter very little, spend their young adulthoods trying to fill the empty places in their hearts.
Daniel described the challenge with eloquence. He said that he needed help after being adopted. He remembered his journey through foster care, moving from house-to-house-to-house with his meager belongings loaded into a trash bag … before he moved home.
“I wasn’t sure whether my stuff was trash or if I was trash,” he said.
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Anthony Claims His Family
After his adoption was final and he’d had time to discover what “permanent” means, Anthony was interviewed by a news reporter.
They stood outside the family home on a sunny afternoon. A basketball hoop over the garage door sent a signal to the neighborhood that an energetic boy lived there.
Anthony pointed to a place in the concrete where he’d been allowed to carve his name before the concrete set.
“This is my home!” he proudly announced.
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