CASTING BLAME: There, but for the Grace of God, Go I."

Yesterday, I posted the story of God waking me up from a deep sleep prompting me to think about the possibility of accidentally leaving one of my little ones in the car by making me think I had forgotten my 5-year-old in the car the night before!  I hadn’t actually left him, but within 2 hours of being jolted awake with that feeling, my visiting 4-year-old granddaughter was actually forgotten for a few moments in the car after a quick trip to school for drop off. 

God knows me well.  If it had been a vague feeling about something that might happen in the future, I probably would have dismissed it as my thought. 

If I had actually left a child in the car, I like to think that I would have been prompted much sooner! But by making me stop, process and think about what I had done it was at the forefront of my busy mind.

When my son wasn’t at breakfast (which actually isn’t unusual), it made me ask for more detail and gave me the chance to talk to the kids.

So, because I was so checked into this crazy feeling, when it actually happened within a few hours, God had prepared me to act.

 

The truth is, even if she had been left longer, it was neither too hot nor too cold to cause any long-term damage to her body.  But it would have messed with her emotions. And it would have been terribly scary.

But God protected her.  If it had just been me or my husband, we could have forgotten her for longer.  I could have thought she was back upstairs in the playroom playing with her cousin’s Barbies.

When new factors are introduced - a grandchild that isn’t usually with us on a school morning and normally doesn’t ride along for the trip to school – it is easy to go into rote action mode, not really thinking about what you are doing, but just doing it.

Likewise, when you do the same thing over and over again, sometimes you actually think that you have done something, when actually you did it yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, but NOT today.

But your brain can play tricks on you.  And so can the Enemy. 

It’s not always about caring or not caring. 

It’s not always about loving or not loving.

It’s not always about selfishness or selflessness.

It’s not always too many children or not enough experience.

It’s not always about work or something else being more important.

It’s not about anything other than humanity.

When tragedy strikes a family, I cringe when people are critical of the parent(s). I can’t stand to see the daggars come out as people try to find someone to blame, as if that will solve the problem. 

Although it is certainly possible for some of these situations to be the result of abuse or neglect, the result of drugs or alcohol, truthfully, that isn’t the norm.

I know what abuse and neglect looks like.  I live with the consequences every day.

I also know what it means to be human.  To be overwhelmed.  To be lost in your own thoughts.  To make a mistake. 

And who is going to suffer more than the parent who makes this mistake?

The people casting judgment will forget the incident.

They will forget the name of the one who is now gone.

Their lives will move on as if nothing ever happened. 

Some of these people feel, “It can’t happen to me.”

“I would never let that happen to my child.”

“How could you forget your child?”

 How can you think that you dropped off your child at daycare when you didn’t?"

And it is these people that scare me.  The ones who actually believe they could never make this kind of tragic mistake.

I am an educated woman who has voluntarily dedicated most of my adult life to helping children.  I have more experience than most people.  I have more education and knowledge than many.  Yet, I could easily make a mistake that harms someone else.  And that scares me enough to be hyper vigilant and to listen to the promptings and intuitions that I am given.  

But if I ever did make this kind of tragic mistake, I would hope that people would consider my humanity and the bigger picture and not cast immediate judgment on me.

For the record, I’m not above reproach on the judgment problem.  I confess that on the same evening all this happened, I read about the Sommer Wilford, a Birmingham woman who supposedly watched her child burn in a car fire following an accident without telling the police or firemen her son was in the car.  They found his body after the fire was out.

The article clearly implied this she knowingly let him die.  It even mentioned charges of reckless murder.  And possible drug use.  Her wild hair and what looked like a smirk in her mug shot didn’t help her case.  Admittedly, I went in the precise direction that the author of the article intended.  Casting blame on the mom for ruthlessly watching her beautiful son die in the fire.  I even repeated the story to my husband.

But thankfully, I make it a habit not to comment publicly before I’ve done my own research. Out of curiosity, I checked out her young fiance’s Facebook page and found family portraits of a large extended family together with his handsome blonde-haired little boy. 

And this was his last entry.

Cody Allen February 28

People look if someone has shit to talk its (deleted his address) where I am I mean you people are clueless she didn't let him die she would never do that that baby was our world and it got taken from ous all of you saying dope was involve I can assure you there was no dope involved no one knows what happened bc guess why no one seen what happened but them and god So before you make all these horrible assumptions stop have some respect and dignity this news thing has taking it way to far and I will personally be putting a stop to it But no matter what is said done etc. nothing can bring my precious baby back he will dearly be missed and please All I am asking for is for everyone to stop until you find out the true story bc I don't even know yet but she was my better half and either of us would have done anything to stop this anything and yes No Matter what I will stand behind her till the end please pray for my family and stop the nonsense

Suddenly, Sommer Wilford wasn’t an object of blame.  She was a human.  With a story.  And a fiancé who believed in her. 

And that’s when I had to recognize that I was judging without all the facts. Perhaps she was under the influence. Maybe the tragedy itself caused her to go into a state of shock that caused her to dissociate from reality.  Or she could be an evil person who wanted her son to die. 

I have no idea what the truth will turn out to be.  And I’m not going to try to figure it out.

Instead, I will pray.  God the Father, wrap your arms around this family and their friends.  Reveal yourself to them during this tragedy.  Let their minds be filled with joy.  Protect them from the comments and people’s opinions.  If drugs or alcohol are involved, I ask that you remove addictions.  Keep the family focused on what is important.  Heal their wounds and surround them with others that will lead them to you.  

Amen.

ADOPTION: THE JOYS OF CHOOSING TO BE FAMILY

I live a mixed blessing.  I thrive and regenerate when I am alone.  But my house and my life are always full of people.  The 16 who live here, plus my other kids and grandkids, friends, and sometimes people who literally wander in off the street!  Our normal is chaotic on a good day, but it is generally organized chaos in the loosest sense of the words.  When I suddenly have an extra 3-10 children here on an unplanned visit, all the cousins immediately begin to play.  My grandkids barely greet me as they run to go find their best friends.

We don’t watch over them, partly for our own sanity and partly for the personal growth and development that occurs naturally when 10-15 cousins and friends can play together and work out problems without parents watching and judging every move.  Besides, if anything goes wrong we will either hear it or someone will make sure we know about it! 

Obviously, when you allow 15 or so kids under age 10 to play upstairs for hours without parents constantly shouting “Stop!” “No!” and “Don’t do that!” – the only words that we could possibly say if we were to witness their goings on – then something is bound to get broken or destroyed!  I generally accept that as the consequence of free play.  We don’t own much that is worth anything.  And generally, the breakage is not malicious, but the result of 8–10 high energy boys and a few girls playing creatively and physically with every object that they can get their hands on.

Of course, I like it when they are playing.  Sometimes, I get a little frustrated when I have to investigate the damage, which sometimes is just every single toy we own from every single container - even those in storage -  piled onto the floor 2 feet high!

But the part that makes my weary bones come to life is what happens with my older children and their spouses. Even though there are times that the last thing I want is a house full of people – family or not – I LOVE to watch my older ones interact.  I like watching them joke with each other.  I smile when I see them sharing photos or parenting advice, or when one of my college kids shares what she has learned with her siblings.  It gives me warm fuzzies when I find out that my adult children have all planned to meet at mom’s and dad’s house.  I laugh when aunts fight over who gets to hold or play with their nieces and nephews first!  It's funny to me that all the young men/husbands find themselves in the basement in front of the x-box bonding over some silly game for hours on ends. 

And it’s super special to me because it says that while the blood bond is strong (we have lots of sibling groups), the bond that we have chosen to make with each other is equally as strong. 

So, on the days when I’m weary (which is almost daily) and I wonder if what we are doing really matters to anyone, I am allowed the privilege of seeing my answer – live and in person. 

And weary or not, I can continue for another day.

Part 1 of 2 - "Take Only Pictures. Leave Only Footprints."

I have been writing for many years, but only recently started to blog.  It's time for a little humor. This story was originally written in January 16, 2007.  It is told in two parts.  You won't want to miss the end of this hilarious story!

The sign on the way out of the camp site said, “Take Only Pictures.  Leave Only Footprints.”  We are typically a law-abiding family, but sometimes, things are simply beyond our control. 

Last month (that fact will become important much later in the story) we took our family on our 2^nd Annual “Escape the Chaos of Christmas” camping trip.  For my husband, that means a tent and sleeping bags. Problem is, only 4 of our 18 children have been boys—and the majority of our girls aren’t the outdoorsy type. 

I’m head of the girly girls.  The last two times we went camping – oh, who am I kidding? -- the only two times our family camped – we had young babies, it was December, and I couldn’t bear the thought of our infant freezing to death – even if we do live in Alabama.

Therefore, I insist on renting a cabin with running water, a kitchen, and a space for the pack-n-play.  I meet with little resistance. Everyone prefers the comforts of heat, a soft bed, and no living creatures with more than 2 legs– even if that means 13 people crammed into a cabin built for four, with a single bathroom.

Months before the big event, my husband begins asking, cajoling, and finally begging for his girls to join him in the tent for a fun, frolicking evening around the campfire.  He’s not a seasoned camper – as evidenced by the fact that he didn’t know food inside the sleeping tent is a bad idea – but the girls don’t know the difference. 

The kids that are willing to humor their father and sleep in the “man” tent insist on the campsite nearest the outdoor bathroom facility.  Moreover, after spending all day inside the cabin in their sweats without a shower, they line-up for the only indoor bath in order to shower, shave, straighten their hair and apply full make-up before spending one night in a sleeping bag in the bitter mountain cold. No amount of reasoning convinces them that this is not necessary. I find it highly amusing.

I’m fairly certain that they are not trying to impress anyone.  I doubt the bears care about make-up.  It’s more about comfort.  They simply feel better sleeping on the ground when they are clean and pretty.  

But I digress. Obviously, we survived the four-day camping trip.  When it comes time to pack the cars (it takes two cars to transport our family anywhere) each girl assumes the task of collecting her personal items, stowing them in her designated, pre-sized duffle bag and placing all of the extraneous parts and pieces directly beside the car so that they can carefully crammed into the car at one time.  After years of traveling with a large crew, I have packing down to a science.

The two and one-half hour drive home with 8 people in a Suburban is a bit crowded, but we are not above using a portable DVD player to keep them from killing each other.  Fortunately,  I had to leave a few hours earlier with some of the kids to get our 10 ½ month old to her “as close to 9 months as we are able to remember and can actually find the time to make the appointment -- well check-up”  But that’s another story.

Somewhere in route, I received a frantic phone call from one of my girls – speaking in a rushed, high pitched tone, she says, “Mom!  Mom! (Insert screams!) Can you hear me?  There’s something in the car.  Mom! I promise you!  We have some furry creature in the car with us.  It just crawled across my fo..oo..tt! (Insert 7 screaming girls!)  It was the kind of voice that made my mother heart jump as I immediately envisioned dead bodies strewn across the road.  Listening to her words, I realized it wasn’t quite that dramatic, but I still couldn’t make sense of what they were screaming about. 

She continued, “Mom!  Dad doesn’t believe us, but I promise you some furry thing just crawled across the floorboard of the car.  We must have packed up some animal when we packed the car.  Mom!  Please tell dad that we are serious.” 

I try reasoning with my loving husband. “Are you sure it’s nothing,” I say sweetly.  Okay, anyone who knows me, knows that’s a lie – I never speak sweetly. But I do ask him.  Then I figure any animal crazy enough to get in the car with 7 screaming girls and my husband deserves the punishment.  Besides, I was in another car.

Anyway, he refuses to pull over on the side of the interstate, refuses to unpack all seven girls, the entire truckload of camping supplies, 6 hair straighteners, 8 pillows, the dvd player, and all the dirty clothes to find an imaginary animal.  He did suggest that they open the windows.  He was ready to get home. Creature or not. 

The remainder of the trip home the girls kept their feet in their seats and refused to sleep – all watching intently for the next sign of fur. There was none.  When the girls got home and emptied the car, there was still nothing.

Perhaps the problem is that seeing fur in the Suburban isn’t all that unusual – however, it is more likely to be that furry green mold that grows on a two-week old peanut butter sandwich than a small animal.  In spite of the lack of evidence to support their story, the girls remained firm in their belief that there was, in fact, an illegal stow away from the camp ground.

Flash forward 21 days and approximately 2,000 miles on the odometer. 

I give my 20-year-old daughter two plastic applicator tampons to put into the glove compartment.  She lays them on top of the tire warranty that we bought with the new tires just days before the camping trip. These items are emergency equipment in a car full of teen-age girls.

Two days later, we are loading the car for coop.  My 14-year old daughter opens the glove compartment and finds a perplexing scene.  Holding up one of the plastic wrappers that has obviously been chewed open and a plastic applicator with a tiny hole in the handle she looks quizzically and said, “Is this supposed to look like this?”

Initially, I wasn’t paying attention to her, which is not all that unusual because I’m taking a head count of kids, making sure the baby is properly restrained, checking behind others to make sure they what they need and loading my teaching materials before we drive off.  But her facial expression causes me to notice her.

I glance over at the items she is holding and then divert my eyes to the open glove box where I see that the cotton that has been removed and shredded into tiny pieces which are now lying on top of the tire warranty.  Upon further investigation, we discover that the warranty is missing a one inch semi-circular chunk from the right corner. The edge of the paper has a pattern that bears an uncanny resemblance to tiny teeth marks. 

What can I say? My husband was wrong.  The evidence is overwhelmingly against him!

How a small rodent has survived a month inside our car is a mystery. How anything can survive in our grungy 1998 Suburban that is literally falling apart at the seams is a mystery.  How it could go unnoticed during a 500 mile trip to Florida with 8 children, an  800 mile trip to Kentucky, and a minimum of 12 trips per day taxiing kids on every  errand you can imagine, is priceless. 

Okay.  We took plenty of pictures.  We left at least 13 sets of footprints.  It was the “only” that gave us a little trouble. 

The story continues in Part 2, which I will Post simultaneously.

Part 7 - Lee Family: Our Birth - Foster - Adoption Journey to 20 Children

Part 7 continues Heather's story. NOTE: I posted Parts 6 and 7 together so go back to Part 6 if you want to read this in order.  

This is a story that is so full of life and death.  It speaks to many that are hurting.  

Heather's Struggle to Find Her Identity

What I didn’t realize fully until Heather was gone and I was able to read her journal was that she started her journal when we grounded her from basically everything in her life.  We call it the Bed, Blanket and Bible Drill.  When we have run out of options and the kids get in to trouble with everything they own and every privilege and it looks like nothing is safe – we clean out their room of everything but a bed, blanket and bible.  Okay, we might leave some empty furniture out of convenience, but basically the idea is to remove everything that is cluttering their mind, tempting them, and causing them to be too busy to listen to themselves, to us, and to God.  No music.  No books.  No posters or pictures. No technology.  No TV.  No phone. No nothing.  Oh, did I mention No Door?  Yep. We remove the door too.

We leave them with their own thoughts, God’s Word, and a comfortable bed – they can keep a pillow too. As a result, if they want to engage with people or technology - they have to join the rest of the family or do nothing at all. 

We’ve done this more than one of our children -- to varying degrees and for varying lengths of time.  Sometimes, it works and helps the teen clear his or her mind and get back on track – realizing all that is lost and appreciating it all the more.

Once, after trying this with two of our 16-year-old foster children – they ran away – got caught – spent a night in juvenile hall and ultimately were removed from our home as foster children and placed in a group home.  We could have taken them back immediately, but we felt that this situation was dramatic enough that it might get their attention.  So we worked with DHR to let them go through this process, with the hopes that they would choose to return to us.  If they chose to return, we knew we had overcome a major obstacle that exists when we take in teenage foster children who really don’t want to be in care. 

The two children took dramatically different courses.  One child realized how much freedom she had with us and how much we loved her.  She was gone for 6 weeks and finally decided to return to our family.  We adopted her – and although the trying times didn’t end and we had many more dramatic moments with her – she is now responsible, married and has a beautiful daughter of her own, whom she adores.   But most importantly, Jesus is the center of her life.  Although at the time it looked as if our strategy failed – after all, she ran away – in reality it was her turning point. 

The other child didn’t do as well.  She eventually ran away from the group facility where she was placed and was gone for five months before she came back pregnant.  We had been searching all over the world for her and had never given up hope that she would return.  As promised, she was able to choose to return to our home.  She lived with us during her pregnancy and we helped her raised her daughter until she was two. 

Before we thought she was ready, she left our home with her daughter and tried to live on her own. That didn’t work out as she had planned and we are now raising her daughter and her two sons.  But she is a believer.  She has a strong foundation.  She can choose what she wants for herself because she knows both worlds. But, like Heather, she’s struggling to overcome her past and make a different future for herself. 

I say this not to condemn her, but to remember that sometimes, as parents, we do what we think is best and it still doesn’t produce the results we hope for.  But that doesn’t mean we can stop pursuing.  Stop trying.  Or simply give up.  Although our current strategy is to stop all help and do nothing but pray for this child, that is not because we have given up, but because we have done all that we can do and the rest is up to her and God.  We will assist her again when she wants our help. 

Other childrens’ reactions have not been so dramatic.  Like Heather.   I now know that she took the time to start to think and make peace with God.  She used the busyness in her life to hide from her problems.  Taking everything away left her exposed and vulnerable.  She didn’t like it.  But she clearly needed it.

I knew that we had given Heather a strong biblical foundation – not because we read and studied the bible every day together, but because we tried to live out our beliefs everyday – not just on Sundays.  The Truth was the basis for all our decisions as a family.  We intertwined God’s Word into our everyday language – but not in an obvious way – in part because we were also parenting four new teen-age girls and we tried not to sound too preachy with them, so as not to push them away from God before they really knew Him. 

A few months before she died, Heather tried to tell me that she didn’t know the difference between right and wrong.  That we had somehow failed to teach her that. At the time, I just laughed and said something like, “That’s a sorry excuse and a new one.  But I’m not buying it.  I’m pretty sure that over your lifetime, we’ve pretty much covered most things you need to know about right and wrong.  We have never made you memorize verses, but we give them to you daily.  Let’s start with the basics. Don’t kill.  Don’t lie.  Don’t Cheat.  Don’t be jealous.  Don’t put anyone or anything else above God.  Love others as yourself.  Not to say the 10 Commandments are all the instruction God gives on right and wrong – but they pretty much cover most choices…” 

Of course, she was in trouble and pulling the “I’m too stupid to know what I did was wrong because you didn’t teach me well enough” card.  Needless to say, that card didn’t work with me.  But she was desperate and looking for a way out of whatever situation she was in at that moment.  

I knew that she knew the Truth.  Her problem was a lack of trust. And without trust, nothing would really change.  And Heather didn’t trust completely.  Anyone.  Ever.  Not even God.  And many times, not even herself.  (She learned to have various levels of trust over time – but never complete.)

My motives for pushing her toward God were partly selfish I guess.  Years of living had shown me what I didn’t understand when I was a younger adult – I can’t fix every problem. And, at some level, it seemed easier to make her go to God and deal with Him directly – leaving me out of the loop!  But it made Heather feel like I was giving up on her.  That she was too much trouble.  That she had, in her words, “used up all of me by the age of 7.” At first that troubled me and she threw those kind of words back at me all of the time – as if to guilt me in to giving her the secrets to life that she seemingly thought I was keeping from her! 

What I didn’t know until just a few days after she died was that about the same time I began to tell her that I didn’t have all the answers and that I couldn’t fix her problems, she began keeping a very personal, very private journal.  On loose-leaf paper, in order by date, were over 250 letters addressed to herself and to God. Some were simply the journal entries of a wise young woman who struggled with life. Some were passionate love letters to Jesus. Raw and unedited, she wrote from her heart.  She shared with that loose-leaf paper and God what she refused to share with almost anyone else. 

A few days after finding and reading some of the journal entries, thoughts creeped into my head … What if?  What if I had not repeatedly told her that I didn’t have the answers?  What if I had not said, I’m all out of ideas – except for God.  I know He’s got the solution?”  What if I didn’t push her away from me and toward God?  What would have happened if I had continued to try to “help” Heather by giving her the “answers,” as if I could even if I wanted to?

Would she have turned so passionately to God - the only one who could offer her real help?  Honestly, I will never know that answer.  But as a mother, it teaches me an important lesson about my role as mom.  As much as I’m expected to be able to fix anything.  As much as I would like to be able to remove all the hurt and pain from my children.  It simply isn’t in my job description.  At some point, I must walk beside my child and guide her toward the real answers, but I would be a fool to think that I was the answer. I can only hope that I remember that lesson for my other 19 children. 

Part 8 continues with the story of some of our other children's arrival into our family.

Part 5 - Lee Family: Our Birth - Foster - Adoptive Journey to 20 Children

(This is Part 5 of our story.  It is the beginning of our move into the adoption world.  It is also a story of commitment and endurance.)

The Middle of the Beginning –Adopting Heather

In 1999, at almost exactly the same time that Heather was placed in her first adoptive home, weird things were happening at the Lee home. We were still a respite home for Gail – although she spent almost as much time at our house as she did at the Group Home.  We had wanted to adopt Gail, but she didn’t want to separate from her twin sister and her twin wasn’t interested in adoption. 

Anyway, we didn’t have any specific plans for more children and we had not completed any paperwork or a home study that would allow us to adopt a child. 

Nonetheless, right before Christmas in 1998, Alan came up to me in what I now know is his “God is telling me something really important and I need you to listen” voice and said something totally irrational and crazy – considering he had had a vasectomy after our third child!  He announced in a rather rushed and hurried tone, “Anna.  I can’t shake this feeling that we are supposed to be preparing for another child!”  I knew I wasn’t pregnant, but he couldn’t offer me any more information about how we were supposed to go about getting another child!  And believe me – I asked lots of questions.  

It wasn’t normal for my husband to suddenly blurt out that God was talking to him directly about anything – let alone another child! God doesn’t speak so directly and clearly to me or my husband very often.  And my husband is a man of few words, but the sense of urgency in his voice made me take him seriously. 

So, without any idea of what I was preparing for - I started nesting like I was nine-months pregnant!  I cleaned closets, rearranged rooms, made phone calls inquiring about the adoption process (I couldn’t imagine any other way to get a child), and who knows what else over the next few weeks.

Three weeks later, while I was sitting in my law office working, I got what I thought was a sales call.  I almost hung up, but two words caught my attention – adoption agency!  The call was from a California adoption agency who said that they had heard about us from a person in Texas, who heard about us from someone in who knows where, who said that we might be willing to adopt a school-age girl.  Needless to say, I didn’t hang up.

The private California adoption agency was searching for an adoptive home for a six-year-old first grader whose adoption was disrupting and needed to be placed immediately.  We were given sketchy information about her history – including her psychological issues.  After taking some notes and getting callback numbers, I called my husband.

I had barely gotten the words out of my mouth when he said, “This is it! This is what God was trying to tell me!  Yes.  We will take her.” 

She was still in her adoptive home in Missouri and we had to travel there to meet her.  Fortunately, my husband had always wanted to visit New York City and I had saved up money and surprised him with a trip for our 10^th Anniversary in June.  So we turned in our round trip tickets to New York City. Even though Alan was giving up a dream trip – including our seats to the David Letterman show - he didn’t think twice about the choice.  The next day we were on our way to a small town in Missouri to meet our new daughter. 

On January 16, 1999, we spent the day with Heather and her adoptive family – getting to know her.  She was adorable and precocious and we fell in love – knowing that we were about to enter into something big.  Really big. But even we didn’t realize how big “Really Big” was going to be.

As it turns out, we were Heather’s 7^th placement.  She had been passed around between multiple family members, but for a variety of reasons, no one kept her for very long.   Her biological Aunt had her the longest – for 2 ½ years – and she ultimately placed her for adoption with a private agency.  Heather was matched with a youngish couple from Missouri who visited her a few times before she was placed in their home for adoption.  The adoption disrupted due to her psychological issues – including the diagnosis of Attachment Disorder - and that’s when we got the call from the California adoption agency.

Two weeks later, in what can only be described as a God-assisted adoption – Heather was placed in our home for adoption by an Ohio magistrate.  We went from having no home study and no idea that we were about to adopt - to having a new child in our home – all in two weeks. 

And did I mention that this adoption involved 4 states – all of which had to coordinate their paperwork?  That can’t happen without God.

Or that the magistrate in Ohio was going to transfer the case to Missouri rather than deal with another failed adoption.  But because I was an attorney and understood the legal issues – as well as being familiar with the foster/adoptive process – she talked to me by phone for almost 2 hours and agreed to retain jurisdiction so that we could adopt Heather?

Or that our doctors did our medical exam and filled out the paperwork the same day we called?

Or that we found a private social worker that came to our house within two days, contacted all our references and stayed up until 3 a.m. writing our report?

Or that our fingerprint report came back almost immediately?

Or that my husband’s Child Abuse & Neglect (CAN) report came back with a problem?  Turns out there is another man with his exact name in a nearby county with an abuse problem.  The miracle is that the social worker was able to definitively establish that it wasn’t my husband – all within the same few days?

So, as you will hear me say frequently… We never really questioned whether Heather was our child.  God had made that pretty clear to us before we even knew she existed.  Whenever things got really challenging with Heather, we always went back to the fact that God had given her to us and we couldn’t really reject His gift.


Part 6 continues with some of the details of Heather's short life and her impact on our family.  Because she is now in Heaven, I feel I can share her story in full -- unlike some of my other kids whose privacy I  want to protect.  

Part 4 - Lee Family: Our Birth - Foster - Adoptive Journey to 20 Children: Part 4

(This is Part 4 of our story.  If you missed Parts 1-3, you might want to start at the beginning!)

The Almost Middle of the Beginning – The First Children

We got pregnant on our honeymoon and I gave birth to our oldest biological daughter Rebecca almost exactly nine months later.  (And no, we weren’t pregnant when we eloped, although it wasn’t technically impossible if you know what I mean!)  We must have been quite the fertile couple because two more girls quickly followed.  When our third daughter Amy was born, Rebecca was 2-years-old and Kathryn was still only one. 

Because of Fini - my special needs sister that my parents adopted when they were about 50 - my husband knew a little about fostering and adopting kids.  It was part of my everyday conversation.  But he had no interest whatsoever.  He wouldn’t even talk about it.  He just listened to me talk about the possibilities for us as a couple.  It was my passion – but not yet his.

I was still practicing law and my husband was a Certified Public Accountant.  Life was busy and full to say the least. But we adored our children and made our careers fit around raising our girls.

When the girls were 2, 3 and 4, my husband and I went on an overnight camping trip for our anniversary.  At that point, two of our three children were conceived during the same week - so we often joked about not taking any more trips for our anniversary unless we wanted another child!  That year, my husband had a vasectomy, so we thought we were safe.  Little did we know.

While we were there, we saw a group of girls playing at the lake.  A very outgoing, talkative girl from the group named Nikki approached my husband and insisted that she knew him from somewhere.  He had no idea who she was and although he’s not the most talkative man around, he engaged her in lively conversation.  

After she walked away, my husband became curious and asked the couple at a nearby table about the girls. He learned that the girls were on an outing with their group foster home.  The couple went on to explain that the girls lived in the group home, but some had respite homes where they could visit for weekends and holidays so they didn't have to stay at the group home all the time.  One of the girls, Gail, had not had a respite home in many years. 

My husband was intrigued.  He asked questions and found out how to become a respite foster home. It was surprisingly simple. Up to that point, he was convinced he could never love a child that wasn’t his own and he didn’t want to have anything to do with foster care or adoption. 

When we were alone, he asked me if these were the kind of kids I had been talking about.  I told him this was exactly what I meant. After five years, he changed his mind and I didn’t have to do anything!  I sat back and watched as Alan made phone calls, obtained the paperwork, arranged to have us fingerprinted and did all that was necessary for Gail to start visiting our house.

About six weeks later, she came for what was supposed to be a week- long visit – and stayed for almost 6 weeks!  We fell in love with her immediately.  Our relationship flourished and she began coming to our house every chance she got.

That was the beginning of our foster/adoptive journey as a couple.


Part 5 of the story continues with our journey to adopt Heather.  As some of you know, our spirited, troubled, smiling, talented daughter Heather joined our family on January 16, 1999.  She was killed in a car accident on January 16, 2011.  We miss her every day.

Part 2 -Lee Family: Our Birth - Foster - Adoptive Journey to 20 Children

(This is Part 2 of the series telling our family story.  I am asked to tell some part of this story every day.  I have finally written it down. Part 3 will follow.)

Over the years, times changed. Open-adoptions began.  Foster parents began to have some contact with the adoptive and/or birth parents. The times were finally catching up with what we already understood.

We kept other medically fragile children, including Robert, who lived with us while awaiting his kidney transplant and Kristen, who died while waiting for hers.  Robert was a chubby little black baby.  This was the early-1980’s in Alabama.  Although race wasn’t a daily issue for us – I was surprised by the number of people who were offended by the fact that we were taking care of a black foster child.  This was after Timothy and so most of our friends expected the unexpected from our family.  This was just another crazy thing our family did.  Strangers weren’t always so understanding. 

The day Robert’s kidney became available, my mom was out shopping with Robert.  This was before cell phones.  We got the call from the transplant center and had only a matter of hours to find them and get Robert to the hospital.  We called all of the usual places she shopped – asking if there was “a white woman and a black baby” in the store.  At that time, it was a novelty.   But that novelty may have saved his life because we found her and he got his transplant.

Twenty-five years later, Robert is still an integral part of my parent’s lives and his mother is a close friend of the family.

And then there were the older kids.  We didn’t have many, but they were memorable.  While I was studying for the bar exam, my parents took in 6-year-old Lavar, who had been confined to the hospital for almost four years of his life.  He came with a tracheotomy, but he was as solid as a tank. He rammed into you so hard he could knock you over – and that was when he wanted a hug. 

My mom was good with the kind and gentle children, but she wasn’t naturally attracted to the rough and tough kids.  I was attracted to the 6-year old football player with an afro, who had to put his finger over his trach to eek out raspy words.  The boy who carried around an oxygen tank with a 100-foot cord so he could move and play.  That relationship worked out well for us. 

There always seemed to be at least one of us in the family who was perfectly suited for the personality of each child.  I was living with my grandmother only a few miles away, but I made it a point to have a relationship with Lavar and when he was hospitalized right before Christmas, I used my newly acquired legal skills and knowledge to fight for his right to visit his mom on Christmas Day.  I’m not sure what ridiculous things I surely said, but he got to go home for the day and I felt like I was following in my parents’ footsteps as an advocate for the best interest of the child – even when it didn’t match protocol, the rules, or what the world thought. That trait has come in handy over the years.

And no one can forget Fini.  She won’t let you.  She’s the star of every social event.  When she was born to poverty stricken parents in South Alabama, she had tetrology of fallott (three heart and lung defects).  She was in and out of hospitals for much of her first two years of life. 

She suffered from brain damage that left us uncertain about her future.  Never afraid of the challenge and always deeply committed – my parents hardly flinched.  After working with her parents for almost two-years to get her back home, Fini’s parents decided to allow my parents to adopt her.

Now my 23-year-old dark-skinned little sister – her simple mind and big heart have done more to change, inspire, and soften the heart of my father than any other person on earth.  She will always need my parents.  But the truth is – they need her too.

Yep. It must be gain, because I’m now 49-years-old and ultimately, not much has changed in my life. There were a few gap years in between the time I grew up as a foster sibling and the time my husband and I became foster/adoptive parents.  At first glance, it looks as though my life took me in a totally different direction from the one I lead now – but God knew what I needed to accomplish to be useful to Him!

Now bear with me for a moment because the next part of my story has a lot to do with my education and career choices, which can seem boring and unrelated. But looking back, I can now see that themes began to develop early in my life and that many of my seemingly unrelated decisions turned out to be key components of the big picture of my life.  In other words, they are important.

So, in between, I went to Samford University on a debate scholarship, hated it, and transferred to the University of North Carolina during the Michael Jordan Basketball Era. (Claim to fame: Michael and the rest of the basketball team were the “co-ed” part of my floor in our dorm). Being a classic overachiever, I earned two degrees in 3 ½ years: There was a B.A. in Speech Communications and a B.A. with Honors in Public Policy Analysis – with a specialization in Race Relations and Human Inequality.  I wrote my Honors Thesis on desegregation of campus housing at Carolina. It required me to go into the archives of the University and interview people who had been around for the 20 years since the school had become integrated.  I was an advocate for improving measures to desegregate campus housing.

Both my specialization and my thesis were influenced by the fact that my best friend in college happened to be an African-American male. This was the early 1980’s, but it was still considered taboo for me to be friends with a black man. I suppose growing up with black foster-siblings gave me a different view than most of my peers.

I say “happened to be” because circumstances brought us together – but color didn’t keep us apart. He was a Resident Director in the set of private off-campus dorms where I lived and I worked under him.  We had a lot in common and formed a lasting friendship almost immediately.  We talked openly about race relations.  He came from a large family and lived poor in a rural town where he wasn’t allowed into an integrated school until 5^th grade.

I grew up with extremely frugal parents on a limited income, but my dad made a living wage and also saved and paid cash for everything and as a result, I was afforded many opportunities.  My friend worked his rear off to make opportunities for himself. He was the first and only one on either side of his family to graduate college.   I worked hard too.  Both he and I valued honesty and hard work and diligence and neither of us was concerned by what others said about us.

We weren’t even dating – which would have been the ultimate sin – but people thought that we were. Some of my friends – male and female – openly disapproved based simply on the color of his skin. 

But I was my parent’s child.  And the fact that others criticized us made me even more determined to follow my heart and make my own decisions without regard to the world’s view of my life.

During this same time period, I met the man who was to become my first husband.  We met at a conference in Washington, D.C. and then I had an internship there.  We dated for about a year long-distance.  Me in North Carolina.  Him in Michigan. He was older than me and already in law school.  He swept me off my feet – or so I thought.  It was difficult to tell from a distance. We got engaged anyway.

I moved to Michigan and applied for law schools in the area.  He planned to run for political office.  Long story short, I had a serious automobile accident with a drunk driver 3 weeks before our wedding. Based on what happened during this crisis, I can look back and know that I had all the signs that this marriage couldn’t succeed.  It became apparent to me that he was an alcoholic and we didn’t share the same values, goals and dreams.  But I was only 20-years-old and I didn’t know how to stop a big wedding, nor was I sure that I was supposed to. 

Suffice it to say that it was a bad decision for both of us.  Our first anniversary was spent trying to decide whether we should stay married another year.  Ultimately, we were divorced when he told me that he didn’t love me and never had.  He had married me because he thought it would help his political  career.  I didn’t.

I was in my second year of law school when we finally divorced.  It was an emotional struggle for me.  I never thought I would marry and divorce.  It was my first true failure in life.

Ultimately, I kept pushing through – graduating from law school in the top 20% of my class and writing on to Law Review.  Writing turned out to be my strength.  It gave me many opportunities even my good grades didn’t.  Including a Clerkship with Justice Oscar W. Adams, the first African-American State Supreme Court Justice in the United States.  After an initial selection process, he chose his Clerk based on a writing competition.  He later told me I won it hands down and I spent the next year researching and writing opinions for the Alabama Supreme Court and learning from a man who was a key figure in the evolution of race relations in Alabama.   Race and writing became two strong’s themes in my life.  

The clerkship and writing skills led to a job in a large law firm with a great starting salary and countless working hours.  I was technically a trial attorney, but strongly preferred to write Appellate Briefs.  I handled much of the firm’s appellate work for the three years I worked at there. 

Later, my research and writing skills were the key to my ability to practice law and raise children at the same time.  You can write in the middle of the night!

Since law school, I’ve added a few more degrees and credentials – including a Masters in Education and training in Mediation and Christian Peacemaking - just because I love learning and love teaching what I know. 

But all my degrees are not the source of my self-worth and are fairly meaningless – except to me – because they show me how God was present through every step – even when it seemed I was following a completely different passion.  And all those degrees and relationships and experiences have come in handy over the years as I advocate for the children that I love and help kids both academically and emotionally.

Besides, I met my current husband while I was working at the large law firm. 

... and that part of the story coincidentally falls today - on our 23rd  Wedding Anniversary.  Part 3 - the marriage - will follow so look for it!