A Heart for Adoption, Part I

Anyone in the adoption community, either domestic or international, already knows that not everyone has a heart for adoption.  The rest of you, giving this some thought, I'm sure will arrive at the same conclusion.  It is a special thing - to be able to take in the orphan and love him as your own, to care for his special needs, though many would say you "didn't have to take on that burden".  A heart for adoption, sees the adopted child simply as a child, no different from one which is hers biologically.  I may go even further as to say that the Christian heart for adoption sees all her children as God's children, His children which she has been so blessed as to parent on this earth.  

In any case, some people simply don't feel the call to adopt, for one reason or another.  Maybe they simply never considered it, being able to have children naturally and biologically.  Maybe they feel the cost or the requirements are too prohibitive.  Maybe they doubt their ability to parent the orphan.  Maybe they simply choose to value other things in their lives over the call to adopt.  Some even actively campaign against adoption, a thing I simply do not understand.  Recently my attention was called to this video.  Here you can see what was once a flourishing orphanage in Latin America, finding homes for hundreds of children who would have otherwise lived out their days in the institution - but because of people who don't have hearts for adoption, because of restrictions that aim to further a political agenda rather than help the children, these children will now grow up in an institution.  They will turn 18 and go out into the world, never having a mother or father to come back to, truly having no family to call their own.  There is a man in this video who states "The children have dignity".  What kind of dignity, I ask you, is growing up in an institution?  This, my friends, is clearly not the work of God.  At other times, I have seen people who do not have hearts for adoption disparaging adoptive parents - and yes, even other adoptive parents - disparaging adoptive parents - for one reason or another.  Again, clearly not the work of God, because He only does good work.  

All this has made me wonder... how has God prepared my heart for adoption?  And here it is important to understand a small, special group of people who had a huge impact on my life, people who, had they not existed, been loved, lived their lives, I would not be here, the person I am today.

The first group are family.  Fifty years ago, yes, fifty, there was a woman.  The story of how God prepared my heart for adoption can probably be traced back further, but my human limitations prevent me from delving into those details.  Returning to my prior thought, fifty years ago, my grandmother, Adeline, was pregnant with a little boy, a little boy who she likely did not know, given the medical technology of that era, would have Down Syndrome.  

Here is my Grandma Adeline, with me (around age 7) and my brother (around 2).

And then there was my grandfather, Anthony, for whom that little boy would be named.  

Here he is, with my mom, just a few short years ago.

That yellow shirt.  Always with a stain on it, in the days I knew him.  He loved that shirt.  I don't know why, but he loved it.  In earlier days he also loved telling me silly jokes, pushing me around on old riding toys, showing me their rose garden, getting out the little box of trucks and army men that I made a beeline for every time I went to my grandparents' house.  

These two people, my grandparents, whom I only had the priviledge of knowing for 10 and 18 years respectively, years earlier gave birth to a little boy with Down Syndrome.  They named him Anthony.  The doctors told them he would most likely have to be institutionalized.  They told him he would not live a year, he would not walk, he would not talk.  But they brought him home anyways.  That was 1962, an era in which our own country was embroiled in the same misguided philosophy that remains in many countries across the globe today; that a person who is disabled, cannot have a normal life, that they are defective.  It was more than accepted to place a child born with disabilities in an institution, where they would grow up much the way children in orphanages abroad grow up today.  But my grandparents, Adeline and Anthony, they didn't put their new baby Anthony in a home for 'retarded' children.  They brought him home and loved him as a member of their family.  He was the baby.  He was doted on by all seven of his older brothers and sisters. 

My Uncle Anthony lived ten years before passing away due to cardiac complications of Down Syndrome, which today can often be surgically corrected, but at the time were often a death sentence.  In that time, he surpassed all expectations.  He learned how to walk, and talk.  He loved his mommy and daddy, his brothers and sisters.  And when the time came, he knew he was going home to be with God.  He told my mom, my uncles and aunts, my grandparents, that he was going to die.  On December 28, 1972, my Uncle Tony met God.  

Here he is, only months before his passing.  Please forgive the photo of an old photo.

Look at him.  All dressed up in a suit, smiling for the camera, beloved by his mom and dad, his brothers and sisters.  My Uncle Tony was a beloved son and brother, and though I only know him through my mother's photos and stories, my beloved uncle.  

My mother told me stories of my Uncle Tony from an early age.  My childhood friends can recount for you how hurt I would become when someone used the word "retard" as an insult.  I used to solemnly tell them that someone I loved died of Down Syndrome, and to please not use that word around me again.  By middle school, against my better judgement, I'd taken to slapping or kicking anyone who dared to use the "R" word around me.  I remember a particular instance in Washington D.C.  There was this girl - her name was either Ashley or Nicole, she couldn't seem to decide.  So I just generally referred to her as AshleyNicole.  We were at a dinner theater, a dress-up event (which we were underdressed for due to a snafu with the planning of the trip) and one on which we were expected to be on our best behavior.  Then AshleyNicole used the R word, and when I told why it hurt me, she said "Too bad".  So I slapped her.  Now, growing up, I was the literal definition of teacher's pet.  You'd sooner find me eating worms than breaking a rule, particularly an important rule.  And, being 14, AshleyNicole of course went straight to the teacher chaperoning our group and informed her that I'd just slapped her.  When the teacher asked why, she told her the truth.  I'll not forget the way that teacher handled that situation.  She sternly chastised the girl for misusing the word, then turned to me and said something along the lines of "Perhaps hitting people isn't the best way to get your point across that you're hurt by their words".  I nodded.  AshleyNicole fumed with the injustice that I hadn't immediately been kicked off the trip and sent home.  I stopped hitting people for saying the R word.  I didn't stop speaking up.  Children with Down Syndrome always held a special place in my heart because of the stories my mom told me about Uncle Tony.  About how happy he was, how he didn't pick up on any of the social pressures the rest of us deal with, he was just concerned with his suitcase, his rope, and his Umma Ummas.  And he never met a stranger.  

Fifty years ago.  God began to prepare my yet unborn heart for special needs adoption fifty years ago... with a little boy named Anthony, who happened to have Down Syndrome.  

I love you, Uncle Tony.  Please give my love to my best friend Angie - who is the next piece of my story - and who has been there in heaven with you six months today.