Happy New Year

For our family, the new year begins at the end of August, not in January. That’s when Bill and the kids start thinking about the new school year, the time when everything changes. Three years ago, late August was when we brought home Lewi and Lily, another big change that took place at the same time of year.

Bill and I have always appreciated and had a great love and respect for our extended families, our church, our schools, and all the other things that supported us as individuals and as a family. We know that we have been blessed with strong support networks. All of that said, our nuclear family is pretty tight (in a way that isn’t cliquey or cloying). We genuinely enjoyed being together, and usually laugh a lot when we are. Together we have endured cancer and car trips, faced great losses and great opportunities. We’ve cut our individual paths in the world, but at the end of the day, we know we belong to each other.

When I wanted to expand our family through adoption, Bill and the kids respected my calling and supported it. As we went through the process, the agency did a lot of training with us on the problems that adopted kids could have. They talked about the adopted child’s potential problems, and they talked about how extended families and society might react to a mixed-race family. They tried to prepare us, and overall they did a good job.

Like every aspect of parenting, it’s a whole different ball game once you take the field, but I think ALL of the kids did remarkably well—or at least behaved predictably. But I think each of us went through a grieving process: grieving the family that we had been.  I should have seen it coming; I remember the moment when, pregnant with Daniel, I suddenly realized that my relationship with Phillip was about to change dramatically. But even if I had anticipated it, the grief would have come, and we’d each have to go through it. Change—even positive change—is hard.

Family is so much more than common DNA. I give my mom and dad, and especially my late stepmother, Mickie, a lot of credit for modeling this for me. When I was a kid, “family” occasions like holiday dinners always included people beyond “us.” And when Dad and Mickie married, they worked hard to merge their six adult kids (and our spouses and offspring) into one family. We weren’t the Brady Bunch, but we learned to love, appreciate, and support each other, a legacy that has continued after Mickie’s death.

My older kids still have a special bond with each other, but they also have developed special bonds with their younger siblings. They have learned to share and care for others in a whole new way. They are a little less egocentric and a little more aware of the world we live in. And having to make room for new family members has paved the way as they have begun bringing home significant others. Our family will continue to expand and grow, and we’re happy for these new additions.

A few years ago, we began a new tradition. In mid- to late August, we gather as a family: the seven of us, plus boyfriends/girlfriends if they are available. We remember all of the good things we have to celebrate: two late-summer birthdays, the anniversary of the kids’ arrival, the coming of a new school year, the impending departure of those going off to college.

Then we raise a glass to us: the family we were, the family we are, and the family we are becoming. We know that change will come, and it should. We also know that, whatever those changes, good or bad, we are rooted, and it is those roots that give us wings.