Shots

I think that it is established that I am the world’s worst mother. Over the years my kids have been happy to point out all of my weaknesses and all of the things that that I did that they didn’t like. Now that they are older they are a little more forgiving, but the truth is, like all parents, I’ve injected plenty of my own personality into my parenting, and sometimes that means I’ve come up short.

This has become even more apparent in recent days when I’ve undertaken the huge project of getting everyone’s photo books updated. I began scrapbooks for my three oldest many years ago, and I was pretty well caught up when we moved into our current home ten years ago. Since then, I’ve done precious little. I did put together a book for Kelsey during her senior year in high school, but beyond that, stuff has just accumulated.

I began my career as a scrapbooker before the digital age, and I kind of like the old school method of cutting and pasting, in part because I’m comfortable with it and in part because I’m kind of tactile. But it certainly has its drawbacks. It’s messy, and it takes up a lot of space, and I don’t always have exactly what I want or need to complete a layout.

Plus I spend a lot of time sorting everything, especially photos. With ten years of prints, this is no small feat. I ask my kids to help, and sometimes they are actually helpful, but when they do, it isn’t always pleasant.  Sometimes they are annoyed because they cannot BELIEVE that I don’t remember some of the details of the photos—things that were clearly memorable to them. Sometimes they are peeved because, going through the photos, they are reminded of a time when they felt shortchanged, persecuted, or neglected: “Well, there was a year when I didn’t get to have a birthday party.” Other times they are unhappy with the photo quality: “I look terrible. Why would you include that?”

As we sort photos, I most regret the shots I didn’t get. Sometimes I would run out of film or the batteries would die unexpectedly, but sometimes I would just forget to grab the camera. I actually forgot the camera for my oldest child’s high school graduation. Seriously, who does that? Some days I really am a terrible excuse for a parent.

Assembling the books takes a lot of time and effort, and some days I don’t know if I actually enjoy it. Right now I feel so much self-imposed pressure to get it done that I’m not sure I’m loving it all that much, and I’m not sure I’m doing the best job I could do. Of course, I have more experience now, so I can do more on instinct. And since the idea is to highlight the photos, I worry less about creative use of paper and stickers, and focus on the pictures.

My other frustration is that writing in these books has always been important to me: putting the photos in context, remembering cute sayings or reactions, writing down the kids’ best friends or favorite foods. I’m frustrated that so many memories have faded, making the writing perfunctory and not as interesting as the captions I wrote when the assembly time was closer to the actual date.  

For the two younger kids, nearly all of our photos are digital, so I’m considering doing digital books for them. There are lots of advantages to the process: less mess for sure, less cost, more flexibility, fewer mistakes. But there’s also less “me” in the books. The books won’t have my terrible handwriting, my artistic style, my fingerprints on the photos. My kids likely would appreciate a perfect book, just like they would appreciate a perfect mother, but as they mature, the things they value may shift.

So maybe I’ll just keep doing it old school. Perfection—in projects and parenting—is overrated. 

Another Father

On this Father’s Day, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge an important father in our lives.  I am sure he has never received a Father’s Day tie or a plaster-of-paris handprint. I’m also sure he’s never gone a day—even a Sunday—without having to work, and more than most, I’m sure he has stayed awake nights worrying about his family.

I met him only once: the day we picked up Lily and Lewi from the orphanage. He had made the long trek from his village to meet us. He had surrendered the children for adoption about six months earlier, knowing that he and his new wife would not be able to care for them. His older children were of an age to help support the family, but these younger two, without a mother to care for them…well, what could he do?

In August of 2009, we traveled to Ethiopia. At an orphanage about an hour outside of the capital of Addis Ababa, we met our kids for the first time, as well as their biological father, Ulfina Deressa. He was too thin for his clothes, not tall, and he wore the sadness of a man living in grinding poverty.

We spent about an hour there, talking with him through an interpreter. We were never sure if we were getting straight answers, as it often seemed their discussions were long and the translations were far more brief.  We learned that the kids’ mother had died two years early of unknown causes. She was 36, and the two of them had four older children. For a time an aunt had helped to care for the youngsters, but when the aunt and the father married, they came to the conclusion that the two youngest should be put up for adoption.

I’m not sure what he hoped for, for his kids or for his family, when he took this brave step. On that day and in the days since, we wondered if the father imagined that we would provide him with some kind of financial support. This is expressly forbidden in international adoptions. Nothing—except a few photos—is permitted to change hands, because the State Department wants to avoid the sale of children, or even the appearance that children are being exchanged for money. 

We also wondered if the father really understood the magnitude of his actions. Perhaps the family thought that, because they weren’t infants, Lewi and Lily would never be chosen, and so the risk to putting them up for adoption was small. I do know that our translator, an executive for the adoption agency, spent a great deal of time explaining to the father, and not for the first time, that this was really happening.

We gave Ulfina pictures of our other children—Lewi and Lily’s new brothers and sister. He gave us a collection of photo booth snapshots of their birth family, each wearing the careworn expression of their father. Then our guide mentioned that the rain was about to start, and so we had to go. Lily’s bio father carried her to the van, talking to her in a language I did not understand but with inflections that were clear in any language.

I’m sure he often thinks about the kids, and about his decision. I hope he knows that his actions changed the world for the better for so many people, and that we feel blessed to call Lily and Lewi our own. So on Father’s Day I remember a father half a world away, and say a prayer of thanks for him, and the love that allowed him to release his children to us. 

Beauty

A few weeks ago, I got a haircut. I had been growing my hair out so that I could donate it for wigs for cancer patients, and it was finally the requisite 10 inches long. When my hair gets too long it starts to drive me crazy, but I’m not a fan of myself in super short hair. Fortunately the stylist was able to get the length needed while still leaving it longer around my face, so I don’t feel like I look weirdly unbalanced.

Before the cut, I asked to Kelsey take a “before” picture, which was kind of a big deal because I rarely have my picture taken voluntarily. When I see a photo of myself, I almost don’t recognize it as me. It’s weird, actually, that the camera sees me so differently than I see myself in the mirror.

In the “before” picture, I saw someone I hadn’t seen before, in film or in the mirror. This time I saw not myself, but my mother. Of course I knew we resembled each other, but in that photo there was no denying that time had deepened our similarities.

When she was alive, I thought my mother was beautiful, although I’m not sure I told her that. She would have denied it, anyway. She stressed about her weight and her wardrobe. I often gave her fashion advice, which she appreciated about as much as I appreciated her fashion advice to me. She hated her hair, and spent a lot of energy trying to make it something it was not. Instead of investing in a good cut that would work with her hair, she went to the beauty school for the cheapest cut she could get, and then would put in a hideous home perm. It’s ironic that when she died, chemo had taken all of her hair. We buried her in her wig. And she was still beautiful.

The only time I remember my mom telling me I was beautiful was when she would say, “You’re beautiful when you’re angry,” a way of dismissing both my looks and my feelings with one comment. I don’t even remember a time when she complimented an outfit, a hairstyle, or a choice of jewelry. Part of that was her own insecurity, and part of that was being of a generation that did not want to raise vain, spoiled children.

It took a lot of growing up for me to realize that human beauty comes in more than one slender, blue-eyed version.  Now I see external beauty in others, usually without even having to look for it. While I know that, especially in younger women, it’s critically important to recognize their brains and abilities, it’s not a bad thing to compliment their appearance. Because while I don’t want to be responsible for raising a generation of vain, spoiled children, I would like them to be self-assured and confident, and part of that is feeling good about one’s looks.

I try not to complain about my looks, but when Kelsey catches me at it, she reminds me that SHE thinks I’m beautiful. She says I am a bad example to her if I do not affirm my own beauty. I know she is right. And now that I see my mother’s face in mine, perhaps I can find a way to affirm her beauty that lives on in me.