Tag: adoption/truama

Posted in Loss, Trauma

Geo

Posted on by soshewritesweb

This may be hard for many of you to read and I know that because, as hard as it is for you to read, it is infinitely harder for me to write. 

I remember when I was 17, I was riding into town with my mom and grandma when my mom ran over a turtle, we heard the shell crunch, I cried out in sadness and my grandma said “it’s okay honey, that’s what the shell is for, it will be fine. It will just find a new shell” I turned to her to let her know I was too old to fall for her stories trying to make me feel better and realized she actually believed it. Like a 2-pound turtle could actually survive a 2-ton Chevy Silverado. I feel like the last month, and a half of my life has been that sentimentality on repeat with everyone I talk to. Let me explain…

My son passed away ten days before Christmas, suddenly and senselessly. My husband and I received the 2am phone call every parent fear to receive. “Your son is in the emergency room; he has a head trauma and there is nothing we can do except keep him comfortable until you get here” the hour and a half drive felt like it took days. All the scenarios playing in my mind.  The conversation with God, begging for a miracle, not him please God, not my son. The calls that had to be made in a car bound for the hardest moments of my life to each sibling that wasn’t with us. To his brother in another state working, his sisters who would be woke from their last night of peaceful sleep for years to come. Each call made with the same numb unsure voice, “Your brother is in the hospital, we dont know much but he isnt going to survive the rest of the night, come quickly.” The walk through the halls escorted by police, walking into a room seeing my beautiful boy being kept alive by tubes and machines will forever be etched into my brain. I sat on the bedside and the bargaining began.

“You can heal him, his story will bring so many to you when we share the miracle he received from you.”

“I will give up everything for his life, even if it means taking care of him for the rest of mine.”

“God, you are the ultimate healer! Show these doctors how its done!”

And the hardest plea, the hardest words I have had to utter to my father, “not yet, he isnt yours yet, please give him another chance to give his life to You.”

In those hours of begging and bargaining with God, we watched our boy fade. We listened to the doctors and had to choose between what we wanted and what he would want. We had to face the truth that not every story ends with a miracle we would prefer. There was no coming back from this injury, he was out of time, and the only chance at continued life was through his choice of organ donation and so we signed the paperwork honoring his gift. December 15, 2025, at 1338 my son was officially declared dead.

Immediately I began being told I would see him again, that he was in a better place, he was with God, and he was watching over me. Here is where I am going to lose many of you, I would be lying to myself and everyone I talk to if I agreed with those statements. Let me first say that I do not know where my son is, I am not God. I was not privy to conversations my son had with God, if any. I was not privy to the conversation had on that fatal night. I am only privy to the Word of God and His plan for salvation. I can tell you that I pray daily for God to choose to show mercy and grace to my son and daily I wrestle with the scriptures that cannot be denied.

I look around at the world, at the lines that have been blurred for our comfort and desires and ask myself how we got here. To a world where even “christians” don’t want sin acknowledged as sin. I sat in that hospital room listening to the sounds of the machines breathing for my son’s body, knowing and feeling that he was gone and his shell was all that remained and I wanted desperately to agree with everyone around me that he was in the arms of my father, but then I looked at each of his siblings whom he dearly loved surrounding him and I thought of the rich man begging God to allow him to warn his brothers that Hell existed and I knew that Geo would not want to risk them staying in a life ignoring the Words of God to make me feel better. I sat with my son in that room for two days watching friends and family holding onto him, crying, hoping, and saying goodbye and I could only hear my promise I made him so many times, “I won’t lie, not to you, for you, or about you” and this lie would be the easiest one I would ever tell if I chose to and the hardest one to deny.

From the day I lost my boy until this day I have wrestled with God, the scriptures, and my own selfish desires of wanting comfort over sharing truth. The bible tells us clearly that many will say “Lord Lord” and still be turned away (Matthew 7:21). Scripture is clear that we must profess Christ, be born again, and do the will of the father (Romans 10:9, John 3:3) and warns of the wide and narrow path (Matthew 7:13). God tells us clearly, we must live in obedience, die to ourselves, and no longer live in sin. Again, I am not God, I do not know the conversations shared with Him and G, but I know the life G was living. I know that he was raised in church, went to the camps and Wednesday night youth group. I know we prayed as a family, shared our convictions and belief in God, I know he studied the bible with friends and that he told me many times he wasn’t ready to stop “living”. G shared with me how he just wanted to have fun and enjoy life. I know he went to church and even took his girlfriends with him, so he knew the importance of God. I know that when we spoke about living with his girlfriend not being what God wanted, he said “yeah, but it’s not the worse sin” so he understood what sin was. Tragically, like many young people who cannot fathom life being taken too soon, my son thought he had time to choose God after he chose to live the life the world tells them is worth living. Only age and loss can tell you it really isn’t. As I read 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 my heart breaks that my sweet boy thought he was living the good life as he experienced nearly every one of those sins listed every day of his life out of our home, including the last night of his life. That scripture tells us those who live in those sins will not inherit the kingdom.

I will say one more time, I am not God. I do not know with certainty where my son is or where he will spend eternity. But, as I look at what is going on around the world, specifically our country, and see the blurred lines of what sin is and churches sliding the scale to allow comfort over truth, I have to be willing to get off the crazy-go-round and speak truth. It would be easy to talk myself into believing G is in heaven, that there is some loophole in the trauma he was put through as a baby and young child that gave him a free pass. If I did that, my testimony would be void. If I lied for myself but warned others that choices matter, that you aren’t born a Christian, that being a US citizen doesn’t automatically give you heavenly citizenship then I would be a hypocrite and would be failing my savior and my son. If G is lost, if he is going to be ushered into eternity without God, I don’t want to be one of the people who failed his siblings and friends and risk them following him into that place without a fight.

Yes, God is good, God is merciful, and God is Just. God gives free will and allows us to make the choice. Though God gives mercy to those He chooses to give mercy and compassion on whom He will give compassion we cannot deny he gave His son Jesus Christ and to deny Him is to deny God. This world is chaos; it points us to indulge and enjoy without worry that there will be a cost of doing such. We do not know when our time will be cut off, but we do know there is a court appearance when we pass, we know that God is the judge and Christ is the only plea that offers freedom and salvation. Just like that turtle who wouldn’t just be able to go find another shell to live in, we do not have a second chance of choosing God after we take our last breath on this earth, my son ran out of time but his friends and family still have some, and so I write………….

Posted in Adoption, Trauma, Mother, daughter, RAD

Strength is My Weakness

Posted on by soshewritesweb

Nearly every job interview I have ever had, the interviewer has asked me to tell them my greatest strength and greatest weakness. I am not sure I ever gave an honest answer. I mean, who does? We try our hardest to give a strength we think would impress the interviewer, then we give a weakness that is really a strength, and we try our hardest to seem humble. You know, something like, “I am really organized, so it is hard for me to leave a job undone or a mess. I often give too much to my career and sacrifice my personal time to get the job done.” I mean, come on, how can anyone really give a weakness and expect to get the job? But what if your strength IS actually a weakness? I have begun to see my strong will and “get-er-done” attitude as a crippling attribute that can leave me exhausted and completely empty. Why is that, you ask? Because the strong become the ones everyone turns to in hard times and chaos, but what happens when the strong break under the pressure? The scariest look to receive is from a family member who sees you breaking, and the fear in their eyes as they ask themselves, if you can’t handle it, how will they?

Growing up, I learned quickly to hide the hurt. I learned to pull myself up by my bootstraps (yes, it can be done), to wipe my eyes and deal. Three big brothers didn’t exactly lead to a girl in flowy dresses and a straight tiara. I was more of the torn jeans and a Bryan Adams t-shirt under my flannel, with a baseball cap on my head and an attitude in my walk kinda gal. The words by Miranda Lambert ring truer in my ears than most.

“Hide your crazy and start acting like a lady, cause I raised you better. Gotta keep it together even when you fall apart”

Miranda Lambert ‘Four the Record’

I learned early to stuff the emotions too big to handle deep down and not let the fear of it all show. The world could be falling down around you, but girl, you better have those lips on just right! I was always proud of being the strong one in the group; it was easy to hide the nerves and insecurities when everyone around you depended on you to get through it. It gets easier with time to hit hard times head-on and do it with a smile, shrug your shoulders, and just deal. I spent many years taking on the challenge of turning chaos into manageable hardship, only to find it isn’t really all that manageable. When deciding on adoption, I never doubted for a moment that I would handle the craziness that would come with the cuteness. I heard over and over from all our friends and family, “If anyone can do this, it’s you.” It became a repeated phrase each time we hit a new type of chaos, every time I reached out to say I wasn’t sure I could get through it.

She ran away again, stayed gone all night this time ” you’re strong enough to get through this”

She pulled a knife on her brother and is threating to kill us all “if anyone can get through this its you”

I’m doubting everything and everyone around me. “Girl, I know you got this”

At some point there has to be recognition that there is a wall that can be hit and not climbed by even the strongest. When that happens, what do you do? Well, you do what you’ve always done, you pull yourself up by the bootstrap, brush yourself off and then have a long conversation with yourself on how to continue on, but only after you have allowed yourself to break.

You see, only when one breaks can one be put back together. When you break, there is no choice but to be put back together (well, not a choice I want or can acknowledge). When you break, those around you have to step in; it forces them to, and forces you to allow it.  There is a key question in job interviews that I think goes right over the heads of those who have the inherent need to do it all and do it all well: “Do you work better in a group or alone?” Again, who says “alone”? Even when knowing you would do it faster and better if you just did it yourself, that’s not what the employer wants to hear, even when they know you’re being hired because there is a need for someone who can do it alone without fail. It’s a catch-22. Better together, easier alone, never admit the latter.

That is the reason strength can be a weakness. You don’t learn to lean on people in hard times, you learn to lead them through it. You aren’t use to asking if another sees a better path forward, you’re focused on controlling the path you’re on. Employers ask if you work well with others for a reason,  there are warnings for two person lifts for a reason, sports have teams not just one athlete for a reason. We need others to help so we don’t get hurt or burnt out or lost in the chaos and make it to the finish line. When you control, take it all on, and plow through, you remove lessons that both you and the ones you are trying to help need to be able to learn.  When you don’t allow help, how will they learn to do so? They can’t and those who knew how have become too frozen from your control or compliant and lazy to do so. Just take a look around you, we have become a society that sits back and watches people struggle while we shrug our shoulders and say “Meh, they can handle it.  It’s not my place to step in”.

I hit my wall four years ago. I finally broke under all the “strength” of holding it together. In my breaking, my husband, son, some family, and close friends were able to step up and surround me with the true strength I so desperately needed: love, comfort, rest. They helped me through letting go—letting go of the future I fought for and would never see, letting go of the expectations that hard work would surely pay off, letting go of dreams that were never mine to dream. Our oldest daughter turned 18 and turned to a life we had tried desperately to guard her from; our other two children had to live separately, so we had to buy a second home. All of this was smack-dab in the thick of COVID. I had too many paths of chaos, and none of them could be managed without my breaking and being put back together. I didn’t break overnight; I broke slowly and painfully as each hit came at me. I didn’t get put back together overnight; I had to sit through each piece of me being picked up off the floor and then had to wait for the glue to dry before the next piece could be found and placed. I still haven’t found all the pieces of who I once was; the cracks are still raw, the glue still not completely dry. Today, exactly 14 years to the day of finalizing the adoption of my beautiful blue-eyed girl, I am planning a trip to sit in court and fight for her beautiful little brown-eyed girl to be kept from her so she has a chance and a future her mother was robbed of. She chose the life I put all my strength into fighting off, and in my weakness, I blamed myself for not having enough strength to save her. But I now realize it takes more strength to let go and allow her to make her own path, find her own way out of the pit, or allow her to bury herself in that pit. We all have to choose, take the lessons taught, and do with them what we will.

I have a new future in sight, dreams that are mine to dream, and expectations of finding myself all over again with a little hard work and help from the love of my life…and so I write.

Posted in Adoption, School, Summer, Trauma, Uncategorized

Summers End

Posted on by soshewritesweb

Has it really been three months already? Is it really time to go back to school?

WOOHOO!!!

I know, I know. It was only a short time ago that I was ready to stop the early mornings, the carpools, the constant emails from teachers letting me know my precious was once again terrorizing the classroom, and the monotony of nut free school lunches. I was excited to have days riding bikes to the lake and late night games. Well, that happened and it was fun and all, but I am ready for the monotony of a nut free home. I am excited to get up and make yummy breakfasts, sing in the car at the top of my lungs “I’m happy cause I’m singing, and its time for school and I’m happy”. I can’t wait to respond to the first email about precious disrupting the classroom. I can see my response now “yeah, yeah, but have you found a decapitated Elsa head in a suitcase with scissors, broken glass, and a rope? NO, I win then!”. received_10209624623243223I mean how much can one mom take before it is just time for the straight jacket? I paid my dues, you teachers had a nice vacation, its time to come back and give us all a break.

Seriously though, I can’t give you one mom I know that isn’t dancing in the kitchen right now. Summers end is a time of celebration in my little circle of exhausted moms. You see, routine is the essence of life in our world and summer makes it hard to stay in a serious routine. When you start finding tortured dolls and the rages begin to happen nightly with each night lasting a little longer than the last you know that summer is nearing its end, and you pray for the strength to make it just two more crazy weeks. The first day that all the kids are in school together is a holiday around here. I get up, throw on the music, and cook the best breakfast they will have all year. I pour all the love I have into it. I look at all their tired little faces, I see my teenagers roll their eyes as they look at each other and I sing all the louder. “BACK TO SCHOOL, TIME TO PROVE TO DAD I’M NO FOOL” I hear my youngest two laugh (they have no idea yet that some day they will hate waking up before noon) and my heart swells with joy. I think this year I will decorate, just to keep the holiday joyful, ya know?

As of now my teens are the only ones back in the world of learning, oh but next week will be a joyous occasion. first day of schoolI know that this year is going to be great for them both. They are in a great school and have bright futures there and I have days free from the constant questions of “What are we doing today?” “I am so bored, why can’t we go somewhere fun?” and so on and so forth. I am free of the job that they seem to think is mine that consists of entertaining them constantly. Soon they will beg me to just sleep in and stay home doing nothing, and I will be their hero when I am able to grant them a Saturday free day. Their eyes will light up with excitement at the yummy hot grilled ham and cheese sandwiches I will make them for lunch and my heart will be filled with pride as I listen to them tell each other I am the best cook around. The house will be filled with the aroma of fresh-baked cookies once again because I will have the time to put into baking instead of putting out fires between their younger siblings and them. I love school! Teachers are my favorite people. I give mad props to those moms that home school, y’all are crazy patient or plan crazy, I haven’t decided yet.

I know that in just eight short months from now I will be dragging myself out of bed and wishing it was summer already. I will begin to search for family vacations in tropical places. I will wish we could all just relax in the sun and not have to huddle up in our parkas as the van warms up, but for now I am so ready to have all these youngsters in classrooms learning from seriously under paid professionals. I am ready for the fall and all its glory, Halloween costumes, hand-print turkeys, and calls from the principal because my little princess punched a kid that made her mad. Yes, I love school and the break it gives us all from the un-routine summer brings. This is my favorite time of year. As I look to this school year I know that it will be filled with trials but nothing can bring me down. I know that Lil Lil will smile at her new unsuspecting teacher and she in turn will frown at me as I try to let her know how hard it is going to be to get this precious little child to learn. I will smile at her and enjoy the thought of her calling with panic in her voice telling me she has tried everything. I will go to bed each night with a smile on my face as I drift off to sleep dreaming of going to the bathroom without hearing “MOM!” being screamed though the door. I look forward to the peaceful sound of the washer and dryer singing their song of harmony as I fold clothes on my bed without screams of siblings coming through my open windows. Oh, Summers end! You are a sweet song of hope to this tired momma.

Please don’t misunderstand, I love my kids dearly and that is why I love school. I know that they are safe inside a building surrounded by adults that love teaching the youth of America. I know that they will have a bright future and that they are making friendships that will last them through highschool at least. I know that I will be there to pick them up everyday and hear their excited chatter about the latest drama. I know that they secretly love school as well. I know that at the end of this year, they will be older, taller, smarter, and one year closer to being on their own in this world. I love these wild little humans and I love that we  live in a country that believes in education. Yup, summer is coming to an end just as my sanity is and so I write…………..

Posted in Adoption, RAD, Trauma, Uncategorized

The heart of an adoptive mom

Posted on by soshewritesweb

“How do you do it?”

“How are you sane?”

“Why did you adopt more?”

These are questions I have been asked along my journey as an adoptive mom. Some more regularly than I would like if I am being honest. I am always amazed at some of the things people will say thinking it perfectly normal. Some I give more grace to as I know they are at a loss for words as they see or hear about my kids behaviors. Others I simply roll my mind eyes at and just go about my business. I mean, let’s think about these questions for a minute. You go to a friend’s house and she, as a mother, is dealing with hard behaviors of her precious child. You then ask her how she does it, how she doesn’t lose her mind, and you look at her other child and ask why she had more. Oh, did I mention this friend is a mother of all bio children, her hard kid has cancer and she is dealing with the hard behaviors that the drugs cause. What? You would never ask her that? You would have compassion on her and the situation she is in? Tell me then why it is ok to ask adoptive mothers those very questions? Are they not real mothers because their kids aren’t really their kids? It is so easy for those around us to think how of course a bio mother with a child that has ADHD and runs around the house screaming and throwing tantrums would love that child, after all they are flesh and blood. But to accept that an adoptive mom could love another’s child that screams more than they laugh, or plays with their poop more than their play dough, or lets them know they hate her more than they love her is beyond possible. Well, let me share the heart of an adoptive mom with you and maybe, just maybe you will be able to grasp the idea that  one can love a child that is not of their flesh but of their heart.

Our journey started out like many others. We talked of children, we dreamed of them playing together and growing together. Vacations full of laughter and hearts full of love. When it was obvious that we would only be blessed with one bio child we began our journey to adopt. At first my heart was to give our son the joy of having a sibling, for him to have the memories and connections that we had growing up. As we began to research we began to understand that there might not be the same kind of memories and connections but instead there might be a deeper understanding of how to truly love a brother or sister unconditionally. We began to understand that the child or children we would bring into our home would be hurting and full of resentments that could take years to heal from. It was made clear that if we wanted adoption to complete our family we were doing it for the wrong reasons and should rethink our motives. So we did rethink our motives. Why did we want to adopt? Who did we want to adopt? What did we think we would get from adopting? Once those questions were answered we were ready to adopt for the right reasons.

Why did we want to adopt? To give a safe home to a child in need of one. To offer a chance at a successful future after having their childhood stolen from them. To take at least one child out of the running for the sex trade or streets of crime and possibly suicide.

Who did we want to adopt? A girl. Someone older that might be past the “cute” phase that pulls the heart-strings of those who will see her picture.

What did we think we would get from adopting? Though we knew we would get a daughter out of the process we also knew we would get a new prospective of what it means to love unconditionally. In this process of adopting an older child, one that is harder than most, one that might be headed to an institution rather than the deans list you have to choose everyday to love them no matter the hurt they cause you. You have to remind yourself of the hurt that one, if not multiple mothers before you have already caused them. You have to put aside your feelings, dreams, desires, and emotions in order to give them the love that they need from you.

We found our daughterIMG_2849, we were asked what we would do when it got harder than we thought it would be, how would we react to a child that has serious behavior problems. Would we change our mind and ask that she be removed from our home? That question hit me hard. I sat and thought about all the mothers I knew that had been given bio children that are a bit hard, those that have had to stay up night after night due to a handicap their child had been born with or had been given after life dealt them an unfair accident that led to an altered life. I knew not one of those mothers would ever walk their children back into the hospital they had them at and say they changed their minds and then walk out the door leaving them behind. I thought of my own son and knew I could never turn my back on him if he had something happen to him and needed extra love and care. I felt it at that moment, the love in my heart for our daughter I hadn’t met yet but knew I loved already. Much like when the doctor confirmed that I was pregnant with my son I felt a mothers love for her when the case worker said “we know you are her mom and dad”. She is mine, and once we figured out what it was that was causing her behaviors (trauma) we were able to make a plan and care for her the way she needed to be cared for. Much like bio-parents, we chose to have more children after her, only we adopted ours.IMG_0411 We are a family. I do it everyday just like any other mom. I get up, get myself ready for the day, and take every crazy moment one at a time. I love my kids because they are my kids. Yes, they can be hard to like at times but they are never hard to love. Just like any mother who loves her child that once grew in her womb no matter the behaviors or the sacrifice that she has to make, I love my children that grew in my heart. I am their REAL mom, they are my REAL babies and that will never change. So, How do I do it? Just like you do. How do I stay sane? With a lot of prayer and a little wine! Why did I adopt more? Why haven’t you adopted one? They are my heart and soul, my goal in life is to help them heal and find joy, and so I write………………

Posted in Adoption, RAD, Trauma, Uncategorized

The unanswerable questions

Posted on by soshewritesweb

I recently had a young lady ask me if I had a moment to answer a question. It had been a long day and I was really hoping it would be an easy one to answer so I could just go on to bed and sleep away all the emotions the day had already overwhelmed me with. I looked at her and told her of course. It wasn’t an easy one.

“If God really loves me and wants the best for me, if he really knows what is going to happen to us in this life, then why didn’t he just give me to my adoptive parents instead of me having to go through the hurt of being born to bad birth parents?”

Her question hit me harder than any from that day. I stood beside that sweet girl and my heart broke because I had no answer to give her. No hope of a brilliant plan I have the inside knowledge of. Instead I started to cry while looking into her confused and hurt face. “Do you know I adopted three of my kids?” I asked her grateful the night hid my tears from her. She looked surprised and answered no. I gave a silent prayer that God would give me the words and that they wouldn’t drip with the bitterness I have over this very question. “I am just going to have to be honest here and tell you I have no idea. I will add that I have asked this very question nearly every night since my kids have been placed with me. I will tell you I have cried, screamed, and demanded God to tell me why I couldn’t have just had my kids instead of them having to go through the hurt of those years with their birth families. I still don’t have an answer. If I can help you with anything on this it is giving you an insight to what your mom must feel just as strongly. I know that she wishes she could have been there from the first second. But know this, God does love you and he indeed hand-picked the mom and dad that would keep you safe and would show you his way. Someday I think you will be approached by a young girl that is hurting and confused and only you will be able to help her with a connection that you will feel to her and she will feel to you.” We spent the next hour or so talking as she poured out her heart, her hurt, and her confusion. I went to bed and didn’t find the sleep that would allow me to be free of the emotions of the day. Instead I wrestled once more with the plan that I can’t seem to understand, the questions I had for God, the anger I had with him over the orphans of this world. I could have had all three of my adopted kids. I would have enjoyed each pregnancy. I would have taken care of them from the first second they came to be. My womb would have been safe and full of love. I would have played music to them and read to them the same way I did their brother. I would have taken the vitamins, eaten healthy, and decorated their rooms full of hope and joy. I spent eight years begging God to let me do that very thing. Instead I picked up the pieces of the broken life my kids were born into.

Why?

How come?

What for?

These are the unanswerable questions. We won’t know why there are families that have the desire, ability, financial stability, and the dream to be loving safe parents and are unable to be. Meanwhile there are people who have no desire, no ability, and are not safe that have child after unwanted child after abused unwanted child. I would think it would be the other way around, but again I am not the one with the answers. I will struggle with this question until the day he gives me my answer, but has he somehow already tried to answer me and I have just been too bitter to listen. Well, there is a twist. I know that we are called God’s children, told that we are adopted into the inheritance of Jesus. We are shown through example that God has a heart for the orphans and then we are called to have the same heart. So if we all had our own perfect little bundles of joy, would we then reach out to the hurting orphans around us? Already I hear from friends on a daily basis how hard it must be for me and how they could never do what I do. I hear too often from people that it is just too hard to think about how bringing in a child might uproot the lives of the children they already have. So then is this an insight to why there are some unable to have their own, so the selfishness of an easy life isn’t there to fight? Does God use his people to give homes to those they wouldn’t think twice about if they had the rooms in it already full? Would we listen to the sermons of the preachers, the stories of the missionaries and say there is no room in the inn if our hearts were already full from the laughter of our own children? Where would my “high risk adoptive” kids be if I hadn’t had a heart for more children? This world will always be full of children needing a safe mom and dad but will it have enough men and women who will be willing to put aside comfort and sanity to offer their hearts and homes to those needing them most?2015-11-01_07.27.58

I present another question, will you step up to the plate and take on a hurting child in need of extra TLC? If the answer is no then, why? How come? What for? Our world is full of over 500,000  kids who are asking those very questions, and so I write………..

Posted in Adoption, Summer, Trauma, Uncategorized

Finding the joy

Posted on by soshewritesweb

It’s hot outside. That is summer for you. The grass is green, sky is blue, the flowers are fragrant, and the heat makes it hard to enjoy it. Much like winter. The snow is beautiful, the fire is warm, the mountains call to the hearts of skiers and boarders to come play, and the bitter cold makes it hard to enjoy. We are never really happy in the seasons we are in until the next season reminds us how good we had it thus causing us to long for the next season to come along. Just a couple of months ago I was begging summer to show its beautiful face and now I am longing for fall to show me some love with a cool breeze.

This is very similar to life. We look at the season we are in and long for past or future seasons to save us from the heat or the cold. We find ourselves in the heat of a battle with our teenagers and long for the days they were babies peacefully sleeping in our arms and before we know it we are smacked with the cold stare of daggers when they realize the battle is lost. It is moments like these that make it hard to find the beauty of that season. How am I to find the joy through the daggers?

I find it in the cool of the morning. Just before everyone wakes up and just before the heat begins to build. I find it in the songs of the birds singing their praises to our creator. I find it in the warmth of a perfect summer night as the laughter of my children rings out through the quiet. I find it in the eyes of my babies that were once filled with sadness and fear. I see it in the smiles that are no longer forced or fake. I feel in the hugs that have a new level of trust each time they are given. I find it in the sight of a big brother not seeing his siblings as adopted but rather his. I see it in the get togethers of extended family that once shared last names and trauma but now share only healing and safe futures. It is there, joy. All around us. I just have to choose it even when in the heat of a battle, and so I write…………

Posted in Adoption, RAD, Trauma, Uncategorized

Hurt people hurt people

Posted on by soshewritesweb

I am overwhelmed with sadness as I sit and write this. I was up most of the night watching the hate unravel in Dallas as the numbers of senseless deaths rose. I watched it. Live on Fox News, the camera went to the lifeless protectors after shots rang out.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, I looked at my friend and asked “are those cops on the ground?”  Then the anchor said in shock and horror that they would not show the bodies of fallen police officers. I was in shock and disgust. What has our world come to? Or has it always been this way? In between watching the news and cooking dinner I was navigating the hurt that my little one had caused a neighbor and I was overwhelmed with a hopeless emotion. What hope do my kids have of healing in a world so full of hate and anger? Why does it feel like the world is on fire? Then they hit me, the words of a speaker I had just listened to. “Hurt people hurt people.”

This world is full of hurt people. It has been since Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden. Since Cain killed Abel. Since always. We have always been a people of hurt. We have always lashed out at others through our hurt, some more than others. This is an undeniable truth but how have we been able to overcome these hurts in the past? Have we overcome our hurts? I have to look to my kids, what hurts have they been dealt? Have we been able to help them get past these hurts, or just suppress them?  I sat across from both my son and daughter at their therapy this morning and watched as they each reacted different to the therapist explain what we would be working on to help them heal. My daughter began to cry and admitted she didn’t really want to continue because it was not fun. My son sat and looked at his would be healer and said yes, he is ready. the hurt he carries is finally too heavy for his little shoulders and he wants to give it up. My daughter on the other hand doesn’t want to do the work it will take her to heal, she wants others to do it for her as she has fun somewhere else.

There it is, the ingredient to change: Desire or Want to change

So I wonder, what would the world look like if we all wanted  or desired it to be changed? I think back to the interviews of those around the horrific scene of downtown Dallas and I know there are two types of people who come out of these moments. One was a guy who spoke of what he saw. A man in the crowd carrying a gun and then how he heard shots. He said there were shots that came from the crowd of protesters and then the police shot into the crowd. The news caster asked if he was sure they came from the crowd and if the cops shot back, he said with anger in his eyes that yes the cops shot at them. Then there was a man who said the shots came from above and as the police fell others ran to protect the crowd. He was full of a different type anger, a kind that was awed that as fellow officers lost their lives those still standing rose to the call and protected the innocent.  Both men were of the same ethnic background, both men stood feet from where 5 lives were lost defending the right to protest, and both men showed their hearts. One wanted to spread fear, one wanted to spread a wake-up call.  I am almost certain that both at one point in time had been hurt by just being them, one chose to find a way to heal. I know, strong statement coming from just watching an interview but I know hurt in the eyes of those I look into, I know the look of a victim angered, after all I have three living in my home. DSCF0840

Each has a different look in their eyes. One has a look of hurt surrounded by the fear of letting go of the control that anger gives her. One has the look of hurt surrounded by the shame that should not be his to carry and engulfed by the fear of what others will think of him if they truly know that hurt. One has a look of hurt surrounded by a high of power that hurt gives her to hurt others, that is the scariest look of hurt I have seen. I see it in those that spread hurt and hate on TV these days. I look into the eyes of my three wounded babies and I hurt with them. I hurt from not being able to go back and protect them from their pasts. I hurt every time I see them hurt each other do to those past hurts. I hurt every time I see them hurt by outsiders that don’t understand them and in turn fear what they don’t understand.  How do I stop the hurt though?  How do I teach them to love in spite of their hurts when all around them there are unsafe situations that threaten to cause them more hurt?

I fall back to the foot of the cross. In this world we were not promised a life without troubles, in fact it is quite the opposite. We were told in this life we would have hurts and yet we are called to love those that hurts us. Why? Because God knows that hurt people hurt people and he wants to offer hope and healing. Look around you, we are all surrounded by hurting people. We all have the opportunity to spread love or more hurt. DSCF0522I have a reason to spread love, well actually I have four reasons. I cannot choose to spread more hurt and anger and then expect my children to be happy healed adults. We are a small tribe in this vast world of hurting people. We are part of the few who have said yes to the hope offered by Christ and I pray that we each will be able to see the hurting and try to show them love. I pray that my little hurt people will no longer hurt people. I will continue to encourage them to choose the change that will bring healing, I will continue to choose to forgive those that hurt them so badly in their past lives and I will choose to forgive those that will hurt them in their future lives. That is all each of us can do. Desire change. Spread love. Pray for a world all our children can grow up safety in. I cannot control their hurt, I can only choose to not hurt back when they strike out at me, and so I write……….

Posted in Adoption, daughter, Mother, RAD, Trauma, Uncategorized

The war between mother and daughter

Posted on by soshewritesweb

There is a war that began when the first daughter cried her first cry and will continue until the last daughter takes her last breath. Every mother has fought it with every daughter, not one has escaped it, though some have been less gruesome than others.

This has been made even more clear to me in the last ten years of being a youth sponsor. I have spent countless hours listening to girls speak of how their moms “hate them” and “just don’t understand what it is like to be a girl these days”. I always giggled in my head as I remembered saying the same things and being almost certain that my own mother said them and so on and so forth. I found it so amusing that they had no idea just how much their mothers did understand and often wished I could be there the day the light went off in their heads.Now here I am on the other side of the coin hearing myself saying “my daughter hates me” and “she just doesn’t understand what is best for her” and suddenly I realize I am fighting in the war that has been going on for generations before me and will continue for generations after me. It isn’t amusing anymore.

I remember being at a youth conference one year and hearing a speaker begin to explain what was really going on in this war of mothers and daughters. He began to walk through how his wife and daughter had always been close and how they loved to be with each other, until his sweet little daughter became a full-fledged teenager. He started talking about how normal it really was for this battle to be raging in their home. He spoke of why it was raging and it all made sense in that moment, that moment when I didn’t have a daughter throwing daggers through her eyes at me. He said as a baby and a young child this girl needs you for everything, she follows you around and even pretends to be you. You know everything in their eyes and are the smartest most beautiful woman they know. She trusts you know best and listens to your advice that she asked for. Now, as you walk through the mall with her you notice she is the one that is beginning to get the looks from males and it hits you she is growing. She begins to realize it as well and the crazy begins. Suddenly you are the most clueless woman she knows, she can’t fathom that you were once pretty enough to have many a boys chasing after you, she doesn’t want any help from you because she can do it better nor does she want any advice from you because you just don’t get it anyway, and the battle begins. The battle for you to hold onto the control over their lives and for them to begin to pull away from you and become their own woman.DSCF0921

The war is real in bio families, and oh so real in adoptive. One minute you are riding on an elephant with your princess and the next you are ducking to miss the end of her flying broom. I know that she is becoming a young woman, but I often can’t separate the “normal” from the trauma. What is even harder is thanks to the trauma the “normal” is about a hundred times worse. Ok, I exaggerate, its more like a thousand times worse. As I walk the battlefield and look at the wreckage our last battle has left behind I am sadden and the guilt of my warpath falls heavy on my shoulders. I am in new territory with this girl who has been drug through new territories her whole life. I sometimes forget she is just as lost and confused as I am.

I have been reminded of this last week as I find myself back at that youth conference 7 years later and with far more understanding of the war I am now in. I am reminded in the hurts of the girls I listen to that their struggle is real. I am reminded with every pressure they open up about, that my daughter is just like them. As I hear their hurts and see their very real tears I began to see my daughter sitting in front of her youth sponsor crying out to God for healing in her relationship with her mom. As I sit across a young girl and hear the similar story she shares with my girl, I am finally invited into the hurts she is carrying. In this moment of clarity I am hit with the truth that I am not hurting anymore than my daughter but rather she is hurting more than I . Yes, trauma is real and the behaviors that come from it is exhausting, but “normal” resides in those behaviors as well. As I have sat here in my room I have had three young girls knock on my door and need a shoulder to cry on, advice, understanding, and grace. It is almost time to go and hear our last speaker and I will see all the faces of those girls that once looked normal to me and I will see the hurt that they have carried once more. I thank God for this week as it has opened my eyes to the war I am in. On this night I will lay down my weapons and surrender. I will no longer see my hurt girl as the enemy but as a casualty of war who needs loved, rescued, unity, and change. I can’t say she will put her weapons down as well or that she won’t fire at this new easy target and so I write…………………

Posted in Adoption, RAD, Trauma, Uncategorized

The truth about trust

Posted on by soshewritesweb

The words “My kids would never do that” will sadly not ever be said by me. I can’t think of a situation that I would jump to the defense of them as most mothers do. When the neighbor boy screams or cries I immediately look to my young as the culprits. I am on edge whenever they walk out the door and watch to see if they are acting as they should. I know my kids struggle with truth and that is the reason I struggle with trust.

“Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair”

In my world the kids placed with you have a lifetime of baggage already tied around their necks. They come to you masters of manipulation and lies. They learn early on that they have to watch out for themselves and not to allow what others feel or think get in the way of self-preservation. Here in the twilight zone of trauma nine months of feeling your baby grow and move never happens, there is no teaching of trust from the first breath, we don’t get to hear the first cry of life and they don’t get to hear you speak love over them while growing. Here in our neck of the woods a child has learned to distrust you from the beginning, the first words we hear are most often a lie. Even when they run into your arms and call you mommy the day they meet you, they are doing so out of fear of what is to come and not out of truly believing that you are their mom forever.

This is taught in the classes you take. It is talked about in the groups that you join. You can read about it in every book you’ll buy. This however can never be understood fully until you are living in it. All the preparations made are helpful, but none take away the sting of not being able to trust the child you desperately want to love and help heal. Telling yourself that you understand the reasons behind the lies is easy because you really do understand why. Holding onto trust during those lies is impossible. One reason being that most of the time the lie is brought to you out of the blue, for no reason at all, completely random. One minute you are laughing with them and talking about happy things and then BAM! Johnny killed his sister right in front of them. You know it is a lie, they stick to it being the truth, they won’t budge on it, and even when Johnny and his sister come to the door to ask if they can play they look at you and say, “oh, it must have been a dream.” then turn and run out the door leaving you hearing the music to the Twilight Zone playing in your head.

But why?

Why is there a need to slam you in the forehead with a lie when everything is going smooth? Is it the need to bring the world back into their comfort of chaos? Are they testing you to see if you can see if they are in lie mode? Or is it to see if they can fool you this time? Why are they ok to put their sibling on the chopping block when there is no reason to? How can they see the one that went through the trauma with them in fear of trouble because of a completely made up story? Oh, these questions roll around in your mind never stopping and rarely being answered. It’s like living a nightmare of rutting around in the dirt and leaves looking for truffles and knowing you’ll never find them because you don’t have the snout to sniff them out with. You would be rich if you could sniff out the truffles, like I would be at peace if I could hear the truth.

The worst is when the lie is believable and sickening. The ones that send you into protective parent mode. The lies that have you asking yourself where you were when this happened. The ones that cause the voices in your head to scream your failure to protect. In these moments one can read the others mind and can pick up where they left off, you can separate them and they still can give word for word account of the lie the other has started. It is too believable to be a lie, yet the lack of trust has you praying it is and holding onto the seed of disbelief. The ones that cause you to have to bring outsiders into your chaos. They cause you to shatter the peace of those outsiders worlds and open their eyes to the twisted mess you have going on inside your cookie cutter house. You play out the scene in your mind, you know how it will go and you pray that you won’t crumble in front of them. “Please God, let my knees hold out until I get behind closed doors.” The reaction comes, it is as you thought it would be, and your knees begin to shake. These lies hurt the most because you see the passion and trust coming from that outsider and you know that even if it could be the truth, it will not be trusted. There have been too many times that small ridiculously random lies have been told for this one to be believed. You hear the words “my kids would never!” or “my kids don’t even know that stuff” and you prep yourself for the next hurtful words, “your kids have been through…..” and the ugly truth sets in. Your kids have been through              , fill in the blank and they have seen it, felt it, or been dealt it. In those moments of reality you are hit with the truth that the label that is ‘trauma kid’ follows no matter what is known or not known. The outsiders see your kids as adopted thus damaged, broken, dangerous, unclean. They don’t mean to but it is there. In that moment you buckle because there is no ground to stand on because you are unable to say that you know they aren’t lying. In this moment of he said she said your she has already lost against the he because even you believe the he over the she. And the crazy-go-round continues. There is nothing left in that moment but to apologize for what you brought into their lives and hurry home before the panic attack that is rising to the surface brings you to your knees.

A restless night of nightmares brings morning and here I sit preparing myself for another importance of honestly lecture. I can already see their blank stares, mouths agap, and wheels spinning. I will say the same thing I have already said too many times in the past four years and will say too many times in the next four years. I will tell of how untruths break trust and when trust is broken it is near impossible to rebuild. I will paint a picture of the day when one of them will be hurt by another and I will be unable to say with certainty that it is truth. A day may come that another may accuse them of a hurt and I will be unable to say there is no way my child would do such a thing. There may come a day that they are telling the truth and I will not be able to trust them. Maybe that day has already came and my heart breaks that I am unable to look an outsider in the eye and say with passion “I know my kids, if they said it happened then it happened” and so I write………………….

Posted in Adoption, RAD, Trauma, Uncategorized

Moments of sanity

Posted on by soshewritesweb

There used to be moments of crazy. Days that I would find myself feeling like I had failed without the understanding of why or how.

Now, I find myself passing and I try to grasp onto the sanity that comes with it. I rarely know how I have found the sanity or how to get it back after the moment passes and the crazy returns.

At least that is how I feel at this moment. This moment when I have once again taken personally the lies that my daughter has told my husband to try to make me look like the worst mommy in the world. “Why are you so surprised?” he always asks. I am not surprised, I have just reached my fill of being able to let it roll off my back. My character has been attacked one too many times in the last few weeks to be able to let this one slide without hurt.

It hurts, this game of taking care of those that need to hurt you to show that they still don’t trust you. The ones that glare at you throughout the day and then turn into sheepish lost puppies when their father walks through the door. It hurts, even though you know what they are doing. It hurts because you are the one that is working so hard to help them heal. The one that spends everyday scheduling their therapy, their ortho appointments, their tutoring, school, and their social life. You are the one that notices their clothes have grown too small or have too many holes so you take time out of your day to buy more. You are the one that goes to bed every night after them, the one that wakes up before them, the one that eats last and sometimes hours after they have. Yet you are the one that they choose to say the worst about.

I get it, I mean it has been four years of the same thing. 20150920_141505The pictures all show happy little smiles. There are always words of encouragement that she so polite and sweet or how nervous she looks all the time. I get complimented on how much she has grown and how good of a job I have done. I know that all this is true, she is a sweet girl. She knows how to be polite and most of the time she means it. However; there are most nights that she tries to see if she can hurt me or make me look bad in the eyes of my husband. I can deal with it most of the time. Roll my eyes and smirk “Oh, ok. Yes that sounds just like me.”

I can let it just go and tell myself I must be doing something right if she feels the need to see  if I will react and send her packing.

Can I be honest?

Can you handle my honesty?

I kinda wanna throw my hands up in the air, repeat the words of my mother of just wanting to disappear, and then actually follow through with it. I sometimes wanna look in her hurtful eyes and scream “you win!” I can see myself throwing in the towel and walking out the door, jumping in the car, and driving for days.

I drove through the mountains of Montana just yesterday and I dreamed of running deep into the woods and never looking back. The fog over the water of the lake called my name and invited me into the safety of its shield. The lone island whispered its freedom of solitude and I longed for the comfort of its quiet. I am tired.  I am hurting and I am not the only one. I know she hurts when she can’t just help me bake cookies and talk about her day. I see the longing in her eyes when I talk about getting nails done with a friend. I can hear the frustration in her journal as she describes her jealousy over her brother having a friend stay over. My brain gets it. My heart breaks with every lie told to her dad about my made up careless actions towards her. My heart aches with every milestone that passes without us getting to enjoy it together. I feel the guilt of being happy to leave for a work trip just to be able to put a few days in between the thick cloud of anger and hurt. I feel the guilt of not missing her while gone. I fall into feelings of inadequacy when I find something the rest of her siblings would love and don’t think twice about what she might like.

I long for just a moment of sanity during these times of crazy. I know it will pass, I will recover. My heart will heal, and in the meantime I will continue to do what I do knowing that I will be lied about on a regular basis. Some days it will hurt more than others and some days I will look out the window and wonder if there is life out there (a little Reba throwback). I know that someday she will look back at the mom who stayed and appreciate her. Until that day I will search for moments of sanity and so I write……………..