Getting Ahead of Ourselves

MY THANKSGIVING
By Justice Reisman, Age 7
November 22, 2012

My mom and dad help me cook turkey with stuffing inside the turkey. I am inviting people and friends to help us set the table to eat. We all talk about what we did that day. On Thanksgiving, we pass the turkey around the table for everybody to get. My cousins are sitting by me to eat. After dinner, we get to play a game outside. We play on the swing set. My grandma and grandpa are sitting by me to eat dinner. We have a feast around the table. On Thanksgiving, we find the wish bone to have what we want to have. My friends are sitting by me and my brother too.

Dear Justice,

A singer named Cindy Lauper, who's only a heartbeat away in the grand scheme of my history, but is so ancient in your eyes, you've probably never heard of her, sang a song once that started "Lying in my bed, I hear the clock tick and think of you. Caught up in circles, confusion is nothing new..."

I think about you a lot before I go to sleep at night, little girl. In many ways, you're adapting so well to this strange new world that was thrust upon you. More often than not now, our bedtime is a comforting ritual of stories and squirming, trying to keep your brother's feet off you as you listen to me read "No Matter What" or "In the Night Kitchen," two books that seem particularly spellbinding to you right now.

After we brush our teeth, you and your brother get ice water in a sippy cup, three Ritz crackers in case you get hungry in the night, and a repetitive round of tickling and giggles when the lights go out.

"Is your tickle tank full?" we ask you both, before we go downstairs.

It never is, so we fill it back up again. You like yours in a very precise order. Chin, armpits, collar bone, ribs, tummy, feetsies, and the inside of your knees (your ultimate weakness).

"Why do you call them feetsies?" you asked me last night.

"I don't know," I answered honestly. "Because it's a funny word, I guess. It makes me smile like you make me smile."

"Oh," you said, taking that in. "Okay."

I think you like me now. Or at least you're on your way. Gone are the dismal days where your uprooted rage was raw. Now it's replaced by new things. Wishes and grief. Fantasies and mourning. This is the period of our attachment where you express what you wanted in your heart but never got. Like the mom in your Thanksgiving story who's not really there, you cry the most for what you've lost.

"When children are moved, grief is a natural result, regardless of the quality of care given by the parent figure. Children do not grieve with strangers. They grieve with people who are known to them, sensitive to them, and consistently available to them. Typically, children are drawn into attachment, move into grief work, and then rebound in both joy and attachment." - Attaching in Adoption, Deborah D. Gray.

I'm glad you're moving into your grief work now, beautiful girl. I'm glad you trust us enough to feel safe enough to do it here now.

I totally get it.

I understand why when your brother takes the remote from you, it's now causing ten minutes of the saddest, loneliest, most heart-wrenching sobs I've ever heard from you. Or when you can't have cookies before dinner, you curl up into a ball on the floor and cry out in broken, lost anguish. It's not about cookies and remote controls and what's on the Tivo. It's about the hurt in your heart and a lifetime of loss an adult can barely articulate, much less a seven-year-old girl.

May your beautiful grieving continue, and may you rebound soon in joy and comfort and belonging.

It's completely normal, your therapist tells us, for you to create a fantasy world where a mom still exists for you. When your school work comes home, and you write about your mom and dad in your Thanksgiving essay, we're working hard to be neither hurt or alarmed. Kids your age like to fit the standard mold, she tells us. And if all the other kids are writing about Mom and Dad on Thanksgiving, so will you. And that's likely to continue for a while. And just between the three of us - Dad, Daddy and Justice - no offense taken.

Yesterday, we started filling out the paperwork with your case worker to become your legal parents forever. Our six months as your "foster-to-adopt home" or your "adoptive resource home" or however else they classify our half-year, pre-game limbo, are about to end. In a few more weeks, we can "file," which is such a clinically clerical word for such an important act of love on our part and trust on yours.

So, while it's gearing up to be an incredibly exciting time for Daddy and I, and in the months ahead, we'll be picking up speed, gaining momentum and finally, in our eyes, making progress toward that magical dream of waking up, like Pinocchio, and finally being a real boy, a real girl and a real family, we have to remember not to get ahead of ourselves...because you're still grieving, you're still adapting, and you still come first, in our hearts and our heads and our home.

In our rush to love you, we hope you know you'll always have our permission to take your time in loving us back. Find us in your own way, in your own time. We're not going anywhere.

Sometimes you picture me, I'm walking too far ahead.
You're calling to me, I can't hear what you've said.
You say, "go slow." I fall behind.
The second hand unwinds.

If you're lost, you can look and you will find me,
Time after time.
If you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting,
Time after time.

"On Thanksgiving, we find the wish bone to have what we want to have. My friends are sitting by me and my brother too."

In the story you'll write someday in an easier year, Dad and Daddy will be sitting at that picture- perfect table in your mind's eye, too. It will be worth the wait, and we'll be delighted when you finally put us there. Until then, we won't be sad if your stories don't include us yet.

If you fall, we will catch you. We will be waiting.

You're worth it to us, always, and we'll give you our love.

Time after time.

"Time After Time" ©1984 Cyndi Lauper, from the Epic album "She's so Unusual"