A Tree Grows in Driftwood Hills

Recently Riley has taken to telling stories about her birth mother. At first it was a bit alarming causing us to pause for a moment and question if we somehow were not giving Riley everything she needed. Then we found out that the neighbor girls who are also adopted are doing something very similar in talking about their own birth parents. The alarm bells quieted a bit since those girls have both an adoptive mom and dad.

Mother's day just passed and this year made it especially poignant with the tales she has been spinning of things that have happened with both her birth mother and now recently her birth father. We talk with her and give her what little information we have and feel that is appropriate to share. Robbie's sister is adopted as well so we do have some reference sources right in the family on how to handle the questions and stories.

Her school experience has  been extremely wonderful and for Mother's Day this year she brought home handmade cards for both of her daddies as well as one she made for her birth mother that she placed in the mailbox. Our letter carrier has been a real gem over the years, taking in the pieces of hand made art that Riley places there and even leaving a personal thank you several times. But this time the card for her birth mother made me think hard about our and Riley's situation. I had Robbie retrieve the card and together with a personal note from us and a photo of Riley they will be sent to the Adoption Link to go into a file in case Riley's birth mother decided she wants to know more about the little girl she left in our care 6 years ago.

6 years. Six. Our little girl is six years old now and it just seems like yesterday that I was holding her in my arms for the first time and weeping at the pure joy of finally being a father. I think I cried for a good 15 -20 minutes as I was giving her a bottle while sitting in that huge rocking recliner on the second floor offices of the adoption agency. Riley never took her eyes off me the entire time. There have been two times in my life that I've been absolutely sure I was doing the right thing. One is the day that I married Robbie (yeah, not legal but still a marriage) and the second was the first moment I held my daughter in my arms.

But now with her birth mother stories I have doubts. Doubts that we will be able to give Riley everything she needs. I read all day Sunday of the wonderful tributes people paid to the mothers and women in their lives that have helped shape who they have become. Those stories only increased my worry (have I mentioned that if worrying were an Olympic sport I would take the gold every 4 years?) So I did the exact opposite of what I wanted to do - I talked to Riley with Robbie about her birth mother, how her mother loved her very much, wanted us to have her as our own daughter and to take care of her because she wasn't able to.

We then asked Riley if she would like to pick out a tree or rose bush of some kind to plant in honor of the women who gave her life and she thought that was a great idea. We have a local garden shop fairly close to our home and we drove over to find just the right plant. After wandering around for a while looking at various trees and plants Riley seemed a little overwhelmed. That's when I remembered the Eastern Redbud  They are native to this area and are covered in lavender blooms every spring before the leaves come out. Heart shaped leaves. Once I pointed those leaves out to Riley she was very excited and wanted to get that one to plant in honor of her birth mother. I hope this is a way for her to connect with her birth mother since we don't know where she is other than somewhere in Chicago.

The stories have grown more elaborate over the past few months and I've been reassured that this is very normal for adopted children but part of me still worries that she is going to feel somehow cheated out of growing up with a mother around. We try to compensate by having as many women in her life as we possibly can - hopefully that and our love will be enough.

Polishing up the Daddy Skills

Dark purple. More exactly it's Plaza Plumberry from New York Color. Yes, that is my nail. No, I'm not going goth one nail at a time. Yes, it was a whim. No, it didn't spread beyond the one nail. I only kept the color on for a few days only removing it when my doctor expressed some alarm with either a) I had smashed my finger in a door or b) I had melanoma in my nail bed. It never occurred to him that it was just nail polish. Would you expect a man looking squarely down the barrel of 52 to wear nail polish on one finger who isn't in a rock band? Yeah, he didn't either.

A few weekends ago, Riley was stuck inside and bored. It had been raining for eons and it was cold outside. We had played board games (or is that bored?) and watched several movies. She was done with all that and asked for me to paint her nails. In several colors - one per nail. I said no and compromised by painting all her nails with three colors layering pink then purple and then topped them off with a clear coat with sparkles. In between coats I thought I'd have some fun and paint one of mine with the purple. (I've already experienced the clear with sparkles while on a beach vacation - too many margaritas. Different story for a different day.)

Riley thought it was hilarious that a boy would have nail polish on even if it was just one finger. When I asked her if she liked it she said no, that boys aren't supposed to wear polish and to take it off. I told her teasingly that I liked it. "Dad! You have to take it off. You work people make fun of you." Well that stopped me right in my tracks. Is this what our daughter was really concerned about? That I would be made fun of? Now it's a life lesson.

"Oh sweetie. The people I work with aren't going to laugh at me. They're my friends. Friends don't make fun of each other."
"Dad! They gonna laugh at you!"
"No honey, they won't."
"Daddy! You have to take off the polish!"

Keep in mind that she is laughing the entire time, rolling her eyes and generally just thinking how silly I am. But Riley is adamant that she doesn't want anyone to make fun of me. I had to reassure her that people wouldn't laugh and that if they did it didn't bother me. It was their issue to deal with.

That was not entirely true.

Part of me was a bit worried about walking into work the next day with one dark purple nail. Then I realized that I had a doctor's appointment right after work - in fact I had to leave work a little early and wouldn't have  time to stop by home and remove it. Anxiety set in. I debated removing it after Riley went to bed. I couldn't do it though - I really felt like I needed to show her that it's okay to be your own person, do your own thing,  and not worry (too much) about what other people think.

I awoke the next day thinking what are people at work going to think? Will anybody say anything? What am I going to tell them. I decided to make an experiment with it and just go about my business to see what reactions I got. Challenge the people I work with and just go about my day. Honestly it was really difficult at first and I kept catching myself curling that hand under so people wouldn't be able to see the purple nail. Then something happened. Or rather nothing happened. It got closer and closer for me to leave and no one said anything. So I did what any attention monger would do and started pointing it out while relaying Riley's concerns and how I felt it was an important lesson to teach her. I would say that it was also an important lesson for me to learn, but I am the one who bleached his hair platinum blond 13 years ago just to see how it looked.

It Could Happen, But Let's Make Sure It Doesn't

Twice a year we participate in a parenting panel at the University of Indianapolis. It's for a class on gender roles in parenting and Robbie and I participate along with another couple who are straight but are big GLBTQ allies. Somehow though the discussion brings up our coming out stories and this time was no different. The class though was not as inquisitive as past classes have been so we did a lot of talking off the cuff. We talked about what it's like to raise an African American girl when we quite obviously neither. Questions were asked about prejudices and if we've experienced anything negative which I'm quite pleased to say has only happened once.

The other couple have a lesbian daughter who came out to them while she was in college. She is now a big advocate for anti-bullying campaigns even though she herself never experienced any. Bullying is something though that I experienced at school quite often. Many instances were witnessed by teachers who chose to look the other way. One particular instance has remained with me all these years and that was when two "star" athletes wanted in front of me for the lunch line. My t-shirt ended up being ripped off one shoulder and I spent the rest of the day with it barely held up by a safety pin. Nothing happened to the athletes.

But this story isn't about bullying. One of the topics brought up by the other couple was about marriage equality: how not having it is causing an intellectual drain on this country when other countries around us allow it. Robbie and I spoke about the economic and legal ramifications of the not being allowed to be legally married. We have to have a stack of legal documents an inch thick. Financial matters have to be thought out carefully. For instance we didn't realize that because we are not related by blood or marriage that our 401 retirement accounts would be subjected to a 50% tax from the Federal government. We found that out during the DOMA hearings before the Supreme Court. We quickly changed the beneficiary to Riley to take advantage of the lower inheritance tax rate and felt we had everything covered.

Yesterday that all changed. I follow George Takei on Facebook. You should as well. He has the most funny and sometimes profound posts of any celebrity I've read on there. Yesterday he posted a link to a movie trailer simply called "Bridegroom" which is being featured at this years TriBeCa film festival. (click on Bridegroom to see the trailer). Watching it reminded me that I had just talked about this very couple in the gender class the other night. I talked about how last fall i had watched a YouTube video someone had posted on Facebook about these two guys who lived in California. They had been a couple for 6 years, one from a small town in Montana,  and the other from a small town in Indiana. They were living the American dream when tragedy struck in 2011. The guy from Indiana fell from the rooftop of a four story apartment building - he didn't survive.

This is where the true tragedy begins. The guy from Montana had a family that was very happy that he had found someone to share his life with when both guys had decided to come out to their families. The one from Indiana? His family was the exact opposite. This is the link for the original video that still has me shaken: "It Could Happen To You"  It starts out with a black screen with white letters floating: "What if tragedy struck the one you love?" then changes to "Would you be prepared?" then simply says "I'm Shane", "And this is my story."

There are several things that hit me hard about this video. First the music in the beginning of Shane's story is Debussy's Clare de lune which is the very music Robbie and I walked down the aisle to at our commitment ceremony over 8 years ago at the Disciples of Christ Church here in Indianapolis. Second it never occurred to me that someone else could step in and prevent Robbie or I from taking care of the funeral arrangements of the other one if something were to happen. So now it's another trip back to the lawyer for us. And never mind the fact that not having Robbie in my life is a thought that is more than I can bear.

If anyone still wonders why marriage equality is so important to us, there is the reason why. No one should have to go through what Shane did. NO ONE! All the biblical arguments are nonsense in this matter. You don't go to a church to get a marriage license. The minister/priest/clergy all say the same thing at the end of the ceremony "... by the power invested in me by the state of _____" It IS a legal contract between two people of consenting age. If you choose to make it a religious matter then you can. No state requires that once you get your marriage license that you have to get married in a church. None.

Just in case you didn't see the links in this post, here they are:

It Could Happen To You
Bridegroom Trailer #1