Me, Rex and the Supreme Court

Clockwise from top:Rex, Rob, Elise, Ty, Jennifer.
Center: me, of course. It's always about me.
Isn't it always about you?

Back when I was getting reacquainted with my brother after an eleven-year separation, I realized I had some thinking to do.

In the beginning, Rex lived in a nasty, run-down apartment on the bad side of town. His sweet good-nature made him the target of all the drug dealers, prostitutes and who-knows-who-else in the neighborhood. Rob and I couldn't convince him it was a bad idea to let people use his phone to arrange their business dealings. It was obvious to us that Rex's phone was the epicenter for all the illegal activity in the area. At the same time, Rex made a new friend. The guy needed a place to stay and my brother, being my brother, generously offered let the guy live with him.

My alarm bells went off the first time I met Rex's roommate. Instantly, from the first hand shake, I was concerned. Every time I tried to talk to Rex about getting rid of the guy, he got defensive, saying, "He is my FRIEND! I don't want him to leave," and then Rex would tear up and start to cry. It broke my heart. I understood how lonely Rex was, I could see how he longed to be appreciated and needed. But this guy? Not to be trusted.

After one particularly stressful visit where I found porn magazines stashed in the bathroom, I demanded Rex tell me exactly what was going on. Was the porn his? Did he buy those nasty magazines?  How does that kind of filth fit in with what Jesus would want for him?  Rex told Rob and I that the magazines were not his, they belonged to his roommate. He knew they were in the apartment, but did not look at them. I was mad and confused. The roommate was at work so we couldn't talk to him. I told Rex that was enough, his roommate had to go. No ifs, ands or buts, he was leaving. Rex cried, begging us to let the man stay. He really liked him and didn't want him to be homeless again. I replied I didn't care what happened to the roommate. My only concern was his well being, no one else's. As Rob and I left his apartment, Rex was still crying. I was scared. What was going to happen when Rex told his roommate to leave? Would he beat my brother up? Should we have stayed and taken care of this ourselves?

During the hour long drive back to our home, a new thought occurred to me. What if my brother's affection for his roommate went beyond companionship? What if my brother was sexually attracted to him? Was Rex even aware of that? What if my brother was gay? I hadn't considered that before. We were raised in the church, like everyone else. The church that said it was a sin, grievous unto death, if you were gay. I didn't know any openly gay people. I knew they were around, but not in any circles of my life. My only thought about being gay was I didn't want that for my children or my brother because life would be very, very hard for them. No loving parent wants their child to be ostracized by society, told they are sinners, and shunned. I just wanted my family to be happy.

I was so bothered by this new thought, I picked up the phone and called Rex's bishop and told him the situation. What if Rex was gay? Would he be kicked out of church? Would he lose the only group of people in his whole life who ever showed him unconditional love? Where would he go? What would become of him? What would the bishop do? This situation was so far beyond a theological debate, it wasn't even funny.

The bishop reassured me that he didn't believe Rex was gay. He didn't know for sure, they had never talked about it, just like I hadn't either. All the bishop positively knew, was that Rex was fine. No matter how this played out, he was not going to lose his church family and no one would treat him poorly. I was flooded with relief. In 1994 this was not a topic widely discussed in public, let alone in the church. I just needed to know my brother was safe and accepted. Since Rex lived his life on the emotional level of an 8 year-old boy, I didn't know how to even discuss it with him.


The next weekend, Rob and I informed Rex's roommate he needed to pack his porn and leave. I took Rex and my kids to play at the park while Rob helped the guy move out. Rex was still very unhappy with what we were doing, but I pulled the same sister rank I had always used in our childhood to do what I thought was best for him. I had been the boss his whole life and that wasn't changing.

Within a matter of weeks, Rex's apartment developed a deadly gas leak and he was moved to emergency housing across town, far away from the drug dealers and other shady characters still in his life. He was placed in a low-income, secured high-rise apartment  building traditional reserved for elderly women. He quickly went to work making friends with all the residents. My brother found his home and I was so relieved.

I never did get a clear picture of Rex's sexuality. He talked often about getting married and having kids, but was that because of how we were raised, or because he was attracted to women? I decided it didn't matter. My love for him transcended whatever my brother's sexuality was. Gay, straight, bi, whatever, I didn't care. He was my family and I loved him, including whoever he chose to love.

Yesterday the US Supreme Court decided that everyone, regardless of their sexual preferences, should be afforded the opportunity to legally wed if they choose to. I am glad they made that decision, the same one I made 21 years ago.

If my brother taught me anything, he taught me Love Always Wins. Always.

Blackberries Make Achieving a Goal Possible

Blackberries In the Wild



The best part about growing up in Oregon was the summer fruit. In our neighborhood I had free reign to plunder neighbors plum trees, cherry trees, and the blackberry bushes that grew like feral cats in the empty lot across the street. The blackberries were considered such a nuisance that our adoptive father Harley gave my oldest brother, Matthew a machete so he could chop down the thorny bushes wherever they took hold. This was, of course, back in the 1970's when it wasn't considered odd to give a 12 year-old boy an oversized butcher knife, along with a quick lesson on how to keep it deadly sharp. 

Luckily, Matthew was a tender-hearted, sensitive boy who used his machete only for good, never for evil. He chopped paths through the center of the tangled blackberry bushes that grew on the fence surrounding the 5 acre empty lot. He braved the thorny blackberry vines that could take off a layer of skin within seconds. He chopped out hidden forts, secret passages and small holes of cleared dirt that were perfect for spending the afternoon away from the troublesome adults in our lives. Having a working machete at our disposal made all kinds of childhood life improvements that were otherwise unimaginable.

Besides the fact I and my adoptive siblings used the bounties of Oregon fruit season to combat the regular punishment of not being worthy enough to eat food at home, blackberries also were integral to my accomplishing my very first life goal.

I had developed many unspoken goals in my childhood, like to not be beaten with a stick; eat regularly even when food wasn't given; avoid the adults I lived with; and to stay out of trouble at school. I hadn't yet attempted a serious, measurable goal all on my own. At 8 years old, it was hard to find a goal that didn't smell like a grow-ups attempt to make me work. One night, after a hard day of playing in the blackberry forts, I noticed my denim jean shorts were stained with blackberry juice. As I changed into my pajamas for bed, I saw the areas caked with fruit juice and dirt were stiffer than the rest of my shorts. The thought came to me that it would be neat to see if I could wear my shorts every day, to the point that they could stand up in the corner of my room all by themselves. Yes! This was a goal worth trying for.

 

My experiment with nature, science and cotton blue jean fabric commenced the next morning. No one said anything about my dirty shorts while I hurried through my required morning chores. When I arrived back home in the evening at supper time, the adults were busy watching evening tv. Lunch was always eaten away from home, straight off whatever nearby plants God provided, to lessen the chances of being caught up in doing extra housework for our adoptive mother, Virginia.  Day by day, I methodically tested plum, cherry, blackberry, and peach juice smeared on my shorts to see which created the stiffest possible fabric. It appeared to my novice eye that blackberries won the contest hands down. Layered with regularly applied fine dust and grit, my shorts became a hardened cast that was actually difficult to sit down in. 

After a week of hard work, I proudly showed off my efforts to my siblings.  Mission accomplished! The shorts stood, all by themselves, without any support from the walls. They were completely covered with black juice, brown dirt and signified the first time in my life I set out to accomplish a goal and did it. 

My shorts didn't last after that night. One of my siblings told Virginia about my so-dirty-they-could-stand-by-themselves shorts and she took them, leaving me only with a lecture about ruining perfectly good clothes ringing in my ears. 

I didn't care. 
Blackberries taste great and are wonderful in pies, smashed into jam, and they let a girl know that accomplishing a goal all by herself is possible. 

Because I am awesome mom, when my kids had the opportunity to get muddy,
I helped them do it. Yay me!  

A Happy Day

In Cheyenne Wyoming, early 1990's

I don't remember when this picture was taken. There is nothing written on the back of it or date stamped from the film processing center. It had to be taken in Cheyenne because that is where my brother and I met as adults. I don't recognize the back of what we are sitting on, so it probably wasn't taken at his apartment. I dunno. All I do know is our smiles are genuine. That is such a big deal. I don't have many picture of Rex and I, not more than a handful. Most of them are posed group shots with family members. Those are nice, but they are devoid of the spontaneity of the leaning in that we are both doing in this photo.

This photo is proof of a happy day that I don't recall and I don't care. All that matters is that we had it - one happy moment that I choose to believe lasted all day. Life is fraught with so many ways a happy day can quickly go sideways. I am grateful I have this photo that captured Rex and me and our uncensored affection without any baggage of what happened before or after it was taken.

One happy moment, one happy day. What a wonderful thing.  

Kirkus Book Review



Kirkus Review, a professional book review company that helps libraries and bookstores decide which books to buy, wrote a review of Ezra and Hadassah: A Portrait of American Royalty. I was really worried before I read their review. Kirkus has a reputation of being very critical and hard to please.
Guess what?!?!
They liked it!
I feel just like Sally Field did when she accepted her Oscar in 1985. Boy, can I relate to her. Kiss, kiss, Sally, kiss, kiss.

 

 

Click on the Kirkus Review to see for yourself what all the fuss is about. I'll be over here in the corner, hugging myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Miracle Has Occurred

One of my closest friends called the other day. She was looking for information and advice on babies with hearing loss. Her grandchild has just been diagnosed with a hearing loss. She knew to ask me because all three of our kids have hearing loss, too.

I think my friend was a tad bit surprised by my reaction to her news. I wasn't sad or upset. Actually, I was just the opposite. I was happy for their family.  Her grandson's hearing was tested as a newborn before he left the hospital. The baby had a follow up hearing test in an audiologist's office and his hearing loss was diagnosed at that appointment. Straight forward and exactly how it is supposed to go. Her grandson will be fitted for infant-sized hearing aids and he will be fully hearing before he even figures out he has hands. That is such a wonderful blessing! My friend and her family are understandably sad at the moment because they just found out their sweet baby doesn't hear everything. Luckily for them, they have no idea how difficult it was even 25 years ago to get hearing loss identified in children.

I know only because our family was caught in the nightmare of fighting to get our children's hearing loss diagnosed before there were newborn hearing screens, back in the early 1990's when doctor's relied on ringing a bell to see if  a baby could hear. It was stupid, inaccurate, and delayed the proper diagnosis by years.

 I still get upset when I think about the hell I went through to get our oldest child's hearing loss identified, then relived the same trauma with our second child who was also diagnosed late. Thankfully, by the time our third child came, the technology to test a baby's hearing at birth was available and he got his hearing loss identified right away. That early (because newborn diagnosis is SO much earlier than the what was happening) identification made all the difference in the world to our family and our baby. Because of the uniqueness of having 3 children with the same hearing loss and experiencing differing ages of identification, our family was asked to participate in publicizing the importance of testing babies hearing at birth. Of course, we jumped on the opportunity. We wanted to make the nightmare of late diagnosis a thing of the past.

We did several years of newspaper, magazine, tv and video interviews, telling our family story to anyone who asked. It felt so good to be involved with others who were committed to the cause of having every child's hearing tested early in life. We also had our share of mishaps and humiliations during that time. Being judged in the public eye wasn't anything I was prepared for. I was speechless the first time I read Letters to the Editor newspaper comments questioning why we had three "defective children" and how our children were a drain on public health care and education systems. Wowzers. I can only imagine how awful mean-spirited comments would be now, with the internet. The worst of all was what Rob and I like to call our Washington, D.C. Experience. Click the link if you want to know what happens when unsophisticated people with small children show up in Washington. Yikes! My face still burns red when I think about that special time. Let's just say sacrifices were made to bring Newborn Hearing Screens to every state in the US and it was worth it. 

The other big change since my kids were little, is the availability of support for families with children who have hearing loss. When my kids were small there was no easy way to get advice or information. The internet was in its infancy, not that it would have mattered because no programs existed that offered unbiased information for all the different ways hearing loss can be addressed. It is overwhelming and difficult to make decisions regarding communication styles while you are still in the beginning stages of grieving your child's hearing difference. To be blunt, it sucked. 

 I was introduced to 3 other mothers who agreed with me, that the lack of support for families was unacceptable. We decided to form our own organization to help parents and children with hearing loss. We started it at a dining room table with the goal of creating a statewide network of parent-to-parent support. Over the past 20 years, Hands and Voices has grown to be an international non-profit organization that helps families around the world. It just goes to show you what a small group of committed people can accomplish.

I told my dear friend to contact Hands and Voices in her area and they will answer their family's questions and talk through the decisions that must be made. Hands and Voices will be there to support that sweet baby and his parents all the way through infancy, early childhood and school age years. They are not alone and they don't have to figure it all out by themselves. What a precious gift for them! 

Every year I make a point of accepting an invitation to speak at our local university to future audiologists. Before I speak the students watch a one of the informational videos our family made years ago. They see the now outdated clothes and homemade haircuts we sported, they watch me cry as I talk about the difficulties my two older children had because their hearing losses were diagnosed too late. Then they see the difference in our youngest child, the one who benefited from cutting-edge technology that tested his hearing at birth.

The best part of all is when I show up with updated family photos and give them the rest of the story. This spring I was able to say that our two girls have graduated college and their younger brother is following behind with one more year to go. 

 Jennifer, our first child

 Elise, our second child

Yes, it is sad to have a beautiful baby diagnosed with any kind of special need. But the world is changing fast and things are getting better. I am humbled to know that my words from years ago, have actually come true.

"There will never be another child who has to go through what our kids have had to go through. We are so happy and pleased because this is going to change so many lives."  

- spoken at the signing of the 1995 Colorado Newborn Hearing Screen bill, which mandated insurance companies to pay for testing babies hearing at birth.

The miracle has occurred and thank heaven we are alive to see it happen. 






   































http://www.mormonmentality.org/2011/09/25/dressing-for-success-in-washington-d-c.htm

Happy Anniversary

Rob,

Remember our plans for the future while we were engaged? I laugh to think about them now. Oh, how life changed those for us!

 Remember when we attended that university lecture and that researcher said that 87% of marriages with one child with special needs ended in divorce? How about the look on her face when we told her that we had 3 children with multiple special needs? Yeah, she said we were statistically doomed.

 I can't say it was easy or that at times our underwear wasn't hanging out pretty far for all the world to see, but I can say I am so glad we figured it out and made it work for us.
 28 years and counting, baby.
 So proud of you, me and our kiddos.
 Happy anniversary for us, another year we beat the stats.

Love,
Heather

Our wedding invitation photo

When we were young

My Five Mothers

I believe we are given as many parents as we need to learn the life lessons that are necessary for us. I'm not sold on the idea that it is a predestined contract signed before we all showed up on Earth, but I do believe that there are special people to help us along our way. I also believe there are as many relationships as there are people in the world, so there is an overabundance of opportunities to get things right if that is your goal.


I needed five mother's to get me through. Most people only need one and maybe a good second mother-in-waiting to get the job done, but I had five. I am perfectly happy with the women who I chose or they chose me, to teach me the ways of the world. I am lucky because for every difficult mother I had, I was able to find another who was able to erase the pain and give me a boost of needed courage and confidence.


Let me introduce you to the important women who mothered me and made me whole.

1. Claudia - My biological mother. Through no fault of her own, she was only able to mother me until I was 7 years old, and most of that time she had to share me with my second mom. I honor Claudia because she gave my brother and me all that she had. She has suffered unimaginable heartache in losing her children to an unfair system that she had no control over. I can't fathom having her strength to carry on and live a full life without overpowering bitterness and anger against the world. I am so glad we found each other as adults.

Claudia with my brother Rex, circa 1966. Cuties, right? 

2. Dorothy - My foster mother from age 2 to 7. She was a helper mother to Claudia and made it possible for us to have a relationship with our biological parents. Since we weren't her only foster children and she had 3 biological children of her own,  I was just another child in her home. I had freedom in her home because she didn't have rules or much structure. As an adult, I can see that I pretty much ran wild.
I don't have a picture of Dorothy because my computer crashed and I lost all the photos from a research trip to Oregon that Rob and I took in 2009. I did keep a handful of pictures that were still on a cell phone. The only one that survived from Dorothy's house turned out to be very appropriate since Dorothy only vaguely remembered me and my brother. Even though we lived with her for 5 years, we didn't register high on her list of memorable children. We were just a paycheck to her.

The basement door in Dorthy's foster home. Each foster child signed their name.
 There are A LOT of names on that door. 

3. Virginia - My adoptive mother. She raised me from age 7 to 18. I left on my eighteenth birthday and I never spent another night in her house. I don't regret my decision to leave. Actually, I am confident leaving saved my sanity and possibly my life. I learned more from Virginia than I care to remember, but I do appreciate that she taught me the proper ways to fold towels, clean the bathroom, and how to keep my deepest soul protected from people who would do harm to it. Virginia gave me many opportunities to practice that last one. That skill has served me well as an adult. Virginia did not break me.

Virginia with Rex and I shortly after we were adopted. We were sweet looking kids. 

4. Anna - My healing mother. I lived with Anna for almost two years after I left Virginia's house. She and her husband provided me with food, a safe place to sleep and a sense of stability that I had never experienced previously in my life. Anna wasn't a perfect mother, but she was perfect for me, and I love her for that. She was an excellent cook and my hair and fingernails grew like crazy at her house. Anna's simple acts of feeding me, asking me about my day and listening when I talked, healed so much. I thank her for being willing to take on me and my beaten down spirit. She did a good job with me.






5. Barbara - My teaching mother. I was 19 when I married Rob. When I became a mother at 21, the reality of my ignorance of taking care of children was painfully obvious. Barbara (my best friend Stephanie's stepmother) became my phone-a-mother lifeline. She helped with the daily questions that all new mothers had before the internet made parenting one ginormous Google search. More importantly, when my children were diagnosed with hearing losses, and then when we rushed to the hospital on a regular basis for health crisses', her occupation as a nurse was a godsend because she was able to explain medical procedures and medication in ways that I understood. She was a safe mother for me to cry and wail to, and she agreed it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair my children were sick. It wasn't fair that I had already had a crappy childhood and now I was having a crappy motherhood. When would it get fair? Barbara's wisdom was able to calm my fried nerves and give me hope when no one else could. I love her for her lessons about how to survive when you are so worn out you just want to lay down and die. Barbara taught me how to live.

I thank all my mother's for sharing with me what they had. The good, the bad, the hurtful and the sublime. I accept it all with gratitude.