It's Mother's Day
It's Mother's Day; hope that those who are mothers and those who have been like mother's to us have had a wonderful day.
This story won't leave me; the story of Adam Crapser. A colleague posted something about it on Facebook. For days I was arrested by my own feelings.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/27/499573378/south-korean-adopted-at-age-3-is-to-be-deported-37-years-later
This story is a few years old, but there are some updates on other websites. Adams is suing the agency that placed him in the adoptive home.
This story is a few years old, but there are some updates on other websites. Adams is suing the agency that placed him in the adoptive home.
Adam's story is heart breaking; adopted at age 3 and raised in the United States, after living here for all of his life, he was deported. It is indeed a sad story. Made sadder for me by my own life circumstances. You see, many, many years ago, my husband and I tried to adopt a South Korean child. We were the next on the list to receive a child when something went terribly wrong. The relationship between the South Korean Agency and the agency in the U.S. was broken and lawsuits were impending. We, along with several other couples, never got our long awaited child.
To read Adam's story, the unsettling circumstances of his life, it is difficult to image the horror he experienced. Abused by not one family, but two, he now finds himself in South Korea as his wife and children remain in the States. It made me wonder--what if we had been Adam's family? We were blessed many years later to adopt a child; but Adam's story made the disappointing outcome of my past come roaring back. A son--oh what would it have meant to have a son! Would he have become an artist, a poet, perhaps a baseball player, or even a ballet dancer? Would he have laughed with us, celebrated birthdays with us, fed goats and chickens with us?
Today on this Mother's Day, I give thanks for the process of adoption that allowed me to become a mother and for the beautiful daughter with which I am so blessed. I give thanks that as a priest, I have served as a spiritual mother for some. But today, I am also thinking of Adam Crapser and all of the others who have similar circumstances. What if Adam had been my son? The story won't leave me; for now I pray for him. Letters will be in my future plans--to politicians, agencies and yes, maybe even one to Adam.
To read Adam's story, the unsettling circumstances of his life, it is difficult to image the horror he experienced. Abused by not one family, but two, he now finds himself in South Korea as his wife and children remain in the States. It made me wonder--what if we had been Adam's family? We were blessed many years later to adopt a child; but Adam's story made the disappointing outcome of my past come roaring back. A son--oh what would it have meant to have a son! Would he have become an artist, a poet, perhaps a baseball player, or even a ballet dancer? Would he have laughed with us, celebrated birthdays with us, fed goats and chickens with us?
Today on this Mother's Day, I give thanks for the process of adoption that allowed me to become a mother and for the beautiful daughter with which I am so blessed. I give thanks that as a priest, I have served as a spiritual mother for some. But today, I am also thinking of Adam Crapser and all of the others who have similar circumstances. What if Adam had been my son? The story won't leave me; for now I pray for him. Letters will be in my future plans--to politicians, agencies and yes, maybe even one to Adam.
