My Hero

For nine years, Braden was our only child. All of our love and all of our attention—as well as our neuroses, our bad parenting skills, and our expectations—were focused on the boy I first encountered on a still Halloween night in 1993. He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and I’m still captivated by memories of his early years: Sitting in the back yard on a summer night, Braden on my lap eating ice cream, pointing with his spoon at the moon hanging in the sky as he intones “Goooooonnnn.” Playing with his Brio train and his cars, bath time...

We made lots of mistakes. Joie and I treated him as a near equal for far too long, and we spent all of our Christmas cash on gifts that in hindsight were extravagant and overboard. Maybe every pre-teen in America has their own TV-VCR combo, their own DVD player and digital camera…but that doesn’t make it right.

Then we had Georgia. The nine-year-old only child was suddenly a sibling, and while he loved his sister endlessly there was a not-so-subtle shift in the dynamics of our family. Too little patience on our parts, too much noise on his. Our 5-foot, hundred pound son was all thundering and stomping up and down stairs and full-throated roars from the far ends of the house (“CAN I EAT THIS LAST CUPCAKE??”). In short, the polar opposite of our cooing newborn girl. Worst, he was clearly not the center of his mother’s affections any more. For the first time ever, Braden had to share love.

We made it through, though. Braden learned and we learned. Still self-centered and often not understanding why this bothered us so, Braden struggled to redefine his role in our family. Then we began talking about adopting another child…

At first, our plans were to fill the nine-year gap between Braden and Georgia’s ages with a child of eight or nine. Then we found Kelly. The first thing I ever noticed about her, as Joie and I leaned over my laptop together reading our first newsletter from CHI, was that she shared Braden’s birthday—October 31, Halloween, though a year earlier. Having this birthday was always a special badge of “uniqueness” for Braden.

Joie and I, separately and unknown to each other, kept going back to Kelly’s picture and the brief description of her. She was not the age we thought we were looking for, but it was dawning on each of us that she was our girl. Joie had copied a passage from Proverbs and stuck it on our refrigerator: “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

We began talking to Braden about Kelly. Bringing her home would have a huge impact on his life. He would no longer be our oldest… He would have to share his special birthday… A number of significant changes would occur if we were able to become Kelly’s family.

There were many ups and downs in the adoption process, mostly financial. There were many times that it looked like the thousands of dollars owed to me by my employer might never come, which would forever keep us apart from Kelly. One weekend when these doubts had crushed us into despair, Braden scribbled a note and left it on his mother’s nightstand.

“Dear God—
I want Kelly to come home to us.
Love, Braden.
PS: Bless my family.”

This note too, is on refrigerator today. It reminds us that Braden is the real hero of our efforts to bring Kelly home. It reminds us that the slightly self-centered only child is learning—gradually—to open his heart and share. It reminds us that our sacrifices—of money and time—are nothing compared to the sacrifices that Braden has willingly made to help us recreate our family.

There is no telling what Braden’s relationship with Kelly might become. In an uncommon dynamic, the younger brother will have to help his new older sister understand our culture, our family, and our lives. But I like to think that they will be close friends forever.

He is my hero.