My husband and I have the family of our dreams. However, 2 years ago, if you told me that my perfect family would include choosing to adopt a severely autistic 3-year-old boy from the foster system, I would have looked at you like you had 3 heads and asked you what you were smoking.
A year and a half ago, we got that phone call from our social worker saying that a 3-year-old boy was available for adoption “… and he’s really cute, and he has some delays — are you interested in adopting him?”.
When we received his file, we learned that he had intellectual delays, global developmental delays, and was severe on the autism spectrum. He was non-verbal, had behavioral issues, and he bit, he scratched people and he banged his head on hard surfaces when he was frustrated. He had an open case with the county for so long because they simply could not find an adoptive family for him. No one wanted a child with so many delays and behavioral issues.
With little discussion, and with bewilderment and wonder, we immediately said YES to adopting him. There as a driving force behind our enthusiasm. We followed a calling greater than ourselves that immediately appeared when we were presented with this opportunity. We saw our future son’s light shining from his core, looking for a way to connect with others and with the world.
What I saw in him on the first day we met him, was what I remembered of myself when I was 3 years old. Although I did not have autism, I was a very shy child who was afraid of speaking to people I didn’t know, who was afraid of looking people in the eye to avoid rejection and disappointment, who was afraid of simply not being accepted. I lived in an imaginary fortress that I built myself, that even my parents didn’t notice. As I grew up, this fortress was to blame for all of my missed opportunities to thrive and expand, to discover new interests and passions, and to meet new friends and create new adventures.
Had I not built this fortress around me, I would have been making a living as a pop singer and actress today. It sounds silly, but in my growing years, music was my passion and played the piano and guitar by ear. I wrote my own songs at 8 years old and dreamed of one day sharing my own light with the world through song. By 10, I wrote my own movie scripts and strategized how I would find the money to rent a video camera (because back then we did not have smartphones!) and film my movies.
And then that fortress was built. And I spent most of my life discovering how to tear it down. I did demolish the fortress walls for the most part. However, I still have a ways to go.
Every so often, someone would come around and help me demolish my walls. They came in the form of my 3rd grade teacher who gave me the gift of self-worth, the lead singer of my favorite pop band who gave me the gift of owning my creativity, and my very first piano teacher who held the space for my own true self-expression. However, the walls got so thick and so tall that the older I got, the more I retreated.
Fast forward to adulthood. It was during this time that I finally tore down those walls myself, through therapy, self-development workshops, and tons of self-reflection and meditation.
When I saw our son for the first time, I saw his fortress. When I peaked over the walls, I saw his shining light. His eye contact was minimal back then but when our eyes met for a split of a second, I heard him calling for help. He needed an advocate to help him tear down those walls and show him the way out. He has a gift to share with the world that hasn’t yet been uncovered.
That said, my husband and I felt chosen to be advocates of freedom for this boy, to provide the deepest unconditional love and compassion, and most of all, be the ones he would one day call mommy and daddy for the rest of his life, from the other side of those fortress walls.
This is our story as it unfolds.
