This Reminds Me

Archive for the ‘ViewPoint’ Category

As part of her college application process, Lois wrote several essays including this one about an “influential person” in her life.  I wanted to blog it right away, but she made me promise to wait until after her college selection was complete.

It’s complete.  A&M, here she comes.

May 18 is our 6th anniversary of Julia’s homecoming – what we call “Sisters Day.”

Julia’s fearful walk from the “machina” to her new “dom” Mary 18, 2006.  Thanks to Shelley for thinking to take a picture – I sure didn’t have sense enough to suggest it.

Sister’s Day is a great day to blog Lois’ “most influential” essay.  So here goes:

The Most Influential Person in My Life

by Lois Julia Woodworth

She is four feet and four  inches tall, weighs barely fifty pounds, jabbers far too often, and loves me. She has brown hair, olive skin, dark eyes, and a scar from a polio shot on her left arm. She sleeps twenty feet away from me, wakes me in the night when she’s scared, and holds my hand when we cross the street. She joined my family five and a half years ago one May night, and she has drastically altered my life course every second since. She is Julia – my sister – and she is the most influential person in my life.

Julia began stretching her will into my life before she even came home from Russia. In late 2004, my parents asked my sisters and I if we would like to have another sister. After a few side discussions, we decided to expand our family. I began to imagine life with another sister that very night. One of my sisters -  Hannah – would have to share her room with the new addition, and the three of us would share a bathroom, but I was convinced the new sister would be worth it. Julia made me much more open to sharing and considering the needs of others long before she fearfully stepped into her new “dom” (house.)

The wait for Julia’s adoption taught me patience. My family waited more than a year for the name alone of the little girl soon to be a Woodworth.  When her name and picture were revealed to us, I was shocked.  Julia – called by her name of “Guanna” at the time  -was frail and weak. Her hair hung like brittle branches around her hollow face.  Instantly, I felt protective of this child, this orphan whom would soon arrive in my midst. Through the long months of  the adoptive process until my parents went to meet her in St. Petersburg, Julia taught me that patience cannot be overvalued.

When Julia finally did come home in May 2006, my life was truly changed. The first barrier between us was one of language. Guanna spoke only Russian; I knew nowhere near enough Russian to understand her, or respond to her. We worked out a series of hand gestures and pantomime to facilitate communication. It was this process which taught me that love did not need a language to be expressed.

Julia also inspired me to be a better person. My younger sister Hannah and I had never really gotten along; she never looked up to me for anything. When Julia came home, I knew that I needed to be the best person possible for her. I helped her draw, taught her English words and phrases, and stayed with her until she fell asleep at night. I loved her more with every passing day. Julia -  just by existing – taught me that I am the master of my own behavior. She made me want to learn self-control and practice self-awareness.

Julia arrived at my house as a fragile stranger and blossomed into a beautiful preteen girl. During her metamorphosis, I changed as well. Julia taught me the value of patience,  how to be self-aware and how to sing “Frere Jacques” in Russian.  I taught her what to call our family members, where Mom hides the Girl Scout cookies and how to turn on the shower. Julia and I learned a great deal from each other, the most important of all being love.

Hang on, Lois!  A&M is going to be a wild ride.

I used to entertain lofty visions for myself including living in a perpetual state of thankfulness for God’s goodness.  I would view each challenge as an opportunity to grow spiritually, emotionally, physically and mentally.  My children would learn patience, mercy and gratitude at my knee.  I would never take my blessings for granted.

Fast forward to the last two weeks.  I’ve left no challenge uncursed.  My children have have endured my stress, judgment and exhaustion.  From a mysterious “Walking Dead” rash on my face to the torn pantyhose encasing my tired toes - I have just stumbled and grumbled through each day, allowing activity and worry to suck my joy.  Until tonight – when Rachel showed me her latest doodle.   Her “What I’m Thankful For” list made me do my two favorite things: laugh and think.

If I composed my own Top 50 list, it wouldn’t contain “25 Wiggling My Ears,” or “38 Guinea Pigs.”  But it would certainly include “2 My Family.”

I’m surprised “Sunglasses” didn’t make her list.  She’s always loved them. 

Thank you, Rachel – and everyone – who makes me laugh and think.

If I had a list – the good kind! – you’d be on it.

As 2012 approaches, our family is undergoing a fundamental shift in its #1 pastime – reading.

Keith and I come from families that read constantly.  I remember Mom and Judy swapping grocery bags stuffed with books.  My mom always had a book going – in fact, several:  One each in or by her chair in the den, bedside, car, purse and yes, one in the bathroom.  No Christmas or birthday was complete without a new book.  Or two.  Or three.   My first external validation of childhood responsibility was acquiring a library card – from a Houston Book Mobile that camped in a grocery store parking lot, long before Meyer Branch Library was built.

Keith and I love to read.  Our 1992 “Three Wise Woodworths” Christmas card plus….

…the Christmas card insert.   I’ll bet I read “Muppets in my Neighborhood” to Rachel 500 times.

But over time, what do you do with books?  Swap them around, sure.  Sell an occasional load to Half Price Books, maybe.  Build/buy more shelves, assuredly.  I quit keeping any but the most rare of freshly-acquired books soon after we moved here, simply because our den and bedroom shelves overflowed.

Enter the e-Reader.

I am not a technological early adopter.  I love technology – when it works for me.  But I have no interest in being “first.”  I am more than willing for someone else to work out the bugs and let the price drop before I buy a new toy.

Keith is a technological early adopter.  The financial constraints of providing for a six-person family, however, mean that he can’t always “be first” as he usually was when he was single.  He has to weigh purchases with their value for six people, not just one.  But when he buys – wow, he knows what’s doing.   He’s been a forums user since the 90′s and scours scores of tech sites daily.   He is our family’s source for knowledge of all things that must boot.

Keith switched to an e-Reader – specifically, a Barnes & Noble Nook – about two years ago.  His motto:  “No more dead tree.”  He carries his scri-fi loaded Nook everywhere he might have a chance to read on it  He no longer buys – and very seldom reads – paper books.

I downloaded the Amazon Kindle, Nook, Borders Kobo and iBooks apps for my iPad last Christmas and slowly began to read e-Books, enticed by a great holiday sale at Borders.  I liked e-Reading fine, but still refused to chant “no dead tree.”  After a year of e-Reading mixed with paper reading, I can see advantages/disadvantages to each – especially since Lois, Hannah, Julia and my sister Judy got Nooks for Christmas this year.

Lois’ Nook on its charger amidst her desk clutter.  The best books I read this year were “Empire of the Summer Moon,” and “The Immortal Henrietta Lacks,” and I read them digitally.

Advantages to an e-Reader

1.  Portability.  You can carry multiple books with you easily.  When I traveled with “dead tree,” I always carried three books – the one I was currently reading, my next planned book and a third, just in case the “next planned” was a dog.  Now I just slip my iPad in my carry-on and I’m done.

2.  Ease of reading.  As I’ve – ummm, “matured” – I’ve noticed font sizes getting smaller.  Any decent e-reader allows font size change, brightness change (if back lit), etc.  One exception:  Most e-readers have small screens.  As Judy has pointed out – “I wish there was more on a page.”  Tablets have the bigger screens, but are also pricey.

3.  Familiarity.  My kids have always lived in a digital world.  They are more comfortable with electronics than other media.  Rachel bought her own Nook a few months ago and has more than doubled the amount of time she reads for pleasure.  We’re hoping an e-Reader will do the same for Julia, who seldom reads for fun unless goaded.

“The Magic Tree House” reads better digitally, I’m told…..

4.  Convenience.  Want that book?  Just log in and download it from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.  No wasting gas driving to a b&m (bricks and mortar) store, or waiting on UPS to deliver the box.

5.  Storage.   Look around.  Enough said.

Advantages to “Dead Tree”

1.  Personalization.  An inscribed bo0k means something – at least to me.  I don’t think an Amazon gift card for a Kindle book is nearly as personal as an inscribed tome.  More practical, yes, but not as personal.

I find it difficult to give away any book my mom inscribed to me.  Ridiculous, because she was more than pen and ink.  But still difficult.  I met author Robert Massie at a luncheon this fall.  He inscribed a copy of his new “Catherine the Great” to Julia.  After I read it, I’ll place that “dead tree” copy in her room.  She’ll appreciate it one day.  I hope.

2.  Ease of sharing.  Amazon plus Barnes and Noble have very limited sharing ability.  99.99% of the time, if you bought the book, it can only be read via the device associated with your account.  You can’t – as I have done for so many years – throw that book in a closet for your next trip to Houston to hand off to your sister.

3.  Annotating.  You can digitally annotate, but my fat fingers don’t like tiny keyboards.  It’s easier for me to grab a yellow highlighter and a pen to mark up whatever devotional our Wednesday night bible class is studying.

4.  Better choices in the public library.  At least in San Antonio, the digital choices are slim compared to paper.  And who has time to drive to the library?  I just don’t.  I grew up an avid library user (both public and school) but found that after I had kids, I simply did not have time to work in non-essential car trips, or patience for one more due date.  Sounds whiny, but true.

Neutral Factors

1.  Cost.  Sure, there’s an entry cost to e-Readers, but devices have gotten much cheaper – and prices continue to fall.  I don’t think entry cost is significant any longer if you’re buying an e-Reader.  Now if you’re buying a tablet with e-Reader apps – that’s different.  Tablets definitely carry a significant entry cost.  Also, the cost of e-books versus paper books has narrowed to about $1 for new releases.  Of course, used paper books and/or late release paperbacks are cheaper.   Commensurately, late release paperback prices for e-Readers  are lower, too.  I know there are a million variables, and I am generally pretty frugal with entertainment money and – ceteris parabis – I think the costs are closing in on “equal” for most purchases.

As part of cost…..if you lose a paperback book, it’s usually an annoyance, but not a big deal.  I’ve left them on the bus, at the doctor’s office, etc.  Irritating, but not devastating.  If I lost my iPad, I’d be crushed.  Crippled.  Inconsolable.  In addition to being without my best friend, it’d cost $500+ to replace it.  So I do not carry my iPad on the bus, where I none-too-gently sling around my “blue bag.”  If/when I see a killer deal on Nooks, I think I’ll get myself one strictly as my “leave the house” reader.  I tend to take care of my possessions and wouldn’t plan to lose it or break it, but if I did, I wouldn’t tear my clothes and cover myself in ashes like I would if it were my iPad.

My “bus bag, ” souvenir of working the 1992 Republican Convention.  It will wear out one day (as the numerous small holes enlarge) but in the meantime, it carries my lunch, an umbrella and my current “bus book.”  I have an entire section of a wall unit crammed with a diminishing supply of paperbacks ($.50@) and hard backs ($1@) we bought in April at the NEISD used book sale.  We’ve gone every year but I wonder if we’ll go in 2012?  I kind of doubt it.

2.  Inventory.  If it’s new, a classic or sold well in the last 50 years, chances are there’s an e-version.

I hope your 2012 is filled with life, laughter and lots of good books – however you read them.

Shortly before Rachel started kindergarten, we attended a welcome-to-school party hosted by a family whose home included a large swimming pool.  For a still-unexplained reason, Rachel – who could not swim – leaped into the deep end.  I stood there absolutely incredulous as she bobbed to the surface, gasped, and promptly sunk.  In just a few seconds, I had slipped off my watch and my shoes and jumped in fully clothed to retrieve my child.

I didn’t rationalize her plight and minimize my own responsibility by saying, “Well, Rachel, I can’t save you because there may be a drowning child somewhere else, and really, what I need to be doing is dictating mandatory swimming lessons worldwide, and/or lobbying legislators to require 24×7 lifeguards at every body of water.”  No.  My child needed me.  I jumped.

Sometimes, children need to be saved.

This week, I’ve been both irritated and horrified at UNICEF’s war against international adoption. UNICEF seems to believe that the “answer” to the needs of orphans is to improve the conditions in their home countries so there’s no need for international adoptions.  How lofty.  How noble.  That kumbaya-chanting ideal assumes (1) that all global economic imbalances can be solved and (2) that all parents want custody of and/or are capable of caring for their children.

The day she left Children’s Home #47, Julia’s friends wished her to be happy, be healthy, remember Russia and obey her grandmother.  I play “what if” often – like, what if Keith and I were 10 years younger with a bucket’o'money?  Would we adopt again?  Look at those kids.  Oh, yes, we would.

Global economic imbalances are a harsh reality.  The world has been and will be – until Jesus returns – a place where “the poor will always be with us.” As a Christian and a human being, I am sorry for the families without clean water, or enough to eat.   And while I wish I could wave a magic wand and make – say,Ethiopia – a land of plenty, I can’t.   And even if I could, that doesn’t mean that every Ethiopian parent would want custody or or was capable of caring for children.

Modern adoption language discourages terms like “saving children.”  And we are never supposed to say children were “given up for adoption,” oh no, it’s “the bio parents made an adoption plan.”  I know all the now-correct language to use.  But really – I think 99% of that stuffola really only applies to in-country, US-adoptions, almost always with infants.  When you’re holding a cooing little bundle of blue in a U.S. hospital for whom you’ve waited years to fill that empty crib – great.  Be all correct in your language.  Get out the whole “birth triad” language book out and jabber away.

But when you are adopting internationally – especially when you have other children – oh, please!  All of it just makes me grit my teeth.  What is wrong with flat-out acknowledging that yes, you’re adopting – but at least part of your motivation is in saving a child?  I’ve spoken to families who pulled children out of hellish situations in Africa, Russia, South America, etc..  When a family adopts a scar-ravaged Colombian toddler removed from the custody of a bio mother that almost burned him to death – ‘cmon, that child was most definitely saved and there was no “adoption plan” made.  That family, BTW, had several bio children already.  I have a blogging buddy in Michigan I admire tremendously.  She and her husband had three bio kids before adopting a school-age girl from Russia.   Now they’re adopting a Ukrainian teenager set to age-out of the orphanage.  Statistics say he’ll have a short, bitter life of crime – assuming, of course, he doesn’t commit suicide soon, as 20% of those kids do.  Her family is not trying to solve the poverty problem in the Ukraine.  They can’t.  They’re just going to rescue a little 15-year-old piece of it.

Fixing a whole country is just too big.  The families I know that have adopted intentionally can’t do that as individuals, and don’t believe it’s the job of the United States to shoulder world reform.   But they feel called to do “something.”  So – like most of us – they do what they can.

UNICEF’s answer to the orphan is, “We’ll get your whole country fixed and then your parents can keep you.  You’ll have no need to be adopted intentionally.  Wait.  Just wait.”

But children – as we all know – can’t wait.

Sometimes, you just have to jump in and save them.