A new story of my life, part IV

Final installment for the foreseeable future. If you want to catch up, here’s part I, part II, and part III.

I started this in October 2012 and tried periodically to finish it, but I guess it just needed like seven months to “bake.” That, and it’s freaking long.* It takes a long time to make this many words semi-coherent (which I hope I’ve managed to do). So here’s your “tl;dr” in case you only want the adoption update and not the ten-hour journey through my psyche:

In a few months, we plan to move a few hours away to a different county in California. Once there, we’ll restart the process of understanding the local public and private adoption resources, particularly focusing on foster-to-adopt programs. When Addison is between five and six years old, we hope to foster-to-adopt a sibling set of two kids. Maybe a five-year-old and a two-year-old. Or a six-year-old and a three-year-old. Or possibly a five-year-old and twin babies. Or . . . you get the idea. There’s an endless number of specific combinations, but we’d like the older child to be around Addison’s age.

For those not familiar with the foster care system, age 5 is kind of a magic number (well, not “magic” in a good way). When a child reaches five, they are considered an “older child” and are less likely to be adopted. Enter us.

So that’s it. Seriously? That’s what took me seven months to articulate? Here’s the trip down the rabbit hole if you want the whole experience:

Last weekend [last October] Addison met her new cousin, baby Brayden. For the last couple of months before Brayden arrived, Addison totally noticed that something was going on in Aunt Rish’s tummy and she was getting a little impatient.  ”Baby come out!” “See him!” She was pleased to finally be able to see and hold him. So I was only mildly surprised when on Monday she said to me,

“Hope you get a baby in your tummy.”

You do?

“Yeah, a baby ‘pider.”

I think we dodged a bullet this time, folks. I thought she was already going to start demanding her own squishy little sibling. Thankfully, she’s really into arachnids and insects. But if my growing up years are any indication, the demands for a brother or sister will start eventually and be persistent. I remember my brother and I being insistent about our need for another sibling, no doubt because we each wanted an ally in our battles against one another.

So I figure I better finish this “new life story” so I have something to tell Addison when the questions come, even though I’m not completely sure how to tie all these disparate threads together. I hadn’t quite meant to leave this story in such a mournful place, amidst all the doubts and fears. Those doubts covered a variety of issues — a lot of them about the specific difficulties of adopting – but at that point my neck issues, which in August made doing almost anything, much less childcare, impossible, were looming large. It was really hard to think about adding another little person or two to our lives when the realization that at almost any moment my mobility could be drastically reduced was so fresh. Still, I couldn’t deny that I had been having feelings much stronger than those doubts for many months.

I. Synergy

Synergy. It’s the only word I could come up with. Various elements coming together in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. In parts I and II, which seemed decidedly unconnected, I was just starting to map out a new vision of how past life experiences I had mostly separated mentally were actually inextricably linked. There was my work at CORE with youth in foster care. Stop. Then there was my prisoner work. Full stop. Then later there was my work as a parent. Even though I have made avoiding fragmentation one of the central themes of my life, and have always wanted that oneness to be reflected in an overlap between my work/home/inner life, in practice, mothering has been quite distinct from studying incarceration — unless you draw a parallel to our desperate attempts to keep her locked up during “quiet time” so that she doesn’t trash the place. (Come to think of it, there is probably some useful philosophical exploration of the concepts of retributive vs. restorative justice in childhood disciplinary tactics. No, stay on topic.) But when the idea of adoption, and especially adopting through foster care, started to seep into my psyche, it was like watching many little puzzle pieces fly together magnetically. They were still all jumbled and in need of sorting, but they were clinging tight.

I thought about how often foster care came up in my thesis interviews, enough that my co-investigators and I were kicking ourselves for not having included any related questions in our quantitative survey. Many of the men had spent time in foster/kinship care; sadly, some of them could barely distinguish their time in juvenile detention from their foster care experiences. And now some of their children were similarly experiencing foster and kinship care while their parents were incarcerated.

Early on, I read this passage in You Can Adopt: “Parents sometimes hesitate to tell children difficult details of their personal histories (conception from rape or incest, a parent in prison). But most secrets eventually come to light. And when they do, the fact that they remained secrets tells the child that he or she should feel ashamed. Adopted children need to know their entire life stories, not just the good parts.” I thought about how I have spent the better part of the last decade learning how to discuss these difficult topics with sensitivity and fairness. And I considered that with a little practice and guidance I could learn how to translate what I know about these topics to a child’s language, so that they could look on their pasts with compassion and forgiveness rather than anger.

In short, I realized that all this work I’ve been doing over the last decade was both an end in itself, and the beginning of something else. Something that I’m pretty certain will be the most taxing and trying experience of my life.

II. For whom?

“Those who choose to adopt a child do so with a great deal of hope, but their expectations are usually internally driven, and may not be based on the realities of the situation.” — Adopting the Hurt Child, p. 16

In my study (admittedly, still limited) of foster/adoptive parents, I have concluded that these “internally driven expectations” are critical. It seems that often unhappiness arises because of internal expectations that have not been made explicit. Adopting the Hurt Child certainly makes the case that a large number of the foster/adoptive parents they encounter have had unrealistic expectations. Later in the book they make the point that “parents who adopt a child who is missing a leg, for example, don’t expect love, stability, and permanency to recreate a limb. They simply expect to help the child secure the best prosthesis and cope well.” Unfortunately, most youth in foster care are dealing with more complex emotional issues — things that love, stability, and permanency may ameliorate over time, but most likely will never “cure.” As I start to build my little toolbox of strategies for dealing with the tough times ahead, “Don’t expect a new limb” has become my simple reminder to examine the reasonableness of my expectations.

Deconstructing my expectations has inevitably led me to one crucial question: For whom are we doing this?

1. Is adopting for me, to fill a hole that having no more biological children left in my heart?
2. Is it for Addison because she should have a sibling to grow and play with?
3. Is it for  ”our family“? (A sort of amorphous concept but one I have heard myself voice before.)
4. Is it for the children, to give them a better opportunity than they would have otherwise?

And finally, which of these motives are more predictive of a positive experience navigating the foster/adoption system? (Note to self: Do literature search.) (Note to readers: Feel free to answer/speculate in the comments — I’m curious if you have any thoughts/experiences!) What I know at this point is that I have felt the need to actively let go of reasons 1, 2, and 3; if 1, 2, or 3 occur as a byproduct of helping some children in need, we’ll be thankful for that little slice of mercy. But the first three all inherently place expectations on the child (that they will fill a gap, a hole, be a sibling, meet our needs somehow), when #4 is really all we can guarantee — that we will provide them with opportunities for love and stability that they might not get elsewhere. “We have to fill our own gaps,” I remind myself (though, luckily, we’re not completely alone in that).

At first glance, letting go of motive #1 seemed impossible. My desire for another child runs so deep; surely, I would always feel some secret, idealized hope. But one day I realized, No, I have a precedent for this. This prisoner work I undertook so long ago, I did only to provide greater opportunity to another group in need. It wasn’t to meet a need in me, although I have experienced many wonderful byproducts. It wasn’t for external validation since I was met with more criticism than support initially. It wasn’t for any monetary gain (that probably goes without saying, ha!). I did it because I saw a need and I wanted to help. I know I can do that again. I have to remember, “I have a precedent for this.”

Letting go of the idea that another child would somehow meet my needs has ultimately changed the whole landscape. When we first talked about adoption, we both thought we wanted a baby. Who doesn’t, right? But as my baby hunger subsided, I realized that if I could reframe this whole process around the needs of the children, it was likely that the babies in foster care were least likely to need us, based on the simple fact that others would want them. When I looked into all the different foster programs, I was excited by the possibilities: older kids and sibling sets; 30-day shelter care for newborns; intensive teen programs; aftercare-type programs for 18-21-year-olds to help in the transition to adulthood. This not only changed the landscape of what type of children we might take in, but it also opened up the timetable. We could take in a child Addison’s age or a little younger. Or we could provide shelter care for infants when she’s a tween. Or we could have teens or young adults when she leaves for college. For the first time, it began to occur to me that perhaps my life’s work will fall as much (or more) in the foster care system as the criminal justice system. And that this first step will be just the beginning.

III. Reframing

When I started to feel little inklings that maybe more of my future work would be with foster care, I was not immediately taken with the idea. More than a little reframing was in order; a process that ended up being almost as much a theme for 2012 as “stronger.” In case you haven’t noticed, I have invested an awful lot of my time, energy, and passion in work related to incarceration and I’ve had no shortage of future plans in that regard, next steps for when my children were a little older. Suddenly, all that felt like it was being upended in a call to something slightly familiar, but still very different. To complicate that even further, it was the ultimate fusion of work and family. In a way that I had never fully conceptualized until I started picturing myself in that role, I realized what an impossibly difficult thing we ask of foster parents: Be a mother, but also a semi-dispassionate case worker. Welcome them, love them, integrate them into your family, BUT facilitate them rejoining their original family if at all possible. Provide them with stability, right up until the moment that they are taken away. Talk about emotional and cognitive dissonance . . .

How do I start preparing myself for the reality of that? This was my starting point, I think: I won’t be their mother. Not at first; maybe not at all. All I can do is to mother them. If I define myself as their mother, make it a noun, the system/their other parents/the judge could easily take away that identity. But they can’t take away the mothering acts that I will do for them, regardless of how long or short our time together. This Christmas on a rare foray into fiction, I read the first Harry Potter book. I’m glad I did as it had this little tidbit right at the end, “To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.” It’s a pretty thought, endowed with some mystical power in the book, but I also believe there’s truth there. So I’ll tell myself that, too: “I won’t be their mother, but my love will give them some protection.” And at the very least, I will teach them how to brush their teeth, something my old friend Tina did not learn until she was 11, years into her stay in foster care. (Or perhaps Neal has taken over all dental hygiene forever; either way, teeth WILL be brushed.)

Besides reframing what it will mean to be a “mother,” I had a fair amount of work to do in reframing my own abilities. As I mentioned in part II, after the emotional collapse that was my miscarriage, the story we began to tell each other was that adoption would be too tough for me to take. I wouldn’t be able to handle its difficulties with anything approaching equanimity. But when God sends you a message — you will be an adoptive parent! (subtle, no?) — there’s nothing else to do but strike all those other stories from the record. Apparently, adoption will not be too tough for me to take. Also, I will be able to handle the difficulties with something approaching equanimity. Obviously, “I can do this.”

Of course, getting that message loud and clear and actually internalizing it are two different things. I had to keep digging to get at the root of this idea that I would be unable to handle adoption. I think the root is this: A deep depression is always right at my door; that is, if it’s not already camped out in my room. This always seemed to be a perfectly reasonable assumption. After all, I clearly recall my first depressive episode being when I was 6 years old. And then there were things all along the way until it all got really bad in my late teens. Have you ever tried to get life or health insurance with a history of clinical depression? There’s a litany of questions perfectly calculated to remind you of what a mess your psyche has been. I’ve had to answer a lot of insurance questions over the years; it’s no wonder that I have held on to the belief that a deep depression was always right around the corner.

But here’s a few facts I need to tell myself more often: it’s been almost 14 years since my last really catastrophic depressive episode. In the subsequent years, I have had only two real episodes: after the miscarriage and after Addison’s birth, both things that sometimes make even “normal” people depressed, and neither approaching anything like what I have experienced in the past. I’ve been to almost 4 full years of therapy/group counseling in the subsequent 14 years. Now that it’s been more than a decade, I no longer have to answer insurance questions about it. According to the actuarial tables, then, I am cured. Also this small thing: I experienced a miraculous healing and deliverance from nearly every symptom of mental illness that I experienced from age 6 to 20. It’s too bad I’ve struggled to say that so loud and clear all these years. So I need to accept this:  “I don’t have a major depressive disorder anymore.”

IV. Ambiguous loss

“If [the parents'] decision to adopt stems from personal loss — loss of a birth child or infertility — they must assess where they are in their own grief cycle to maximize their ability to help their new child. After all, adoption is about loss, and facing that loss is one of the first steps in the child’s healing process. It is, therefore, critical for parents to take stock of how bereavement is handled in the family so the child’s loss can be addressed appropriately.” — Adopting the Hurt Children, p. 80

I have been a fan of ambiguous loss theory since I first stumbled on it while researching a paper on young couples dealing with chronic illness, but it took on even more personal meaning during my miscarriage. (I wrote this during that time, although I never mentioned that a miscarriage was what prompted those thoughts.) Ambiguous loss was first applied to various relationships in which a person may be physically present but psychologically unavailable (like dementia or traumatic brain injury) or physically absent but psychologically present (like soldiers missing in action or incarceration). It has since been more broadly applied to situations in which we may encounter loss that is invisible (in some way), difficult to articulate, or unresolvable.  Pauline Boss, the theory’s creator and patron saint, believes it is the most difficult type of loss because “there is no closure; the challenge is to learn how to live with the ambiguity.”

It would be hard to overstate how huge this concept is when it comes to adoption and especially adoption through foster care, where many children may have faced the loss of multiple families, homes, schools, cultures, even cities or states. Eventually I will have to turn my attention to how I can help any future foster or adoptive children deal with their own ambiguous losses, but over the last year I’ve been focused on what it will mean for me as a foster parent. I remind myself, “There is no closure. Period.” Although I have always felt like I have a high tolerance for ambiguity, looking back I see plenty of time wasted by looking for “closure.” What is closure, anyway? And why have I so often told myself it was necessary or desirable? I’m not going to make the same mistake this time. When a child comes into our lives, only to leave again, I want to hold them in my heart while still moving forward. There is no closure, not really. And even if there were, why would I want it? Wouldn’t it be closing off a beloved child?

When I first wrote about ambiguous loss back in 2008, I was grappling with how to memorialize my lost child, a child that was invisible to virtually everyone but ever so present to me. Eventually Neal came up with the perfect memorial: he suggested we each write our “final” thoughts in a beautiful notebook. After using the notebook (a going away present from my dear friend Marshay when I left D.C.) as our wedding guestbook, we had continued to write notes and messages in it for each other. It seemed like a fitting place for a final memorial to our first child. The only problem was that I couldn’t bring my usually verbose self to do it. Neal went first, writing three beautiful pages of love, light, and hope. He crafted it over several days in January 2009, ending with this thought, “We look forward to families that transcend the limitations of this world.” As moved by his words as I was, all I could manage a few months later was an entry that started like this:

We agreed that we would both write in this book as a way to memorialize and grieve the loss of our first child. I find that I cannot do it. I thought that it would offer a final resting place for so much sorrow, but it feels wrong to bury that sorrow. Every time I think I’m moving on, this pang comes as if that moving forward negates the importance, even the existence of the child that I already loved. . . . I don’t really know how to bring either this entry or this chapter to a close gracefully. I just know that I’m getting out of bed in the morning, I’m teaching a class, taking a class, teaching Relief Society, having neck surgery, smiling, crying — all vestiges of my pre-baby life.

To be honest, after we wrote these entries, I seldom wanted to read them. The notebook now represented pain. While I had been the primary writer before, Neal began to write more often and I virtually stopped altogether. In fact, I remember once actually putting it under another book so that it would be obscured from my view. But as I’ve asked myself this very concrete question, How am I going to deal with the ambiguous loss that we will intentionally introduce into our lives?, I have come back to that notebook often. Even though a place that had previously been a source of comfort now carried sadness in it, with time I could appreciate a new type of comfort it offered. It became a concrete place to go with my sorrow, and then to emerge from it. It offered peace of mind, knowing that I didn’t have to cling so hard to my grief for fear that I would forget altogether. There would always be a place to remember. (Months later, this blog became another memorial.)

So that was my first answer to that question of how to cope: Create a place to remember each child that comes into our life. A new entry in our book? A painted handprint? I’ve heard of people who have figurines (probably not a good match for our minimalist tiny-house dreams) or wear necklace charms (doubtful since I couldn’t even get in the habit of wearing a wedding ring) or plant trees (maybe, if we have our own yard). Only recently did I learn that creating a “loss box” is a strategy to help adoptees work through their feelings. I’m not sure what form our place of remembrance will take, but I know it will be essential for me.

The second coping mechanism I’ve been pondering is something I wrote about over a year ago: Escape. I’m certainly still a work-in-progress on this whole fun/escapism thing, but I’ve figured some things out in twelve months. For starters, I like to have a TV show, just one, that I keep close tabs on. I have gone through periods where I watched no TV at all and periods where I watched a TON of TV. I think what adds considerable enjoyment to my life is having one that I look forward to each week. Lately, my show of choice has been Project Runway (ironic, no?); I mourn for its glory days on Bravo, but I still enjoy it when paired with Tom and Lorenzo’s commentary. I think I would prefer a dancing show like So You Think You Can Dance?, but there were just too dang many episodes each week so I had to cut it off. Besides that, I enjoy reading a weekly advice column from Slate‘s “Dear Prudence.” With our upcoming move to the mountains (a town of 2,600 people!), other fun things I’ve been doing here (the beach, occasional restaurant visit, etc.) will require some reworking, but I think I’m on a good track. It doesn’t hurt that Addison is getting more fun all the time (always interspersed with frustration, of course). (How clinical does this paragraph make “fun” sound? Sheesh.)

The third coping mechanism is easy to say, but hard to do: Focus on what I can control. Interfacing with the criminal justice system over the last decade has certainly given me a primer on frustrating, exhausting, often heartbreaking bureaucracy, but I know we’re putting ourselves on a collision course with a lot, LOT more of that. So I need to, in every stage and situation, focus on what I can control. Rereading the above passage out of our notebook reminded me of some of those basics: I can get out of bed; teach my classes; fulfill my church assignments; smile; cry (fingers crossed on avoiding the neck surgery). I can focus on mothering acts, instead of all the things I would like to change in the child welfare system. I have a precedent for this, too, after all: despite the occasional blog post advocating changes in the criminal justice system, I intentionally decided that I did not want to focus on the system per se, but rather on the individual people I could reach out to during their sojourn there. 

I have a lot more reading to do on coping with ambiguous loss (this book is up next), both for myself and for facilitating that process with the children, but I feel that more than four years ago, I identified one of the key things to hang on to: There is no ambiguous loss in God’s eyes. This past year I have experienced a remarkable degree of clarity about myself, my past, and my future. I hope in reading this, and other things I will write over the next few months, it will be evident that I have learned to put words to some ambiguous losses from my past; it’s not the end of pain, it’s not quite closure, it’s a clearer way forward. I know God has been my close companion in this process, healing some things, while at other times reminding me that not everything has to be healed to be productive. 

As Neal said four years ago, we look forward to families that transcend the limitations of this world. With all our doubts and questions, we are certain we’re on a beautiful path to that.

* I thought about posting this section-by-section, but for my sake, I wanted to capture it all in one place.

“Dang, I look good”: Reflections on body image

I was wearing the tightest clothes I could find in my closet, no small feat when baggy t-shirts are my style. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the “Pure Barre” class based on what Anne had told me: I think it’s like ballet; there’s a barre and “tucking” and please-for-the-love-of-pete-take-these-classes-I-already-paid-for-so-I-won’t-have-to-do-them. Despite my best efforts, when I walked in, I knew immediately I hadn’t achieved the desired level of tightness or bare skin. My relatively form-fitting t-shirt was still a t-shirt, and tank tops and spaghetti straps appeared to be the order of the day. The yoga pants I considered thigh-hugging looked more like loose maternity clothes (which is, in fact, why I had bought them while I was pregnant) than the painted-on spandex everyone else appeared to be wearing. Still, the combination of mirrored walls and the tightest clothes I own gave me a glimpse of my full body, a rare occurrence on account of the boxes stacked in front of the only full-length mirror in the house, which I still haven’t bothered to go through two years after our move. And the first thought that crossed my mind upon seeing my full figure was,

Dang, I look good.

I tried not to stare, but it was hard not to. After months of not sparing even a second to look in a mirror, I had forgotten about how my waist always seemed to be just the right size, with the pouch below adding what I like to call “character.” (It goes without saying that love handles also add “character.”) I forgot about the sleek thigh muscle that made an ever-so-slight appearance when I tightened my knees. And don’t even get me started on those knees, which were hidden by the flare of the pants, but I could imagine were probably looking fantastic under there! Even the arm flab that Addison had so exuberantly played with the week before while shouting flappy, flappy, flappy looked just about right. Life with a toddler can certainly underscore every bodily imperfection. What IS that?, Addison likes to ask about my every skin tag and mole (which, my friends, are many and varied). Or there’s my personal favorite, when she grabs a pair of tweezers and comes at me saying, Let me get your beards. Hold still; this might hurt a yittle bit. But when I finally take a moment to study my body, I am struck by the way every curve and muscle looks practically perfect in my eyes. If only my body worked half as good as it looks, I would never need to worry about a workout, I think.

As we started said workout, it soon became clear that (1) this was nothing like the ballet I grew up doing for hours each day and (2) it sucked. But hey, it was free. I’ll even do sucky things for free! So I tried my best to follow along, anxiously looking right and left to see which leg I was supposed to be lifting and if I was supposed to be exhaling with the lift or the tuck. Occasionally, the instructor would say, “Now close your eyes while you do this exercise and picture what you want your thighs to look like.” Instinctively I would look down, puzzled. What the?! It’s a thigh. What’s it supposed to look like?

While we were lifting weights behind our backs (very unnatural, if you ask me), the instructor shouted, “Picture what you want your back to look like. Lift it! Push it!” I looked around the room. What does a back even look like? Should I be striving for the instructor’s sculpted back? What if my back already looks like hers, I just don’t know it because, after all, it’s behind me? Which brings up another good question — how does one even look at their own back? I’ll have to ask Neal when I get home; he’s always ready to spout off an opinion. Internal monologue notwithstanding, I did my best to lift it! and push it! despite having no clear vision of a future back in mind.

Three months and ten classes later, I’m starting to get a handle on all these exercise class conventions (except not the exhaling; I still have no idea when I’m supposed to breathe): you picture what you want your body to look like as motivation to keep going. What a peculiar idea, no? Who has the energy to both examine their current physical appearance AND contemplate a future appearance that would be more pleasing, all while lifting, tucking, pushing, and burning?

Neal’s answer to this question, which he has tried to explain to me many times before: Everyone. EVERYONE has the energy to contemplate — and in many instances, obsess over — their appearance. Especially every single woman you know or have probably ever known. He’s insistent about this, estimating the percentage of women who worry about these things at a minimum of 90%, possibly closer to 95%. It’s not like this is entirely new information to me; I remember once in high school I made a jesting comment about a good friend’s appearance, which I later learned wounded her deeply. At the time I made a mental note: never joke about ____’s appearance because she does not seem to realize that she is both incredibly beautiful physically, and also possessing so many other outstanding qualities as to make her appearance completely irrelevant. I still regret that comment almost 20 years later (and I am grateful she forgave my terrible thoughtlessness), but I also regret that I did not realize sooner that that mental note had more widespread application. I suppose I concluded then that she was just unusually sensitive; perhaps that insecurity was one of her unique crosses to bear in life. Then I went to college and lived in a dorm with 100 wonderful young women and it turned out that a lot of them seemed to be “sensitive” about this. So I added to that mental note: keep in mind, young women are sensitive about their appearances.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I went to a Relief Society meeting in which the average age of attendees was probably 65 and someone made the comment that it was “hard to look at herself in the mirror and like what she saw.” I looked around to see how others were taking the news, stunned to see so many nodding heads. So apparently, older women struggle with this, too. And then in a feminist book group I once attended, the topic of insecurity came up and it turned out that these self-proclaimed feminist warriors are also sensitive about their appearances.

And so Neal goes on insisting, It’s kind of a universal issue for women. There’s this pervasive societal neurosis that you are inexplicably unaffected by. (Sometimes, if I’m in a good mood, he adds, Also, I wouldn’t complain if you “fancied” yourself up every once in a while. Or threw out a few of your 35 XXL t-shirts.) And now that I think about it, I’ve gotta admit that my last several years on Facebook have confirmed Neal’s assertions that these are ubiquitous issues. Lately, not a day goes by without a friend or two posting about body image or fat-shaming or women’s negative self-talk.

I am trying to get all this through my head. Sympathy is a great thing, but I have always wanted empathy: to be able to understand and share the emotional states of others. If I can’t really feel where others are at, how can I hope to help bear their burdens? Having a daughter three years ago also raised the stakes. How will I know how to empower her if I don’t understand what so many women struggle with? I can’t just accept that an emotional state that appears to be so widespread is simply beyond me, so I look for common ground. I remember there was this one time when I looked critically at my appearance. It was about a week after I weaned Addison and as I got out of the shower I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Hmmm; I think I look different than I used to. My breasts look flatter, saggier. Yeah, saggy, that’s the word. I’m not sure I like that . . . For a moment, I could sympathize with the woman I met that month who looked at her post-baby body and imagined a surgery that would give her back the body she once had.

But when I left the mirror, the moment was over. It was as though I had momentarily stepped into a cloud of anxiety, disliked the feeling, and simply stepped out of it again. I never think about it now, except to use as a protest whenever Neal tells me how fundamentally unable to understand the female experience I am.

“But don’t you remember that time I looked in the mirror after I was done breastfeeding and . . . “

“I know, I know. You were critical of your body for about 4 seconds. You totally get it.”

I concede I’m still far from “getting it.” In fact, I am beginning to see what an uphill battle it may be to internalize what other people see when they look in the mirror. When I look in the mirror, I see a friend. Sometimes I notice her “flappy” arms, but they seem like just one more endearing feature, all the more valuable for the few minutes of entertainment they can bring to a child’s life. When I look at my friends, there’s no voice in my head assessing weight fluctuations — which, by the way, is actually inconvenient when your friend has lost 30 pounds, and your husband has to prompt you to compliment her on it — or chin hair. I’m not sure I know how to look at a friend with an eye critical of her appearance. Why should I see myself any differently?

The irony in all of this is that as I’ve read myriad articles, blog posts, and advice columns about how to teach our daughters to love their bodies, I find myself subtly more susceptible to that cultural fog that I was inexplicably unaffected by for thirty years. When I look in the mirror, I still see someone who is beautiful in every way that matters and even in some ways that don’t (like how she looks in form-fitting t-shirts and thigh-hugging yoga pants). But I’m more keenly aware of how “society” might condemn the features that seem so lovable to me. In that way, I am sometimes a little sorry I undertook this exploration in the first place — it feels like unnecessary aggravation to worry about how someone else would deconstruct my appearance. At the same time, I am learning a valuable lesson: if society is going to pressure Addison to see only her body’s flaws, then maybe the best thing I can do is to put words to the atmosphere of simply confidence I’ve been floating through all these years. Without the willingness of other women to share their experiences, I would never have known that we aren’t breathing the same air. So now I know better than to just think these words; now I will say them out loud:

Dang, I look good.

Lindsay (and 15,000 other people) loves Neal

For Mother’s Day, Neal wrote this sweet little tribute to the miracle of life (and aliens — he’s always gotta work in aliens somehow) along with this comic. We were hoping it would go big on Facebook, and break his previous comic record of around 800 shares. 15,000 shares later, Facebook estimates that somewhere around one million people saw this comic. Wowsa!

But as with all things internet, there were some haters in the bunch. Some people saw it as discriminatory against moms who had c-sections, adoptive moms, stepmoms, same-sex couples, and of course, fathers. If you follow Raised by my Daughter’s Facebook page, you know that one dude in particular was freaking ticked! Multiple f-bombs were thrown! As funny as I found his comment, I won’t reproduce it here; after all, I can’t be sure no animals were harmed in the making of his comment.

Although I told Neal to just ignore it, when I went out for a few hours with Addison he crafted this measured response:

Actually, Brian, I’m a stay-at-home-dad and I’m the one who made this comic. I’m proud of what I do, and I’m proud of my wife, too. I don’t feel like someone has to be the loser when someone else gets appreciation. In my world, “all the awards” is a hyperbolic statement that demonstrates a feeling of awe and respect for moms that is so big it’s hard to even articulate. I guess I’d say that I imagine that there are INFINITE “awards” available for people who do good; it doesn’t need to be a zero-sum game where one person takes away something from someone else. So, many people can deserve an infinite portion of that infinite amount, and no one needs to be the loser in the equation. When my heart is full to the brim with love for someone else, why not express how that feels? It feels like ALL THE AWARDS.

He and Brian went on to have a more mellow conversation about giving Dads credit, too. Peace once again reigned . . . until we found another page that had shared the comic, unleashing a totally different firestorm. This was one of my favorite comments from that page:

Yeah, it’s great parenting to tell your kids they’re an alien parasite. Sounds like the typical liberal mindset. When they were getting probed, that didn’t feel like an alien experience at all.

I’m fairly politically savvy, but I’m still trying to figure out exactly how Neal’s comic represents a “typical liberal mindset.” Since Neal didn’t clue me in on his subversive agenda, maybe you can enlighten me!

***

But none of that was why I got on here to proclaim my love for Neal. It was actually all about the essay I wrote a couple of weeks ago,“Dang, I look good”: Reflections on body image. It’s a touchy subject, you know, and I don’t consider myself totally adept at handling this particular touchy subject so I wanted to run it by Neal. I am beginning to see, though, that there’s no such thing as “running something by him” after World War III almost ignited over my forgiveness and restorative justice piece. Either he cares A LOT about good writing, or he’s just trying to pay me back for the past 6 years of merciless editing, but he was just shredding my work. And I was getting ticked. Not because I can’t take constructive criticism but because he seemed to be somewhat confused about my fundamental point in the essay. So is it X or Y?, he would ask. It’s both X AND Y — it’s a paradox. (You know I love me some paradoxes.) We must have cycled through that same conversation in various forms about 20 times, all the while me bemoaning dichotomous thinking and accusing him of trying to put me in a box.

Really there’s a whole essay to be written about the process of writing that essay. Neal not quite getting my fundamental point in the essay ultimately translated into confusion about a fundamental thing about me, and that just seemed maddening after being together for 8+ years. Who knew that something that I think of as foundational about me has not quite been clear to the people I’m closest to even after all these years?! But I guess now is as good a time as any to clear that up, and so I revised that essay. I revised the crap out of that essay. I rewrote whole sections. I wanted to get this right.

Is the reason all this prompted a Lindsay loves Neal post still unclear? It’s this: Even while I was rolling my eyes as he told me my parallel structure could be enhanced (Dude, I invented parallel structure.* I was writing in parallel structure before you were born! Don’t talk to me about parallel structure.) or I needed a little more explication in my stream-of-consciousness portions (Seriously? You want the narrator to retrospectively interject into my stream-of-consciousness thoughts. Do you even know what stream-of-consciousness IS?!), my heart is also bursting. Bursting, I tell you! I can’t believe I get to have a writer’s workshop in my own bedroom, with the hottest guy I’ve ever met. And he actually knows what he’s talking about (even though mostly, I’m right). Here we are discussing the trade-offs of various writer’s conundrums, and I’m annoyed as heck, but my writing is getting better, clearer. How did I get SO lucky? Later, while brushing our teeth, we laughed about how amazing it will be to have our little writer’s workshop every day once the kids grow up and leave home. As long as he never questions the Oxford comma, we’ll make it.

So even though I’m not quite done with that essay (before this week is over!), it reminded me all over again: This is the life I wanted. To be challenged about both the fundamental things about me and parallel structure. To debate the conventions of stream-of-consciousness and laugh about stick-figure comics. This is the life I wanted.

* I didn’t invent parallel structure. I wish I did, though; it’s one of my favorite things. Like in the whole world.

The Noodler

I’m writing again, guys! Once I started pushing through, it got easier (though not easy) and more cathartic. I told Neal to remind me of that the next time I tell him I want to quit blogging. On Friday I spent a solid 5 hours on my adoption update post — but it’s still not done. (If that seems excessive, I direct you to my favorite quote about writing: “How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?” At one point I think I wrote about 5 sentences in an hour, but by the end, I was sure it was a representation of what I think and how I feel and that felt really good.) I’ve got a Life Writing class this week, so I’m taking a little break from adoption talk and trying to work on that piece about body image.

Which is all unrelated to this, but I found it while searching through old drafts. When Addison was younger, she was most often The Rod — it’s entirely possible that her little body was too small to even do a proper Twister. But now The Noodler seems to be her bag. She thinks it’s hilarious to go so limp that I can’t position her anywhere. The thing is, it is kind of hilarious. God bless toddlers.

From The World According to Toddlers

Thanks, friends

When I initially planned to give thanks in 2012, one of the first posts I was planning was a little shout-out to my most frequent blog commenters. Not that I keep track and rate friends accordingly, but apparently WordPress does because every January they send me a summary of the top 5. They also prompt me to send a thank you note; they’re very polite.

So a belated thank you to my most active commenters in 2011:

• Victoria
• Lorie
• Ishkhanoohie
• Jen
• Jo

And to those most active in 2012:

• Victoria
• Emily
• Lorie
• Ishkhanoohie
• Alysa

I could write pages about each of you ladies and your influence on me (and hey, with any luck you could get a personalized thank you before the year o’ thanks is out!). But in the meantime, know that I appreciate you caring about what I have written. You’ve taken an interest in my life and inner workings, and reminded me that what I think and feel has meaning to others. That’s no small thing.

And thank you to all those who read and comment, no matter how “actively,” because it means a lot to me to be having a conversation with such a variety of thoughtful people.

And thank you to all those who read and don’t comment because I value you as well! Writing this blog has been one of the best choices I have ever made. Ever. It’s helped me through some rough times and it’s allowed me to help some others through some rough times. I’m ever so grateful.

This kind of sounds like a farewell post. And to be honest, I’ve considered it lately. On a practical level, I imagine what the future holds for the coming years and it’s hard to imagine how I’m going to carve out blogging time. On a psychological level, I noticed over the last several months of relative silence how eventually I stopped feeling frustrated when I couldn’t carve out the time for this self-expression. Oh well, I guess the self-expression phase of my life is over. And to be doubly honest, I’ve written a few posts over the last year that hit up against some ugly things from the past, and I thought (to paraphrase a favorite movie), That’s too much reality for a Friday night. They didn’t sign up for that. And all of this ties in to adoption and my one-word theme for last year and therapy and . . . maybe you can start to see why I don’t know where to go next. Since last summer, I have had weighing on me this feeling that I should write about “this thing.” I’ve made some progress in talking about it with Neal, but it was also a little ominous when his conclusion was, “You better tell your mom before you post it on your blog.” It’s not about my mom, but of course, it’s good to remember that everything we say about ourselves may appear to be a reflection on the people we are closest to. It’s obviously a perennial writerly issue: how to express the truth as you see it while hurting as few people as possible.

Sheesh, this post is getting ridiculous! It really was just about thanking all my loyal commenters and readers alike. Preceding paragraph notwithstanding, I’m not closing up shop. I know this blog is going to keep changing someone’s life: mine.

So the 2013 most active commenter title is still up for grabs; I’m gonna do my best to give you more to work with.

2013: Thanks

I think only Lauren specifically requested a one-word theme update, but I’m trying to ease back into this whole baring-my-soul writing thing and this seemed like an easy one to tackle.

I originally picked out this theme for 2012, but scrapped it after my rocky start to the year. Now when I think about how it derived it’s kind of amusing that it came from reading a book . . . title. Yep, just the title:  365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Gratitude Changed My Life. I’ve tried to be a decent thank-you note writer for most of adulthood, but I was charmed by the idea of writing a thank you note every single day, especially the thought of reaching back into the past to thank people for things they may not even know they did for me. (Not that I know if the author John Kralik did that — I’d probably have to read the book for that.)

Despite the charm of writing a thank you note a day, I did not actually resolve to do that. In January, that seemed like too tall an order with the new demands of teaching two classes. Good decision. Instead I decided that every Sunday I would reflect on the week and think about who I could reach out to in thanks. I started to take a little package of stationery to church and write cards or envelopes as thoughts came to me. Sometimes I look around in Sunday School — at least 100 of us meet in our cavernous chapel — and think about those who have made a difference in my life. And then I try to tell them. I think this is one of the best things about coming back to this old, familiar place after a decade or more away.

Of course, my main concern with selecting this theme was the stamp costs. Don’t worry, spreadsheets were made. Cost-benefit analyses were conducted to determine the effectiveness of email notes vs. postcards vs. envelope-card combinations. (It’s possible my spreadsheet usage will someday be a diagnosable mental illness.) In the end, I decided to just go with the flow. An emailed thank you may not be as elegant or delightful as an envelope in the mail, but it’s better than keeping an expression of gratitude trapped in my mind. Still, I have probably managed to mail out at least 30 or 40 cards since the new year so . . . awesome, right?

When I first conceptualized this one-word theme, the foregoing is all I had in mind. But something happened in November that made me realize I was missing a huge piece of the gratitude puzzle. It’s always been relatively easy for me to give thanks to the people around me; their kindness and generosity is so obvious, so present. Thanking God, on the other hand, is a much more difficult feat. If I could write a thank you note and mail it, I absolutely would. But it seems He wants me to talk to Him . . . as if He’s there, listening. Prayer, then, is part of how He wants my gratitude and it’s a thing that I’ve struggled with for . . . ever.

This topic could shoot off in a thousand directions and encompass my whole life story, but instead, I’ll just say that I decided on two concrete activities to try and give more thanks to God. First, I’m trying to pray more (and differently) than I ever have before. That thing that happened in November (which was kind of like a crazy-intense therapy session, but not exactly) set me off in a new direction of how to try and actually talk to God. I’m sorry to say I probably only manage it once a week, but I’m okay with being a work in progress (I better be, since that is all we ever are). Second, I’ve started keeping a journal again. I call it a one-sentence journal to take the pressure off, but let’s be honest, I have rarely said a single sentence about anything in my entire life. Influenced by my friend Victoria, a challenge from my mom, and this great talk from President Eyring (which I was struck by at the time he gave it, but never did anything about), I have focused this journal on answering the questions, Did God have a message for me today? Have I seen the hand of God in my life?

Thus far I have 11 entries in my journal. That’s almost a message from God a week! Most of them were just for me and their influence probably went no further. But every once in a while, those messages from God helped me make a difference to someone who was suffering, and there is nothing I feel more gratitude for than that. So thanks.

Lists: Girl Scout Badges

Your writing suggestions have been duly noted and I have this Friday blocked out for a non-stop write-a-thon (my belated Christmas gift from Neal)! Yeehaw! In the meantime, an amusing little thing I found a couple of weeks ago . . .

My anniversary gift to Neal this year was to get back to processing and decluttering. On Sunday, I found my old Girl Scout handbook in which I dutifully kept track of all the requirements I did between 1989-1991.

It was fun to be reminded of my Girl Scout years, which I initially hated because I was the semi-bullied outcast, but eventually came to love. And in fact, I have stayed in touch with my wonderful troop leader and her fantastic daughter (whom I’ve written about before, though somewhat obtusely).

My troop was what you might call a “party troop” — we were light on the badges and heavy on the beach camping. With my troop, I did these badges in two years:

• Community health and safety
• Exploring foods
• First aid
• Sports sampler

But on my own, I was kind of an overachiever. A checklist to complete? Sign me up! At home, I did these badges:

• Books
• Dance
• Theater
• Swimming
• Water fun
• “Collecting” hobbies — coins, postcards
• “Doing” hobbies — ballet, saxophone
• Computer fun
• Do-it-yourself — household and car repairs
• Water wonders
• Architecture (I planned to be an architect as a youngster)
• Local lore
• Math whiz

My favorite part of this handbook discovery, though, was the few badges that were specifically marked with an 0, but never worked on:

• Child care
• Tending toddlers
• Home living
• Healthy eating
• Personal health

I see two possibilities — either my Mom circled them to encourage me to work on them OR I marked them with a zero to specifically announce my intentions to not do them. What do you make of that list?

Psych. I’m gonna talk about the death penalty again.

I know no one requested a death penalty post, but this NY Times article profiling a case in which a less culpable defendant received the death penalty while his co-conspirators did not was screaming for a share. I think you all know my position: in short, our criminal justice system is far too messy, unfair, and inconsistent to impose an irreversible penalty. This article hit on some of the reasons why.

Does it not give pause when a judge reviews a death sentence and finds it legal, but still feels the need to rebuke the prosecutor for seeking the death penalty for someone who “even under the state’s theory, did not cause the physical death” of the victim? I sure hope so.

Getting back in the saddle . . .

Two months! I think that’s the longest silence since that first year of “blogging” when I only vaguely understood what a blog was. You can infer at least two things from this drought: (1) teaching two online classes has kept me busy and (2) I’ve been sleeping at night!

That said, this week my allergies have given me grief so I’ve been awake between 4:30 and 6:00 a.m. many days. I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to blog a bit, but it turns out it’s harder to get back in the saddle than I expected. I was trying to jump into some heavy self-reflection, which used to tumble right out of me, but today it felt more like pulling teeth. I guess I’m out of practice, having had to somewhat muzzle that voice in my head in order to plow through the semester.

In an effort to ease back in to things, then, I offer instead a semi-ordered list of recent happenings.

THIS! This, my friends, is Addison’s poop chart. FINALLY covered in stickers. All it took was a complete overhaul of her diet. How do you think your digestive system would respond to this DAILY diet, which she was on for two solid weeks before we saw any action:

• Fiber cereal
• 12 ounces prune juice
• Laxative, adult dosage
• Beans
• No/limited dairy

Yuck, right? Her pediatrician says it’s no biggie because “she can be on a laxative every day for the rest of her life and it won’t hurt her.” But personally, I’m a little unnerved by the fact that my very small child needs that much assistance to do a basic bodily function. On the bright side, at least she’s doing that bodily function on the toilet now.

For maybe the first time ever, I actually got my taxes filed in February. It turns out that a sure-fire way to make doing taxes super easy is to earn only $3,700 in a year!

On March 20, Neal and I officially went on the best date ever. It was a long time coming — 8 years to be exact — but the Banff Mountain Film Festival was worth the wait! We were first supposed to catch the festival way back in March of 2005, but for reasons beyond my control, I stood him up. (Also, I cried about standing him up though it wasn’t even a proper date; although I had only known him a short time, I think I already had a strong sense that any day not spent with him was a bit sad.)  We tried again in 2006, but it was hard, living in different states and all. On the day he proposed in 2007, he already had tickets but I decided vomiting would be more exciting. We tried again each year we were in Utah, but little things always seemed to come up — like giving birth to Addison, for instance. So obviously, on the drive to this showing, I was sure we would get hit by another truck. But we didn’t! And it was fantastic! If you like mountain culture and sport, Australian mates walking across Antarctica, or small dogs, this would be right up your alley!

Also in March, Neal was spotlighted on a fellow dadblogger’s site. I even got a little shout-out in which he acknowledges that he only started blogging in order to crush me. Thanks, sweetie!

Later in March, my Dad and I took Addison roller skating for the first time. I was going to include just one of these pictures, but the whole sequence was pretty indicative of how the evening went.

My favorite moment of the whole night (probably my favorite of the year, actually) came right at the beginning. I had not told Addison that we were going for a ward party, so you can imagine her surprise when she got to the rink and started recognizing people. “There’s Hunter. There’s Fisher. There’s . . .” Turning to me, waving her arms frantically, and screaming at the top of her lungs: “ALL MY FRIENDS ARE HERE!”  It’s not very often that you totally blow your kid’s mind!

Despite my love of dental hygiene, I officially got booted from the task of brushing and flossing Addison’s teeth. Although her dental check-up went fine (aside from the fact that she has jacked-up teeth that are too big for her little mouth), Neal decided that I wasn’t dedicating enough time to Addison’s teeth. He has a unique flossing method, indeed:

That’s a pillow under her head, in case you were wondering. Is it possible he missed his true calling in life?

Just last week we went with some friends and one of Addison’s BFFs to the Orange County Great Park. They were about to start charging money for the hot air balloon — there’s nothing like a last chance at a free ride to motivate me to get out of the house!

Although Addison insists her favorite part was seeing a lizard, I’m pretty sure it was actually when she stole one of their OREOs and hid in the cavity of the big rock she’s standing on above. It gave me a little scare, thinking she had been abducted, but it turns out she did the abducting.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, I cooked THREE whole meals in one week. REAL meals, too. My Aunt Helen has a new product called MealRecipes that include menu plans, grocery lists, and cooking schedules. She let me test-drive a 3-day MealRecipe to see if even a delinquent like me could do it (those are my words, not hers). I am happy to say that I made 3 tasty meals, including a phenomenal stir-fry that my Mom said was the best she’d ever had and Neal wants me to make on a weekly basis (yeah right!). I didn’t even substitute any ridiculous ingredients and I only asked one really stupid question; I’m pretty sure the recipes are fool-proof!

I heartily recommend you make your own fantastic asparagus stir-fry or Amatriciana pasta!

Phew! I was gonna say that pretty much covered February and March, but I just remembered that it skipped a few big events: Addison’s birthday (you can get the scoop on the former here), a Bakersfield visit for Ayda’s birthday, me taking multiple exercise classes (sign of the Apocalyse? maybe), Easter. But it’s better to start somewhere, right?

I picked up a second class for Spring semester (goodbye easy taxes — we’ll probably break $12,000 this year!), which means that I think my blogging time will still be limited. But I’m determined to not cut it out completely like I have been. That said, I could use a little push to get me going again. For those who are still hanging with me, which of these topics (all drafts in various stages of development) are you most interested in me finishing?

• Forgiveness and restorative justice, part II
• Did I get stronger in 2012? Last year’s theme recap
• 2013′s one-word theme (yes, I have one, and I’ve been working on it)
• “Baby” update: 3 years
• Mommy update
• Dearest Addison (3rd birthday letter)
• Adoption update — New life story, part III
• “Dang, I look good”: Reflections on self-confidence and body image
• Marriage counseling: 8 Lessons

And Nikki, I’ll give your vote special preference since you were kind enough to bring my blogging hiatus to an end!

Forgiveness and restorative justice, part I

Once upon a time, when reading letters from incarcerated people was my job, I got a letter from a man I’ll call John Doe. John was not actually a D.C. prisoner — he was in federal prison — but he had somehow found the address of D.C. Prisoners’ Legal Services Project and decided to send us a letter. The envelope was surprisingly thick, far thicker than any other I had received there. Despite that, I was still unprepared for what I found inside: multiple pages of careful cursive explaining just exactly how he had raped and brutally beaten a relative of his. I can still remember some of the details, though, thankfully, most have faded with time. Because the organization dealt solely with civil issues related to incarceration, we explicitly instructed people not to share details of their criminal cases with us. As far as I remember, this was the one and only time while working there that anyone ever specifically told me about their crime. It was certainly the only time anyone ever told me about it in such excruciating detail.

My first response was nausea. Next came anger and disgust. The fact that alongside the horrible confession was an intense outpouring of remorse didn’t seem to make a difference. My job was to write John a cordial letter letting him know that our mission was only to serve D.C. code offenders, and wishing him luck. But I didn’t want to do that. I did not want to give the time of day to someone who had done something so horrifying and despicable. For quite a while I sat at my desk, thinking, I can’t do this. I can’t help this man. Wouldn’t sending him my best wishes be the same thing as violating his victim, his RELATIVE all over again? And if I can’t help him, then how can I help all the others, people who might be hiding these same dark secrets?

I put John’s letter aside. I had inherited an enormous stack of letters (a few hundred at least) upon starting my work at the Prisoners’ Project. It had been months since the last intern had been up-to-date with all the incoming mail, and though they specifically told me that I need not get through them all, I had immediately resolved to respond to every single letter. These were real people, after all, being assaulted in their cells at night, deprived of medical care they were constitutionally guaranteed, or just seeking an affirmation that someone, anyone cared. No one else knew of this anal-retentive vow of mine; I knew it would be easy to just slip that letter under the pile and let it become the Fall intern’s responsibility. But this was a crossroads — I knew it even then — the first of many I would face working in the justice system. And if you’re an insomniac prone to replay all your daily decisions, you can’t just walk away from a crossroads, hoping the next intern will have the courage to face it. But it was tough. I had to decide that, even with the horrific details running through my mind, John Doe was still a human being worthy of my good will and energy, and not just an animal — or worse than an animal — that had done this cruel thing to someone he should have protected. It took me a few contemplative weeks, but I finally typed him a letter.

***

Following this decision point, I was ever more certain that criminal justice was my life’s work. My initial plan was to go to law school, either to continue working as an advocate for the humane treatment of incarcerated individuals or to go into restorative justice. Restorative justice, simply put, is an approach to criminal justice that focuses on repairing the harm done by an offender, as assessed by the victims, the offender, and the community — not solely the state. I shared this quote once before about one of the things that, in my view, is critically wrong with our “justice” system, but it is so apt:

As currently practiced, incarceration not only provides offenders with an excuse for not contributing to the welfare of their families and communities, but it practically enforces their noncontribution.  Indeed, if anything, the sentencing reforms of the 1980s and 1990s have enforced radical irresponsibility and unaccountability, and it is the families and communities of offenders that are bearing the burden.

Enter restorative justice, wherein the victim, the victim’s family, the offender, the offender’s family, community representatives, and state representatives can dialogue about their perspectives and strive to come to an agreement on what kind of punishment is suitable and how restitution can be made.

Over the years I’ve read a lot of articles and watched many documentaries chronicling restorative-justice community conferences and victim-offender mediation, but this recent New York Times‘ piece by Paul Tullis is as fascinating as any. I highly recommend you read the whole piece to understand the enormity of what occurred in this particular situation, but I want to pull out a few points that are particularly salient to me.

The critical participants in the conference were these:

• Conor McBride, who killed his girlfriend, Ann
• Kate and Andy Grosmaire, parents of the deceased Ann, who felt called to forgive Conor and undertake the restorative-justice process
• Julie and Michael McBride, parents of Conor
• Sujatha Baliga, director of a restorative-justice project
• Jack Campbell, local prosecutor

The conference began with the charges being read, after which the Grosmaires spoke. Andy, Ann’s dad, talked about how she loved kids, and acting, and wanted to open a wildlife refuge. Her mom Kate started at the beginning: how she nursed her as an infant and sought treatment for her “lazy eye” as a child so that eventually she could drive. “It’s another thing that’s lost with her death,” she said, “You worked so hard to send her off into the world — what was the purpose of that now?” As Baliga recounted, Kate “did not spare [Conor] in any way the cost of what he did. There were no kid gloves, none. It was really, really tough. Way tougher than anything a judge could say.”

Way tougher than anything a judge could say. Truth. Just one of the ways that I believe our adversarial legal system undermines accountability is that it often does not create space for victims to express how they have been injured, which can be the very thing that communicates to the offender the full weight of his/her actions. As 19-year-old Conor said, “Hearing the pain in their voices and what my actions had done really opened my eyes to what I’ve caused.” Even the skeptical prosecutor agreed that the Grosmaires comments at the conference were “as traumatic as anything I’ve ever listened to in my life.”

Following the Grosmaires, Conor had to offer a detailed account of what he did, even as Ann’s father further questioned him. Although in some cases offenders must allocute, or publicly confess their crimes, in order to accept a lesser-sentence plea bargain, this is another aspect of accepting full responsibility that can be missing from our legal system. You would think that offenders would not be anxious to walk through the details of their crime, and certainly some are not, but then I always think back to John Doe. John Doe, who wanted so much to be able to apologize to his victim, his family, anyone who would listen; who wanted so much to unburden himself by telling every. single. detail. of his crime and how he loathed himself for it, that he wrote it all out and sent it to a total stranger. It was only later that it hit me how sad it was that I was possibly the only person who knew that much about both his crime and his remorse. While not all victims would want to read that letter from their attacker, many would. We know this both because of growing interest in victim-offender mediation and victim reports that restorative justice programs increase their satisfaction with justice and reduce their post-traumatic stress symptoms. I can only hope and pray that at some point John Doe’s victim learned how much he regretted his appalling actions.

Although forgiveness and reconciliation is not the end goal of restorative justice, it is, in many cases, a byproduct. In the case of Conor McBride, the Grosmaires’ forgiveness had a profound effect: “‘With the Grosmaires’ forgiveness, I could accept the responsibility and not be condemned.’” As author Tullis explains, “Forgiveness doesn’t make him any less guilty, and it doesn’t absolve him of what he did, but in refusing to become Conor’s enemy, the Grosmaires deprived him of a certain kind of refuge — of feeling abandoned and hated — and placed the reckoning for the crime squarely in his hands.” When I worked for the Prisoners’ Project and later during my research, it became sort of cliché to have people tell me some variation of this: I’m not a saint, but I didn’t do this thing that they’ve got me locked up for. And therein lay that “certain kind of refuge,” that feeling that they were hated by society, persecuted by the police, and abandoned by their families, which for many redirected their attention and energy away from grappling with their own responsibility.

Some have accused me of not wanting offenders to get their rightful punishment because of the work I do. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In reality, I envision a system in which offenders can feel the full weight of their responsibility and answer for it, without being ultimately “condemned” such that there is no possibility or motivation for change. Because how can you feel the full weight of something without struggling to lift it? And why would you undertake that struggle at all if the law, society, and every person you meet has already convinced you that the weight of your sins is too great? I believe a more rehabilitative system would serve and protect victims, offenders, and society far better than the unforgiving and dysfunctional behemoth we have created thus far. Underlying my beliefs, of course, is the decision I made at that first crossroads: that no matter what they have done, every human being is worthy of my good will and energy.

As this is just the first part and these issues are endlessly complex, I welcome any thoughts, questions, concerns, or disagreements that will help me as I work on part II. This stuff matters to me, a lot, so if it matters to you too, speak up!

Also, I have to give a shout-out to Neal who looked at a couple of earlier drafts and nitpicked over ever. single. freaking. word. Dude’s a smart guy and a talented writer even if we almost came to blows a time or two.