It is hard to tell Alex’s story without feeling a deep sense
of trauma and loss. Originally from
Ukraine, Alex is our third child, and came to us when he was almost eight years
old. He lived with his birthmother until
he was three, along with his older sister and two older brothers. In 2007, they were removed from their home due
to neglect, and placed in a nearby orphanage.
Initially, Alex was separated from his sister and brothers, but eventually
was moved to the same orphanage and reunited with them. His brothers were significantly older than him,
and they both aged out of the orphanage when Alex was still fairly young. In 2011, Alex and his sister were adopted by
an American family, and moved to the United States. Before arriving in Ukraine to get Alex and
his sister, the family had not been told that Alex had any special needs. So they were completely unprepared to care
for this child that would later be diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, albeit very
mild. Nine months after their adoption, they felt
that they could no longer parent Alex, and contacted an adoption agency seeking
immediate respite care. The director of the
agency called us about Alex on a Saturday morning, asking if we could take him in
for respite until they found a permanent placement. We picked him up the very next day. His sister did not even know he was leaving. Alex was so incredibly scared and
confused. He had no idea what had just
happened, or why he was being taken away from his family. He screamed these deep, guttural cries of
agony the entire drive home. The only
words that he could get out amidst the screams were that he wanted his dad. Believe it or not, it has taken us six years
to come to the understanding that we were the enemy in that little boy’s
eyes. He had not been prepared for what
was coming, and to him, we were strangers who had just taken him from his family,
and wouldn’t let him go back. Since the moment
he got in our car that day, we have lived in perpetual survival mode, rarely
able to lift our heads for air and see things clearly. Perhaps that is why it took us six long years
to understand that, and to see how that experience has impacted our ability to
bond.
Like so many adoptive families, we went into that day—“Gotcha
Day”—with an understanding that it would be hard for him, yes, but we thought
that it would all be ok because we were bringing him out of a bad situation,
and into our loving family. We were so
very naïve, and it has taken a lot of
hard, hard struggles for us to come to a full understanding of the situation. As we move towards another “Gotcha Day” with Rose,
our hearts are already torn to shreds thinking about the trauma she will
experience as we take her away from all that is familiar to her. Whether good or bad, healthy or not, her
life in the orphanage is all she has ever known, and we will be taking her away
from it. It’s a hard reality that these children
have to go through so much loss in order to attain life in a loving family. That, however, is just one more way in which worldly
adoption mirrors our spiritual adoption as sons and daughters of our Father. We must die to ourselves, to receive life in
Christ. And that, my friends, is
hard. But I digress. Back to our Alex. 😊
Once Alex settled in a bit, the transition went very
smoothly. Within the first week God revealed
to us that Alex was not here only for respite care, but forever. He was meant to be in our family, and had
gone down some very hard roads to get here.
He and Jadon and Addison seemed to hit it off very quickly, and none of
us could imagine life with out him in our family. It appeared to us that his Cerebral Palsy
affected mostly his speech, not so much his physical or cognitive development. We would come to find out that was not
entirely true, but at that time he seemed pretty typical. He had just learned how to ride a bike when
he came here, but was still a bit wobbly.
I will never forget the first time he fell off his bike, and I ran over
to him to scoop him up and console him.
But before I could reach him, he popped up, raised his hand, and in his
little accented voice proclaimed “I okay!”
Those two words will forever hold a special place in my heart.
Alex has been through so much in his short life. He has experienced more loss, rejection, and
abandonment than any of us could possibly imagine. He has been knocked down time and time again. But every time he’s knocked down, he
eventually pops back up and says “I okay!”
He is the most resilient person I have ever met. All of the trauma has not left him unscathed. He is deeply, deeply wounded. The trauma
of being separated from his sister has been the most profound loss of them
all. I cannot say much about that
situation here, but suffice it to say, they have both suffered greatly from their
separation. Although, as the director
of the adoption agency said to me, as I questioned the fact that the parents
were keeping his sister and separating them, "God is sovereign over all." Even over situations that seem so completely
unjustifiable to us as humans. He is
sovereign, and He knows what each of us needs.
By being separated, his sister was able to experience life as kid
instead of the primary caretaker, the stand-in mother of her younger brother. And Alex has been able to experience life with
a real mother, who is supposed to be the one to care for his every need. God knew what each of them needed, even with
the pain they would have to endure to receive it. These past six years have been hard in ways we
never knew possible. He is just now, at
the age of 14, beginning to have an understanding of his own story. As his language has developed over that past
six years, so has his ability to understand and communicate the pain he
experiences on a daily basis. He has
physical and emotional scars that may never completely heal. With each passing year, we learn more and
more about how deep those wounds run. But
through it all, Alex keeps that attitude of “I okay.”
As he has gotten older, we have seen more of the impact of his Cerebral Palsy. The disparity between him and his peers is growing as he gets older. We are daily realizing that things we thought he understood, are in reality a total mystery to him. His memory is extremely disjointed. His physical and cognitive abilities change from one day to the next, which has been really, really confusing for us as his parents, and for him. He has dealt with all of his life’s struggles by accepting, and in fact embracing, the idea that he has no control over any part of his life—not even his own behaviors, thoughts, words, choices, or actions. We are working on teaching him that he does indeed have control over his own choices, and in turn, he has control over what direction he chooses to take his life. That sense of self-control was stripped from him at a very early age. But we hope and pray that as he continues to mature, he will gain that sense of autonomy.
His English name, Alexander, means “defender of men.” In totally unexpected and inexplicable ways,
Alex has been our defender. Alex
has taught us how to be okay, even when things around us aren’t okay at
all. We pray that Alex will continue to heal in the love of not only
our family, but in the Love of His Father in Heaven. Alex is patient, resilient, extremely
selfless, and finds his greatest joy in helping others. He is the best big brother to Luke and Noah that I could ever ask for. Those are qualities that could only have come
from and could only have been preserved by God.
We know that God has great plans for Alex’s life. We are completely undeserving of the honor of
being the ones who get to see his life unfold.
It’s not easy, but by God’s abundant grace, we can most assuredly say, “We
okay!”
With much love,
Ashley
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