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Friends United Meeting |
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September 1998
Adopted by Love
Andy Grannell
This story has lots of roots. One most certainly was the confirmation we received at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center shortly before we were married in 1965. My physician cousin's prognosis was correct after all. My sperm count was far too low. Dorothy and I would not be able to conceive a child.
Another was the inner city ministry work from which we drew inspiration and joy. Each of these experiences had drawn us into a circle of black friends and a deeper commitment to the cause of justice. Still a third root was that we both loved children...but were drawn most especially to black children. Finally, our immediate family had already crossed the color line. My sister was married to a native-born Kenyan, and there were two young African-American nephews to enjoy.
When we settled into our first official job of being co-pastors to the Allens Neck Friends Meeting in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, Dorothy began actively to investigate the possibilities. In 1970, the only practical option was transracial adoption. Would we be interested, asked the social worker? Yes, you bet! We both smiled broadly at the suggestion.
The first adoption didn't take a long time. We attended a number of interviews in downtown Boston. Everything checked out on both ends. The social worker said it would be a week. A week?! We would really have to hustle. Most get nine months and we got one week. Oh well. Hustle we did. Paint that spare room. Get that crib.
We were asked to come that summer day to meet a social worker and a prospective adoptive male age six months at a South Shore shopping mall. As we peered into the back of the car, we saw this toothless but smiling infant and as we took this little guy into our arms, the social worker asked the most astonishing question. Would you like to have this boy? Would we? What kind of question is that?!
Our son arrived and our Allens Neck Young Friends group immediately took over as big brothers and big sisters. If, as the expression goes, it takes a village, they were the village.
What to name him? I had discovered that the first North American to carry the name of Grannell was Delaney and that Delaney could be translated as "dark, swarthy one." Ah, appropriate enough. And too, this Delaney would be the first African American to start a new tribe of Grannells on the North American continent.
Everything was fine except the youth group didn't like the name Delaney. Too long. After trying on a number of names to better suit, we all settled on Kyle. Simple, easy to pronounce, couldn't be shortened, and at the time, relatively rare. Fine. Delaney Kyle, or simply Kyle.
Our second adoption-obviously Kyle needed a sister-was another kettle of fish. We searched and searched for an adoption agency that would do transracial adoptions. Did it matter that we were already a proven transracial family? Not to the National Association of Black Social Workers it didn't. In an early version of political correctness, the NABSW argued that whites could never do justice to black culture. Blacks should adopt blacks. Hard to argue the logic. However, the problem then and now is that blacks were/are not adopting black children in sufficient numbers to meet the need. In 1998, there are 50,000 children waiting to be adopted and half of them are black.
Finally, after two years of steady searching Dorothy discovered an agency in Southeastern Massachusetts that was open to transracial adoption. Once we made the connection, things went smoothly enough. Except that this time it was adoption at ten months and not at six. Except that this time, a foster mother had bonded. The homecoming was not joyous this time. There was no youth group and the pressures on our available parenting time had gone up. It was difficult.
Naming though was simpler this time. Dorothy's beloved college roommate of four years, who died tragically only a few years out of college, Susan Elise Longua was to be honored. Thus, Susan Elise and Delaney Kyle-Susie and Kyle-became part of every New England Friends gathering for the next several years. Susan and Kyle, the perfect complement. The ever teasing, ever caring duo.
Wonderful years they were too. Dorothy and I still enjoy the stories about Kyle camped out under a spaciously overhung bush alongside the trail to the dining room at Geneva Point at Lake Winnepesaukee, New Hampshire. Kyle, age three, invited each of the older Friends to come into his little "tent" to enjoy a cup of tea. Several older Friends did. Dressed up in shirt and tie, no doubt on the way to clerk an important and controversy-laden session, these wonderful Friends sat down under the bush to enjoy a spot of tea with this three year old.
For every question, "Do you have any real children?" we found its perfect antidote in a loving person like Evelyn Weston. Evelyn, a retired New Bedford school teacher, in her own way, also adopted Kyle. She went store to store in multiracial New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1971-72 and patiently explained that the greeting cards should reflect their clientele. Despite their paucity, Evelyn nearly always succeeded in locating a card with black or brown children on them and sent them regularly to her adopted Kyle.
Being black on a nearly all white island in Maine was made considerably easier when your cousins were also black and they enjoyed the island haunts like you did. Being black on that same island was made considerably easier when at the end of a particularly successful summer recreation program, friendships were celebrated in front of a packed house. Susan and her friend Carol (also adopted but white) did a series of coordinated cartwheels to the then popular song, "Ebony and Ivory." Their act was greeted with loud applause.
Being black in Maine as a seven year old in 1978, was made easier when we spotted a Maine State Trooper who was black. To answer Kyle's question, "Could I be a State Trooper?" we chased the State Trooper for several miles. We finally got the trooper to stop and introduced Kyle to a slightly exasperated trooper. Years later, Kyle spent several summers maintaining the late-night peace as a law officer in the often troubled summer resort of Old Orchard Beach, Maine.
Sometimes it can be lonely and frustrating to be both black and adopted. When we sensed this reality creeping in, we worked to celebrate the obvious. One such measure was to celebrate the day when we became a family. Thus, the day that Kyle arrived to his new home, on July 28, 1971, became an annual day of celebration. The day is aptly named as "Grand Great Grannell Day"! You don't have to be an adoptive family to celebrate such days, but somehow it is especially fitting.
We have been able to sample the variety of acceptance, and inevitable racism, in Massachusetts, Maine, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and now Indiana. Racism is largely born of ignorance combined with fear. When both of these elements are proportionately small, life is sweet. When it is not, then it calls for active programs to combat the ignorance and the fear.
Over the years, we have worked on a variety of "combat racism" campaigns in three of these states. Each time we did so we met the most amazing people-people who demonstrated the best of the human spirit: tolerance, compassion, willingness to struggle, and great good humor. Part of adoption transracially has meant that we were invited to continue to grow in our understanding of black culture and the struggle for human rights.
Our family has continued to cross lines both racial and religious. Out of a long history dating back to the Mayflower on one side and an immigrant ship on the other, our British Isles and Austrian-Polish families of origin have expanded to include Muslims and Kenyans. Our family is increasingly expressive of an interdependent global community.
We have been blessed by two wonderful children, now grown adult. Kyle is a Bowdoin College graduate and working for a financial firm in California. Susan is a coordinator for the local Richmond Friends School and a devotedly successful young mother.
While we rejoice in their successes, it has not been easy. We have been severely tried at many points. The racial divide becomes all too real when your own teenager is deeply involved in poor black neighborhoods for months at a time.
Still, are we not all adopted by love? And do we not find in this love amazing resilience and healing? Is not this love the perfect antidote to ignorance and fear? Does this love not continually create new realities that we still call families? Are these two children you would like to adopt? You bet!
Andy Grannell is moving from Richmond, Ind., where he was dean of the Earlham School of Religion to be resident scholar at the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn., for the coming nine months. He will also direct the Distance Education Project for the Association of Theological Schools.
Copyright (c) 1998 Friends United Meeting
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