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Eva Mae squeals with energetic joy as she chases the bouncy ball from person to person. While the grown-ups talk, she
moves affectionately from lap to lap, carrying her marker and paper -- the picture of a happy, growing child. This will be
a special Christmas with the magic that only a three-year-old can evoke.
It wasn't like that two years ago. Eva Mae was like a robot. Standing and watching silently from the corner of the overcrowded
Vietnamese orphanage, her responses were mechanical and mute. Too many kids; too few caregivers.
But Robin and Anne saw the life within her. The bond was instant and profound. They finish each other's sentences:
Robin: "It's just what is..." Anne: "...forever; permanent from the beginning..." Robin: "...definitely
Divine. She picked us as much as we picked her."
Robin, a physician, shifted from twenty years of psychiatric service in community mental health to move into private practice.
The decrease in stress was dramatic. At age 50, relaxed and comfortable, she realized a sense of emptiness, having concentrated
on a professional career of service for so many years, she longed for motherhood.
There was a woman who was left widowed with four kids in Hot Springs. Among them was a 16-year-old with special needs
who was more than she could manage. The child needed fostering and went into the system. But the placement wasn't working
out. This was a teen with exceptional needs for support, guidance and a safe place to live. Robin inquired. She was turned
down. Robin's has an M.D.; she has counseled and supported people with severe psychiatric and social problems for decades;
she is prosperous, stable, and a loving presence. But she's gay and she lives with her partner Anne. She wasn't qualified
to help this 16-year-old who was falling between the cracks of our fragile child care system.
I first met Anne Shelley when we worked together on behalf of the Human Dignity Campaign to give gay and lesbian city
workers the same, ordinary civil rights that the rest of us enjoy. She's an amazing and wonderful person. She moved to Fayetteville
because she loves the place. She's been a community organizer for the Women's Project in Little Rock, director of Arkansas
Equality, and was most recently was the Executive Director for Just Communities, originally the National Conference for Christians
and Jews.
Mutual friends introduced Robin and Anne in 1999, and their friendship deepened into a loving bond. They have been together
as a couple for eight years. Friends on Anne's NCCJ Board had adopted two girls from China. Being around their family was
inspiring, and with their encouragement, Robin connected with an international adoption agency. As a single person, Robin
could apply for adoption. As a couple, they were unacceptable.
In Vietnam girls are not given the same status as boys. Adopting parents tend to favor infants who are physically perfect.
At one-year-two-months, Eva Mae was getting to be too old, and with a severe cleft-palate, her chances for adoption were slim.
The door was also closing on her potential for speech. Born with a severe cleft-palate, she was physically unable to mimic
sounds. If language development is delayed beyond an early stage, the brain closes off its capacity for speech. For her
first two years, Eva Mae never sucked. She didn't develop certain muscles critical for talking. Humans need the roof of
the mouth to acquire language.
The first night they kept Eva Mae in Vietnam, the child rolled off the un-railed bed at the orphanage. She didn't cry
out or give any evidence of distress, so in the dark, Robin comforted her and put her back into the bed. The next morning's
light revealed that Eva Mae had been cut and bruised in the fall. That's how they learned; Eva Mae never cried. She got
no response from crying in the orphanage. It didn't work; so she quit. Anne and Robin had to teach her to cry and to communicate
her needs.
Robin adopted Eva Mae and brought her to Fayetteville. Robin and Anne quickly arranged the three surgeries necessary
to correct Eva Mae's mouth. Anne is free to be a stay-at-home mom, and take Eva Mae to speech therapy three times and week.
Free to play and work and talk with her.
And now, Eva Mae talks. She is catching up to the other three-year-olds. Anne is "Mama"; Robin is "Mahi".
"She's got us well trained," say her mommies.
Although Anne is Eva Mae's all-day-every-day parent, Anne has no legal rights as a parent. Robin is the legally recognized
parent. If Robin and Anne could marry or could have a legal civil union, they would. But they can't. Other states allow
second parent adopting. Not Arkansas. If Robin were to die, there is a trust set up for Eva Mae with Anne as trustee. Along
with medical power of attorney, that's her only legal protection. Anne's parents are Eva's only living grandparents, and
they love the family visits in the Springfield house where Anne grew up. They have no legal relationship with their own grandchild.
The strangely named Family Council of Arkansas is working on a ballot initiative that would make it illegal for any unmarried
partners, gay or straight, to adopt or foster children in Arkansas, to make it illegal for couples like Robin and Anne to
help children like Eva Mae. Robin and Anne's response: "How dare we take even one loving home away from another child
in Arkansas." Robin adds, "It's an abomination." She's right. Without Robin and Anne, Eva Mae likely would
be permanently institutionalized in Vietnam; mute, disfigured, robotic.
We need more good adoptive and foster families in Arkansas, not fewer.
Eva Mae was born with some developmental issues. But now she's catching up on her delayed language skilled. She has
moved into a community that also has some developmental issues. Many people in Arkansas were taught discrimination toward
some of their neighbors. Fifty years ago we began catching up on our racial bigotries. Today we are beginning to address
our bias against our gay and lesbian neighbors.
Religious faith holds that love triumphs over all. That's the Christian witness of the story of Jesus, from Christmas
to Easter. Love overcomes brokenness, ignorance, violence, evil and even death. Tomorrow Christians celebrate the birth
of love incarnate. One of my Christmas images this year will be the love incarnate that is so obviously manifest in this
beautiful family: Robin, Anne & Eva Mae. Look carefully and you will see in them a striking resemblance to another unusual
loving family: Joseph, Mary and Jesus. Merry Christmas!
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| Eva Mae in Saigon |
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| Anne, Eva Mae, & Robin |
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