Adam's Story -- Part 1

Adam.  He is my second-born child, and first son.  He was born when Tessa was 2 1/2, right after we moved from our home state of California, to our adopted home state of Nebraska.

When he was born, he weighed 10 pounds, 1 ounce.  I remember looking at him in the hospital, and thinking, "Who are you?"  I had been so intimately acquainted with Tessa, that all of my mommy-energy had been injected into her from the time I found out I was expecting her, up until I became the mother or two.  I thought it odd, that I had another child who wasn't Tessa.  It's hard to explain, but I somehow wrapped motherhood into being her mom.  Now, I had a new baby, and I had to redefine myself as a mom.

This was kind of hard.  Not the bonding part, as my "Who are you," question was answered during that first night in the hospital when I held him, and nursed him, and fell in love with him.  No, the hard part was being a codependent who had defined herself as the one who cared for the needs of Tessa for 2 1/2 years.  I couldn't devote 100% of me into her anymore, as that percentage had to be shared with her brother.  She never once had an issue with it.  Never a moment of jealousy.  But, I struggled with tending to a newborn who needed me now, when Tessa would need me too.  Maybe she fell and was crying.  Maybe she was hungry.  Maybe she needed me to reach a toy for her.

Adam did eventually settle into our family, I got my rhythm, and within seconds, it seemed, he was up and playing with Tessa.  It was at about this time that we started noticing that something wasn't right with Tessa's development.  Where she had been WAY ahead developmentally, she began lagging behind.  And then regressing.  She had known all of her colors by the time she was 1, but at 3, she couldn't tell blue from yellow, or at least she couldn't tell me that she knew.  She lost her English language, and she developed her own language.  A language I was able to understand, because I was with her every day.  It was also a language Adam understood.

With her development regressing, Tessa and Adam soon became the same age.  My twins.  Inseparable.  Each others' best friend.  Into the same toys, into the same Disney movies, into the same games and activities.  Adam was a tremendous comfort to me in those difficult days, because he just simply loved Tessa, and he reminded me with his actions that he never saw a thing wrong with her.  To him, she was a typical child, and although we had a team of experts diagnosing and treating her then diagnosed Pervasive Developmental Disorder -- Not Otherwise Specified, Adam allowed a perspective for me that proved that Tessa was OK.  That there wasn't a thing that she couldn't do that would stop her from being OK, and that even though PDD is within the Autistic Spectrum, Tessa could indeed bond with others, and when it's all said and done, she'll be fine, once we figure out the ways into her brain.

Adam has a very strong leadership personality.  My dad used to call him The Little General.  He'd take him to the park when Tessa was at school, and laugh at how Adam would just round up the kids and engage them with his ideas of what they could play.  He'd give everyone a part, set out a plan, and attack the playground.

Soon, I started to see Adam as my firstborn, with the combination of Tessa's more withdrawn and shy personality, and his more outgoing, problem-solving charge.  This continued on, throughout their childhood.

When Adam was 5, we moved from Gretna, Nebraska, which is a suburb of Omaha, to rural Gothenburg, Nebraska, which is in the very center of Nebraska, just south of the Nebraska Sandhills.  We lived in a very old ranch house on 640-acres.   We were a half hour from the nearest grocery store, and a mile from our nearest neighbor.

These two photos are courtesy of my dear friend, Mardel Manary.  A true Ranch Woman.

We had dogs, cats, and eventually a strawberry roan American Quarter Horse mare, and a black grade pony.  The mare was Tessa's, and the pony was Abi's.  Lee was a baby still.  Adam was 11 at this time, and he needed a horse.

He had gone the dirt bike route, but found that to be disappointing.  It needed to be a father-son project, and despite his requests, and even pleadings with his dad to work on it with him, he was left disappointed.  Tragically disappointed, even.  He would cry to me regularly, for nearly 2 years, begging me to do something to persuade his dad to spend time with him, working on the dirt bike.

The dirt bike was important to him, and so was baseball.  His coaches would tell him that he needed to be worked with at home.  I would work with him, but he wanted his dad, and he would seldom to never go outside to throw the ball.  This would upset Adam.  Clearly, the common pattern was that Adam desperately needed his dad to be there for him, and over and again, his dad wasn't.

We owned a house in Broken Bow, Nebraska, another rural Nebraska town, and our house needed its lawn mowed in the growing season.  We had tried to hire local people to mow for us, but decided it best for us to do the lawn ourselves.  This was a very good opportunity for Adam to spend time with his dad.  Weekly, they would drive the 40 minutes it took to get to Broken Bow, mow the lawn there, and then drive home.  Starved for his dad's attention, Adam looked forward to his every week.  But, he could never get his dad to do the things he was interested in, like work on his dirt bike, or throw a ball.  I started noticing anger welling up within Adam as he neared puberty.  He would never display that anger toward his dad.  It was always to me, at bedtime, when I'd tuck him in.  He would cry, and articulate his disappointment, and ask the questions.  Questions like, "Why won't Dad spend time with me?"

This broke my heart.  And his anger was strange to see, as he had always been the easy going, jovial kid.  Always happy, always funny, always sweet, and tender.  He had an intense love for his family, and Tessa in particular.  Hearing him convey disappointment to the point of showing anger toward his dad was difficult for me, and I didn't know what to do about it.  I would talk with his dad, but he would only get angry with me for nagging him about it.  I saw that my then husband was withdrawing from his family, wanting to spend less and less time with us.  Instead, he would sun himself in the bed of his pick-up truck, or exercise for hours at a time, every afternoon and evening after work, having little to nothing to do with us.

I made the most of my time with the kids, partly because I wanted to, and partly because I was trying to make up for what their dad wouldn't do with them.  We so enjoyed the horses, that I suggested to Adam that we sell his dirt bike and get a horse of his own.  He loved the idea.  And once the dirt bike was gone, we set out looking for the right horse for him.  He was 11 years old.

My husband had a friend from work who had horses, and she had a colt she thought would be perfect for Adam.  We went to her house one Saturday morning.  In her mid-twenties, she lived with her mom.  The colt she had was still a baby.  Adam wouldn't even be able to ride him for at least 3 years.  Adam needed a horse now, and he needed a horse that was trained.  But, my husband and his friend worked hard to convince Adam and me that this was the horse for him, and if we didn't geld him, he could be a stud to Tessa's registered mare.  Their lines were compatible.  We could raise horses, and even sell them.  But, I wondered, what about Adam?

Never was Adam considered by either his dad, or his dad's friend.  Sure, they said that down the line Adam would benefit, because he'd have an amazing potentially money-making horse with a very good disposition.  But, would it be safe for Adam to have a stud for a horse?  He was so young.  Would this be safe?

The friend with the horse, and her mother, both agreed that he would be completely safe with this animal.  But, not content with their confidence, I started asking around to people who have raised, trained, and cared for horses all their lives.  I had a long list of about 20 people, including my husband's friend and her mother.  With the exception of those two, it was unanimous that the stud horse idea for a little boy was a dangerous, and very bad idea.  And when I presented Adam's dad with my conclusion that we not get the horse for Adam, he became angry.  Because as it turned out, he had been having an intimate affair with that young woman, and he really wanted to help her out financially, by buying the horse.  With Adam's dirt bike money.

Of course, I didn't know that at the time, but I eventually found out.  Which led to me secretly taking all four of my babies away from Nebraska, and away from the life we knew and loved.  We moved to Ontario, California to live with my parents, and be closer to my family.

At this point, Adam was 12 and ready for 7th grade.  He had been home schooled his entire life, and would experience public school for the first time, in Southern California, in a junior high school.  I dropped him off at school that first day, only a few days after we rolled into California.  He was scared, disoriented, disillusioned, and holding in an intense, deep anger fueled by disappointment and disbelief that this thing he now called his life wasn't just a very bad dream.