There are some posts that are hard to write. This is one of them. Because how can I put it down in words? And what more can I say that I haven’t already said in years past (click)? This was our family’s 5th annual year of attending our “Haiti Families Reunion.” I want to re-name it: HAITI FAMILY REUNION. It feels like a family reunion. Except that in this family you always fit right in, no matter who you are, and no matter how different you are from every single other family/person there… because you’re all in this really special and unique boat together: this Haitian Adoptive Families Boat. This is a wild and wonderful boat—a boat that is tipsy turvy; a boat that sails on a tumultuous and thrashing, crashing sea; a boat that is hard to navigate; a challenge to keep on course; but this is a beautiful awe-inspiring life-affirming full-of-miracles boat that you wouldn’t trade for the grandest yacht ever made. This boat, while at moments crushing under the weight of the massive burden that it carries, is also brilliant and centered and somehow (amazingly, assuredly, unquestionably) on course.
This year what struck me most was what a treat it is to spend a weekend feeling “normal.” We always feel “weird”; we always stand out; we’re almost always “the only one” (because we can be in the most “diverse” place in the world—and we may even see many black-white bi-racial families there, yet we almost never see families that look like ours)… but… twice a year we get together with this very special extended family where we actually are just like everybody else in the most obvious way. That is a gift that each of us five J-Ms cherish in our own unique ways. It is a special, special, special treat. It is like your favorite kind of ice cream on a hot summer night (which, by the way, we actually have at the Haiti Reunion: ice cream sundaes on a hot summer night).
What also struck me this year was the reminder of just how amazing each and every one of the people is in attendance at this reunion. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Each family represents miracles. Each Haitian-American child a SURVIVOR and a precious gifted soul. Each non-adopted sibling is a rock-star! Each parent has moved mountains to make their family. It is amazing. It is awe-inspiring to be around. It is a reminder that it really is what it is, and it is special. Sometimes in our day-to-day we forget that. It is good to remember.
Kyle and Owen can be around Haitian people at other times of the year, but it is really only during our reunions that they have the chance to be around other adopted kids who lived part of their lives in Haitian orphanages. Meera can be around other biological siblings in adoptive families, but it is really only during our reunions that she has the chance to be around other kids whose siblings are the special dark-skinned-brown-eyed beauties that are the Haitian Sensations. And Braydon and I… well… we can be around lots of different people/parents/peers, but it is really only during our reunions that we can have that cosmic connection that comes only with others who have spear-headed a Haitian adoption (Haitian adoption is tough, it is gritty, it is a unique journey). This reunion is special. It really is. And it is so, so, so important to the soul of our family.
And so, we hope, that this one was our fifth of many.
Thank you to all of our dear friends who join us in this Haiti Family Reunion year-by-year. We’re together in this boat. You know who you are. We love ya! ~the J-Ms.
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Each year I buy new Haiti t-shirts for the bambinos to wear to the reunion. This year, for the first time, K & O picked out the design and wanted Meera to wear the same. To mark our 5th anniversary of the reunion, here they are in their shirts, on the morning of the reunion, for the past five years!
2011 2010
2009
2008
2007
Hi,
Your Haiti Family Reunion is a true gift!! I am so envious and in awe of the community spirit and the commitment of the group to sustain it. It is so true that children who growing up in unique multi-racial/multi-cultural families need a space and time to just live and be and feel they belong. And speaking from experience it is so hard when those spaces and times are not available. It is so important to have those spaces at an early age to instil a sense of belonging and help form strong senses of cultural identity and the tools to negotiate the dual or multiple identities and all the “ickiness” that goes along with that (read between the lines) – and down the road when the going gets tough hopefully that space and community of individuals and families will continue to be a form of support. I read this post on the Love Isn’t Enough blog, Six Things Your Adopted Child Might Be Thinking, But Will Never Tell You.
http://loveisntenough.com/2011/07/18/six-things-your-adopted-child-might-be-thinking-but-will-never-tell-you/
I read it thinking – yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!
Love those photos!
– Kate
So special for me to read this blog today about your Haitian reunion! Some close friends of mine are traveling to Haiti as I write this, the Aaron and Jackie Frisch family (Of Extreme Makeover fame!) are traveling to Les Cayes Haiti, to the orphanage in Simone where they adopted five of their boys from! The kids there are getting new beds and other neat stuff!!
So happy for you that you have this special weekend. Love the pictures of the kids in their t’s – what memories for you and what adorable kids!!
Oh my goodness, Mr. Owen is growing like a weed! He’s going to be a tall boy for sure. Thats too bad that there arent other multi racial families in your neighborhood, but so glad that you all have these special reunions to look forward to each year. It must be amazing to not only watch your own kiddos grow up, but to see the changes in the other kids as well. Love the new shirts! At first glance, I thought they said “make love for Haiti” lol!
Megan, I’m not entirely sure why it is so important to me to take the time to make this clear, but it is, so here goes—- For the area in which we live, we actually live in a relatively very diverse neighborhood with several “multi-racial” families (representing both adoptive families and inter-racial marriages with bi-racial children). In fact, of the 12 houses on our street, 5 of them are home to multi-racial families! As a sociologist, I can tell you that that is a pretty great statistic! However… it is still not the same as being around white-black adoptive families (white parents with black kids), and it is not the same as being around *Haitian* adoptive families. The point of my post was that the reunion is so special for the fact that it brings together families so much like ours in those important ways. I also want to make sure that I’m very clear about another thing: there are VERY FEW Haitian Adoptive Families in the United States. On average, in any given year, only a couple hundred Haitian kids are adopted into the U.S. — most of them to Haitian families (extended family members who immigrate relatives). The year that Kyle and Owen were adopted, for example, they were two of only slightly more than 200 Haitian kids adopted into the U.S. that year. In the state of Pennsylvania, just like other U.S. states, there are simply very few adoptive families that include Haitian-American adoptees… just another reason that the reunion is so special for us. Thanks for reading, Heather
So great! Such a wonderful family- loved the pictures from the past years of your kids in their tee-shirts! So adorable every year!
I love the pictures! They have grown so much, even just from last year’s picture to this year’s! That is so awesome that you all get together each year. Thanks for sharing :).