Haiti Reunion 2012

This was our 6th year attending our Pennsylvania-Area Haitian Adoptive Families Reunion. This yearly tradition has, for us, come to feel like much more than a gathering of adoptive families. These families have come to feel like kin. It feels like kinship.

kinship   [kin·ship] noun

1. The state or fact of being kin; a group of persons descended from a common ancestor or constituting a family, clan, tribe, or race.
2. Relationship by nature, qualities, affinity, etc.
3. Someone or something of the same or similar kind.

It is impossible for me to articulate this well, so I hope that the photos can speak to it in a way that I can’t. There is an affinity with these families that is indescribable. There is a sense of ‘at-homeness’ with them unlike any other. And this year, even more than in previous years, I can see in the past couple of days post-reunion a sort of ‘homesickness’ that my kids are feeling in their post-reunion let-down. Being at the reunion feels like being with our people. There is a common bond. A sort of mutual unspoken understanding. An ability to let our guard down, be at ease, and be unquestioned. A sense of one-ness. A connectedness. It is kinship. I feel it with this group more than I’ve felt it with any other group in my lifetime. I know my kids and Braydon feel it too. It is a gift to us to have this in our lives.

And it is hard to come back to reality after a weekend like that. It is hard to come down from such tremendous joy. There were a lot of tears shed in our car as we drove away this year. And finally the boys are getting old enough now (Meera is still too young), to be able to verbalize it a bit. “It is just totally different than school friends,” Owen said, with tear-stained cheeks, crumpled up in the backseat, exhausted and filthy from playing hard for about 8 hours straight. “It feels awesome to be with all other families that are just like us,” said Kyle, eyes pooled with tears, bottom lip quivering, soul filled from such a special day, but heart broken to have to leave. We tried to talk through it a little as a family. But the bottom line is that our Haiti Reunion is one of the highest highs of our year. And it is hard to have it end.

There was so much anticipation leading up to it. You have to understand that our kids — all three of them — wait excitedly for an entire year for this weekend to come. By the time we reached our hotel this weekend they were overflowing with excitement. {below: in the hotel room, the night before the reunion, uncontained through-the-roof excitement}

The next morning, they put on their new Haiti shirts. This is a yearly ritual for me– I always buy a new set of Haiti t-shirts for the reunion– the bambinos have caught on and they now get excited to see what I have found each year. This year’s shirts are extra-special because the money raised from the sale of them helps to support the adoption of a very special, soon-to-be-coming-home, Haitian Sensation. You too can buy one of these hand-made t-shirts at Kate’s Etsy Shop “Haiti To Home” (link here).

And then we got to where we were going. The Haiti Reunion. And all the build-up, and anticipatory off-the-wall excitement, and the year of waiting, suddenly, in an instant, all just centers in on the little tiny microcosm that is our entire world for one full day. Everybody is arriving, hugs and hugs and hugs, and quickly everything dissolves into that moment– and we are there, together, and it is as if we never left, and suddenly we are just picking up where we left off. The parents are catching up on a year’s worth of growth and grief and terrific achievements and tumultuous turbulence and parenting and family life and challenges and accomplishments and just soaking up what it feels like to be with other parents who really ‘get’ what it is to be a Haitian Adoptive Family. And the kids are off and running, and splashing, and climbing, and jumping, and they are like the best-case-scenario-of-the-cousins-you-always-wished-for-but-even-better, and the boys are just rippling with muscles and the girls are just ridiculously gorgeous and all of them are just so incredibly happy to just be together for this long-awaited-gathering-of-other kids who really ‘get’ what it is to be a Haitian Adoptive Family. There is a sort of quiet loudness to it all. And there is a calmness and a frenetic energy all at the same time. The parents are committed. The kids are incredible. Everyone is struggling and thriving all at the same time. And all year long we are different, but for one day we are the same. And in that day we really feel what it is to be in it together, and not alone.

We are reminded that there are other kids who were in Haitian orphanages who are now here. Kids who now have an excess of clean water — so much that they can play freely in it. We are reminded that there are other kids who know what it is like to be the white sister of a black brother. We are reminded that there are other parents who have chosen this journey — and are doing everything it takes to try to make the right turns. In sociology we have a word for what it is to have experiences like ours— it is called marginality. Kinship erases marginality, if even for a day, and makes us feel completely connected.

This year our reunion was in a new location. There was a creek.

And this year there was a feast of unbelievably delicious, homemade, Haitian food.

And there was a playground.

There was even a hayride!

And this is a snapshot of Owen on the hayride— If you know Owen in person, you might notice the look he has here. This is a look of:

• pure contentment
• centeredness
• happiness
• peacefulness
• what it feels like for our kids to be at the Haiti Reunion

This was not because of the hayride. Owen has been on hayrides before. This was because of the Haiti Reunion. It was because of the kinship he/we feel. It is powerful.

“L’Union Fait la Force” (in union there is power; in union there is the strength to overcome)

(Above right photo is so striking to me.) Our little boys have big boys to look up to– big boys who look like them and share the same roots with them.

Families are newly formed. (Below left photo: these two beauties were just adopted in May.) And it is tough. But kids can grow and thrive. (Bottom right photo: our boys, who used to be the youngest at the reunion, are now flourishing and thriving and right smack in the middle of the kids’ age spectrum.)

What struck me most this year was just how much our kids (not just our J-M kids, but all these kids) are growing and thriving. When we first started attending the reunion Kyle and Owen were three years old. The oldest kids then were 8-9 year olds. Now, six years later, the older kids are in the 14-year-old range. We’ve now got a whole subset of teenagers at our reunion. Somehow it really struck me this year that these kids aren’t going to be children for much longer. And it is totally exhilarating for me to think about it: what is going to become of them? Where will they go to college? Who will they marry? I have been so grateful to see them grow for these years– and I cannot wait to see what is soon-to-come. I am giddy at the thought of all of us celebrating each others’ kids’ graduations, and inevitable fantastic successes, and inviting each other to our kids’ weddings. Yes, there will be challenge, and pain, and grief, and heart-break. There always is. But the sheer happiness and goodness is there too.

This is pure joy.

It is a good, good thing.

Thank you, so much, to our dear beloved friends —

—No.

Thank you, so much, to our kin — our inner circle of Pennsylvania-area-Haitian-Adoptive-Families — for your fellowship, for your continued commitment to this yearly gathering, for your inspiration, for your kinship.

This has been a love letter to you. We love you deeply.

Love,

The J-Ms.