Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Tag: orphanage
Hard Telling
It’s interesting that, on the one hand, the U.S. government is tied in knots about children seeking refuge on our southern border and, on the other, is facilitating the adoption of thousands of children from dozens of countries by American families. In 2013, there… Continue Reading “Hard Telling”
Looking for Ivania
I’d say it was ridiculous that someone in Europe happened on my blog and just happened to have been in the same orphanage with one of my kids. I’d say it was crazy and impossible. If it hadn’t already happened. Several months ago, a… Continue Reading “Looking for Ivania”
Going Back to the Place You Were Left
We took our sons back to the place where they were abandoned as babies. In their late teens, they had no memory of anything in Nicaragua much less the place where they had last seen their birth mothers. It seemed graceless and unfeeling to get… Continue Reading “Going Back to the Place You Were Left”
Lemons
This is one of those blog posts that’s going to get me scolded either by members of my own family or by the dreamy adoption people who believe that God personally selected the child they adopted. I don’t care because the truth of the… Continue Reading “Lemons”
Mario
I fell in love with a little boy in Nicaragua 18 years ago. Tonight he’s recovering from surgery in a hospital in North Carolina. There’s a story here. I met him when I went to Managua to bring back our newly adopted 6-year old… Continue Reading “Mario”
With Her Bare Hands
It was this time of year, on Indian Lake in the U.P., that I realized that my new 7-year old daughter could catch fish with her bare hands. I’d walked down to the dock from the funky little cabin where we were staying to check… Continue Reading “With Her Bare Hands”
Dumb Luck
There are people who make a living figuring out the right adoption ‘matches’. Who’s right for who? Can this kid’s needs be met by these prospective parents? Will this kid fit into these parents’ lives? Science. Social work. Analysis. For no apparent reason, this… Continue Reading “Dumb Luck”
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect.
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect May 27, 2020
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
