So, things are moving – at the abominable snail’s pace with
which adoptions move – but, still, they’re moving. We have completed and filed
our I800a with the Department of Homeland Security and have a biometrics
appointment in New Orleans this week for an interview and yet another set of
fingerprints. I’m pretty sure we should have CIA clearance by the time this is
over. Most of our delay is coming from the Indian government at this point,
which is to be expected, and since it is completely out of our control, it has allowed
me to focus my spare time on reflection. Not only on how far we have come, but
also on how the decisions we’ve made and the answers we’ve given will steer our
future. Sometimes I flip back through the application, reread the responses I
spent so much effort crafting, and wonder…
Will this answer prevent us from being
matched with the child who was meant for us?
Will
a judge one day read this response and decide we are not fit for the child we
believe is already a part of our family?
Will anyone even read this
application? Ever?
Eventually, what brings me back to sanity and makes my
plight more tolerable is the fact that I cannot change the truth. In adoption,
as in life, I think we’re tempted to give the RIGHT answers. To figure out what
someone is looking for and conform our responses to align with that. Even when
there is no right answer. Whether it’s a job interview, or a first date, or an
adoption application, we often spend so much time trying to figure out what the
other person wants us to be capable of, or wants us to say, or wants us to be
that we forget the most important thing: the truth of who we are. Which brings
me back to the one answer that spins through my mind with a frequency and
unpredictability that knows no bounds.
It was a question our social worker asked me during my
individual interview with her, and while I don’t hold her responsible for the
tenacity with which she tried to get a concise answer from me, I do wish she
could have heard what I was really trying to say. I imagine it’s a difficult
task to pull responses from family after family with a template of questions
that just need black and white answers, and to be confronted with a person like
me, who never fails to be an elusive and frustrating shade of gray. The
question was simple enough:
Is there a specific
religious text from which you teach your children?
I imagine most people could answer this without much thought
or hesitation. But, of course, not me. Obviously, I can’t recall, word for
word, how our conversation transpired, but this is how I remember it:
SW: Is there a
specific religious text from which you teach your children?
Me: (after a seemingly interminable hesitation) I try to teach my children from all
religious texts. I think they all hold important lessons in morality and
kinship and blah blah blah…
SW: But is there one
that you specifically teach from, like, say the bible?
Me: Yes, my children
have been taught from the bible. But they have also been taught from other
religious texts, which I believe all have a similar message. The basic tenet of
most religions is to be a good person, right? And there are scriptures in every
religious text that pretty much say the same thing.
SW: So, you don’t have
a religious text you teach from?
Me: Yes, I teach from
many of them. I guess you could say they’ve been exposed to the bible more than
any others, since they’ve gone to Christian schools in the past. And they’ve
learned the ten commandments from the bible, but aren’t the ten commandments
just a basic set of rules from which most people – religious or not – try to
live their lives? Be good people, don’t steal, don’t cheat, be respectful to
your parents. I think you’d be hard pressed to NOT find the same set of rules
in other religious texts. Spirituality is a very important part of my life. And
a very personal part of my life. I’d like for my children to develop their own
relationships with God in their own ways. I can only show them the foundations
of different religions and ways of thinking, but who am I to force upon them
Christianity or Sikhism or Buddhism or Islam?
SW: (With a pleading look of please just answer this yes or
no question) So, if you had to answer yes
or no, would you say there’s a specific religious text from which you teach
your children?
Me: (Sigh) No
And there it is. The answer that will go in my home study
but doesn’t in the least bit describe who I am or how I teach my children.
Again, in no way do I hold our social worker responsible for this response. The
magnitude of the information she’s had to gather from us is dizzying and I
certainly didn’t make it easy for her, but I often picture the readers of this
response – the government officials or orphanage workers, if they’ll even see
it – and try to imagine what it might mean to them.
Is there a religious text from which you teach your children?
No.
