2010 Newsletter

In early fall 2009, Ed Stone invited Peter Hunter and me to visit a potential grantee of the Stone Family Adoption Assistance Fund. Ostensibly, the purpose of the visit was to secure our concurrence in the appropriateness of the proposed grant. I think the real reason was that Ed wanted to give us a chance to share on a very personal level in the success the Fund’s work is accomplishing.

I confess that his description of the family we were to visit inspired more trepidation than joy. Ed described Susan as having adopted 7 children and having 2 additional foster children, who were in the process of adoption. All of the children suffered from profound disabilities, some more disabling than others. I find it very difficult to see children suffer, and I anticipated a house of pain, sadness and suffering.

We traveled together to Littleton, turning down a very quiet lane to its end. Susan has a ranch house which appears small in size from the front. I noted with some surprise the presence of toys on the front lawn, a sign of childhood activity I had not anticipated.

We rang the doorbell and were greeted by one of the visiting nurses who make the job of attending to the children possible. Susan arrived from work a short time later.

My first impression was of children of varying ages from infancy to indeterminate late teens, all with severe disabilities: leg braces, respirators, wheel chairs, etc. The second impression, which immediately began blotting out the first, was of a family of children, wise and skilled beyond their years in the joy of caring for and supporting one another. Susan has a home only modestly less riotous than a comparable house of 9 non-disabled siblings. The children routinely minister to each other, replacing popped out oxygen feeds, cuddling the infant, helping with homework, patting the enormous dog, and all the other things that children in a family do with and for each other, except in this instance many of them were extraordinary because of the doer and the nature of the acts involved. Most importantly, and what perhaps surprised me more than anything, was the happiness and the joy of the children, helping and loving each other. The children have disabilities, but they do not have handicaps.
Susan explained to us the nature of her request. CJ, who is 8, and Timmy, several years older, are not able to walk. CJ spent the first 6 years of his life in a hospital, abandoned and imprisoned in a cocoon of non-communication. Acting solely on a notion that she could improve the quality of CJ’s life, Susan brought him home. His size and Timmy’s size were increasingly a problem for Susan in transitioning them from wheelchairs into bed and vice-versa. The requested solution, elegantly simple, but beyond Susan’s means, was a portable hoist system. A rod is installed in the ceiling, on which rides a portable electric hoist with a manual backup. The hoist utilizes a velcro attaching harness to lift the child out of a chair and put him in bed. I could not have imagined a better grant for the Fund to make.

Several months later, Ed and Peter and I returned Littleton. Susan proudly showed us and demonstrated the Waverly Glen Track System installed in the boys’ bedroom. The children were as excited and happy about the lift as was Susan and the visiting nurses who use it daily. Again, I was struck by the joy that fills the house and all its family members. It was impossible not to think about how much we had accomplished for so little, and how lucky we were to be given the opportunity to do so. CJ, who is starting to communicate in his own way, was adopted by Susan on November 20, 2009, National Adoption Day.

I did not expect to hear more about Susan and the children unless there was another need for us to address. I was wrong. Just after Christmas 2009, Ed wrote to all of us to say that Susan’s children had elected to forgo Christmas presents in favor of making a $150 donation to the Stone Family Adoption Assistance Fund. My reaction then and now was “Wow, these kids really get it.” How fortunate we are to have played even a small part in their beautiful lives.

by Kieran Meagher