A Day in the Life

 ...The kids successfully enrolled, started school last week, and are enjoying it so far. I cannot however imagine how difficult this must be, particularly for the oldest child, who is a senior, to take on her final year in high school, in a different land, a different culture, with a different language. She is a lovely, quiet, resilient child, who appears to roll with the punches and I’m praying she continues to be strong. I know it can’t be easy and I want her to know she can lean on me. She understands both me and her mom, and she is quickly replacing Google Translate as the means to communicate within our household.

I’m continuing to immerse them in the American experience, or at least my version of it. My version of the American experience shared with them so far is a diverse mix of live music, dinner parties, dining out, an art gallery, an amusement park, and multiple times on the lakes. As I begin writing this we are about to celebrate Labor Day at Carowinds, our second visit in a week. I wanted to take them to a fútbol or football game, but I discovered on Saturday, they are not sporting events fans. This actually works for me.

On a car ride, the kids' mom broke out pictures of her daughters sleeping in a bomb shelter in Ukraine where they spent many days and nights before their escape. She told me that blankets covered the above-ground windows of this basement space and lights were out at 5 PM so as to avoid being shelled. Russian snipers were on the rooftops to kill civilians caught walking on the streets. Honestly, it’s just so hard to conceive when seeing this seemingly ordinary family who now live in my home, living ordinary lives, and who before February led ordinary lives in their own hometown. It’s just so inconceivable that the world would change at light speed. On a lighter note, I also learned from the 5-year-old daughter on a car ride home from Lake Wylie that babies do not come from a stork, they come from God. Puppies, however, do come from a stork. I confirmed I believed the same.

A few weeks ago the 5-year-old asked me to pull a chair next to mine at my desk where I was at my computer. She began drawing pictures. The first she drew was me. She went on to draw her mom, then herself, and finally her sister. When finished she lined up her individual masterpieces next to each other in order. I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes a family. We live in a world of extremely high divorce rates, reconstituted families, and families of biological and adopted children. What is developing at my home is family. It’s not by any means in a traditional husband, wife, or children way, but more in a shared caring people living together under one roof way.

Still, I can’t help but wonder how the little artist understands this. For me, the bonds that are forming are joyful and oftentimes challenging. Culturally we are very different. I can’t help but wonder what happens when the government program ends in mere months. What then? Much the same as my kids, how do I keep these children safe as I already hold them in my heart? How do I help launch them as was my mission for my own children? Will they stay in America or return to Ukraine? Will there be a Ukraine to even return to?

These are not really worries but questions I have; a man who mostly has a plan, who is also very aware that I am almost never in control, whose plan often does not go as expected, and who is certainly not in control of others. I’ve had similar discussions with my friend who has sponsored three families from Ukraine. She too has formed familial bonds within the families living in her home. Connection is really an amazing gift if only we’re open to our diversity as human beings and our own capacity to love and care for one another.

We are family.

excerpt courtesy of Fish Out of Water, September 8, 2022 https://renmanclt.blogspot.com/