Adoption and the Cosmos by guest author Joe Hefferon (aka @HefferonJoe) via @RachelintheOC

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Adoption and the Cosmos by guest author Joe Hefferon (aka @HefferonJoe) via @RachelintheOC

Photo of Joe’s son Jackson courtesy of Joe Hefferon

When I asked him to guest for me about an experience that greatly impacted him, he sent me this post within the hour. He knew exactly what he wanted to write. It’s beautiful and made me cry. I know you’ll enjoy it. Please take a look at his books. He’s extremely gifted (and okay, kinda hot).

Adoption and the Cosmos

Looking Back

I remember the heat. I remember it because it was the only thing that made sense in that place, at that time, in a wary atmosphere that slipped past me on gossamer screens, a layering of sounds and images. It wasn’t so much dreamlike as it was a cinematographer’s vision of a dream, crafted to guide the audience through the actor’s misgivings: silent interactions, shifting points of view, some mine, some just behind me, my world seen through a filtered lens. I can’t remember feeling the floor against my feet. I needed to find something familiar, something I reached for of my own volition that I recognized as making sense, something that put me back in control.

Looking Out

The heat makes sense because the logic works; I’m near the equator. It’s the only thing I planned for. Where are the people? It’s the main airport in the southern half of the country and there are no people except for those from my plane, and the workers, all of them quiet and all looking away, expressionless under a vague announcement from overhead. I decide it doesn’t pertain to me, half out of fear that I’m being watched.

I’m traveling alone, which is normally fine with me, but not here, not now. I need to know someone, so more of this makes sense. I’m carrying a lot of cash – too much cash for being alone in such a faraway place that offers no comfort, not a smile or a familiar thumbs-up. It’s just a yellow haze and me, moving forward by instinct to get outside where the haze was grayer but the heat heavier still, more familiar.

Here they are. The people are all outside, loosely gathered in a horseshoe and looking at me, or toward me. That’s odd. They all seem to share a common interest but that couldn’t be me, so what is it? I need familiarity. I am closer now to the horseshoe, dragging my luggage and holding on to the heat. Most of them up front have paper signs, or maybe they’re paper shields, mostly hand-scribed, but all in a language of symbols, none of which I recognize.

I’ll search the crowd again. Maybe I missed my name, or a name I know that links me back to where I was sure, before the heat.

Nothing. No symbol or face registers with me, nor I with any of them.

Lost.

What if I’m just in the wrong place, or here at the wrong time? Maybe I made a simple mistake and it’s not as bad as my stomach is leading me to believe, to be frightened of. I’ll walk back inside and start again. I can’t. It seems going back is not an option; it’s less familiar now. Suddenly a change, a moment of clarity, a fragile moment that makes sense. Now there are two: the heat and the photos.

A large and calloused hand is eight inches from my face, holding two snapshots.

The hand is large, so the rest of the man by most assumptions would be proportionally as large. How could I not see him before? How could I let him get so close? Who is this infant in the photos? Clarity – something that should make sense. I begin to feel unconcerned about the horseshoe that seconds ago threatened to abandon me. The hand, the photos, no voice attached, no warning, just there as suddenly as the dread that met me inside. Do the normal thing – turn, be familiar, turn toward the arm, to the man with the large hands. Be familiar.

Relief. I don’t recognize him but his presence makes sense. I’m supposed to meet an American here, to help me begin this process. This must be him. This must be the baby, my baby, our baby. This is how they tell you. It must be him, the guy I’m supposed to meet, yes Paul. Smile.

“Oh, you must be Paul. I’m Joe.”

“Here, these are yours. Get in the van.”

Well, why not? I’m twelve thousand miles from home in a communist country and I have over $7,500.00 in a money belt. A strange man with big hands tells me to get in the van so, why not? Here goes. He puts my luggage in the back while I open the side door. A cool wave and another sense, a smell or picture in the periphery, I’m not sure, adds yet more familiarity. There’s someone else. An accomplice? A victim? He seems happy. Who is this guy? He’s smiling. Does he feel as strangely as I do?

“Hi, I’m Bill.” Good. Normal name, familiar accent. A handshake. Things are looking up.

“Hi – Joe.” I sit, unsure about the seatbelt. I decide against it for getaway purposes. I watch movies (awkward silence). “Well. We’re here, finally.”

“Yep, and a beautifully hot day too.” He laughs. He knows the heat too. More relief.

“Welcome to Vietnam guys. We’re waiting for one more and then I’ll take you to the hotel.”

Big-hands is behind the wheel. One less thing I have to figure out on my own. Take a deep breath.

At the hotel the desk clerk takes our passports. Unfamiliar. Normally I wouldn’t allow that but you have an eerie feeling that everyone in this country who wears a uniform, even the bellmen, works for the government.

“Relax. They are required to register you with the government.”

See what I mean?

Wow, nice room. I need a drink.

Looking Forward

I love my son. I love him so much it makes me dizzy. I love my daughter also of course, and I would die by half if anything terrible were to happen to her. But this is about adoption, the adoption of my boy, Jackson. It’s about a transfiguration. It’s about the unfettered joy he brings to my life.

People have a misconception (pun?) about adoption. Some people believe they couldn’t adopt a child, especially (shock) a foreign one, because “it” wouldn’t be their own. It, “wouldn’t be my flesh and blood,” and, “I’m not raising someone else’s kid.” These are things I’ve actually heard. Some people are ignorant; it’s not their fault. They are driven by ego, by an astoundingly selfish notion that no child who was not of their own loins is worthy of a home, their home.

How do I know Jackson is my son? Well I believe in God, or perhaps the spiritual universe in that Paulo Coelho sense. I had my doubts before my son came into my life but since then, I have become a believer. The reason is simple; my adopted son, Jackson Binh Hefferon, is my own son now, in every physical, literal, spiritual and emotional way one man can explain it. He is the unrelenting energy of my life’s blood. There is no doubt. Only God could make such a transfiguration.

Every adoptive parent will tell you this: there is never a time when you doubt it, question it or pass it off as something you’ve only convinced yourself of. It’s a stone cold fact of your life.

My heart aches for him. He has asthma so I worry about him. I laugh at his silliness and marvel at his thoughts. I enjoy watching him sleep, watching him enjoy his lunch, watching him catch a fish, which he always releases. I am awed by his vegetarian conviction, which may not seem so marvelous to you until you realize he made the decision as a toddler. He wouldn’t even touch meat to feed it to the dog. It’s a decision he has made from within. Family and friends have been eating meat around him and encouraging him to do the same for all of his nine short years, but he is resolute, and I admire him for it. I said, “Jack, I won’t force you to eat meat, just tell me why you won’t.” My 7-year-old said calmly, no… peacefully, “Dad, I just can’t see myself eating an animal.” I believe he never will.

He is a humanist. He always has a kind thought about someone, always chooses the kinder thought when presented with a choice, and always offers his spot in line or half his dessert to another boy. And he gets extra nervous around cute girls; that’s adorable. He is wicked smart, a quality that lends itself to sarcasm and quick retorts, but he’s so damn cute you can’t get mad at him.

He reads very well, but still likes for me to read to him. He likes video games and the Disney channel and playing chase games with his friends. He is a normal boy. If anyone were to ever hurt him, there is no place on earth that thing could hide from me.

I’m divorced. When I am not with him I miss him like a vital organ. When I see him again, I smile once again. There is something special about him and I know every parent feels that way, but I mean something else, something strangely different – noticed by waiters, the parents of his friends and others who hold him in conversation for the first time. It’s something spiritual. Meeting him leaves you feeling you’ve met an uncommon boy. My daughter believes he is a genius.

I know, in a place in my heart that only a parent knows, that someday, he will involve himself in a series of breathtaking events. Even though I will have known it’s been coming his entire life; it will startle me in its magnificence.

I am not a prophet or a psychic, but there is something special about my son, and I must protect him until his time comes.