My second wife, Rita, and I shared a committed relationship for about four years before we got married. We were so sure that our relationship was a lifetime deal, we wanted to have a child together. We were not exactly sure this was going to be possible. I had undergone a previous vasectomy, at the request of my first wife, a request that seemed quite reasonable at that time. It had been some time since that procedure, and the chance that it could be successfully reversed was low. Nevertheless, we went through the motions, after our marriage, seeking a way to have our own child. I had a vasectomy reversal, which was a dismal failure. Although defeated at that effort, we moved to a house in a new community to set up shop. It did not take too long for her to let me know that this was not the end of our quest to have our own child.
We were out on the rope swings underneath the big old maple tree in the front yard, on an early fall day, warm and colorful, when she laid on the ground by me and announced that her life would not be complete unless she had a child, one she could teach those things that she had found most important in life. She said it with the most sincerity, I knew immediately it was a done deal. We were going to adopt, whatever that took, to have our own child. We had a really rough start. We discovered that, because of my age, no adoption would be allowed in our country. We would, as far as we could tell, be denied legalization of any child we wished to adopt in the United States of America. My wife immediately started asking others how we could get an adoption from another country done. She was directed to, and made contact with, a lady in Newark, Ohio, who had adopted a child from Mexico, using an attorney in California. Rita immediately made the call. We were immediately presented with a request from that attorney for money to begin the adoption process.
Things moved swiftly after that, mostly because we complied whenever the California attorney asked for money to keep the adoption process running. He told us there was a mom, in Torreon, Mexico, who was pregnant with her third child, was unmarried, had a job, but who did not know how she could support another child. She was willing to give up her child to someone who could provide a better life for her. We were asked to provide brief biographies, so that this woman could look at who we were, and decide whether she wanted us to raise her child, or someone else. I prefer to think that we were chosen by her as those two people who could give the most love and support to her baby. This baby was adopted by us, through the American and Mexican legal systems, with that process all in place while she was still in utero. Three months later, this international baby was born. She had a rocky start in life.
Our joint baby did not prosper. Once she was taken from her native mother and placed in an orphanage in Ensenada, Mexico, she was sick all the time. She did not tolerate usual formula, and was always vomiting. She grew poorly. It appeared that, unless something different happened, she was going to die an early death. Some strange events were happening at that same time. My guess is that, for a while, her native mom took her back in order to nurse her, or provide care for her in some other way, because it appeared that she was otherwise not going to survive. And we had that guilty lingering doubt as to whether this adoption was to give our baby a better life, or was it to obtain money for the attorney and her mom? Were we taking, as our own, a baby who was so ill she was not going to be with us much longer? Why would any mother, who had given birth to a child, and bonded with that child, be willing to give that child up, regardless of how poor she was? We simply did not know. There was also icing on that problematic cake. When she was three months of age, we were told that her adoption had cleared, and went to Mexico to get her. Things did not go well.
We flew into San Diego, rented a car, and drove into Mexico, headed for the orphanage in Ensenada, south from Tijuana in Baja California. The only homes we saw, during the whole trip, were tar paper shacks, no larger than small bedrooms. When we got to the orphanage in Ensenada, to pick up our baby, we had a joyful first time together, and have the pictures to demonstrate that happiness. During that entire adoption process, it seemed as if everyone had their hands out. We were first directed to a retired city official, with whom the California attorney had worked in order to complete the adoption. He was gracious, but also made it clear he would like to be further compensated for his efforts. He directed us to a local doctor, said we had to have our baby checked to see what was wrong with her. We paid him well, although he did not find anything wrong. We still had to go to the state consulate in Monterrey, however, to get final approval for this adoption. Unfamiliar with the roads or directions, we elected to fly to Monterrey in order to go to the consulate there. As we lifted off from Tijuana, we noted that there was no airport control tower, and had doubts about air travel safety in that country. When we came down to land in Monterrey, we had a major bouncing landing. The entire cabin of passengers erupted in applause after the bouncing stopped, grateful to be back on the ground safely. Rita, who gets motion sickness, did not do well with that rough landing. When we got into an open air taxi with about five other passengers, she suddenly bolted off and began vomiting at the curb. We presented a pretty picture: a tall freckled white man, holding a crying Mexican baby, accompanied by a shorter white woman who was vomiting profusely. I will never forget the stares that we got.
At the hotel in Monterrey, we were immediately befriended by the concierge, who spoke English, and was willing to take us anywhere we wanted, as long as we paid him well. He even offered to find more babies for us, at a price, if we wanted to adopt more. At the consulate, we were told that, in spite of our previous information, the adoption process was not complete, and that we could not have our baby. We spent one last sad day in Monterrey, and then used most of our remaining available cash to pay the taxi driver on the way back to the airport, to return our baby to the orphanage in Ensenada. Before the plane could take off, on that trip back to the orphanage, a man three rows behind us started projectile vomiting of blood. We had to wait to take off while they carted him off on a stretcher and did extensive clean up not only of the seats and floor, but of other passengers. Back in Ensenada, when we ate the local food, we got sick. We left our baby in Ensenada in great sorrow, and were still somewhat ill. We left Mexico sad to our bones, and temporarily down to our last dollars. When we got back to America, across the border, we stopped at a McDonald’s, and had the saddest but most delicious food we had ever had in our lives.
My new wife then became a demon for the next three months. She called consulates, attorneys, congressmen and senators. She camped out at our representative’s office in Washington, D.C. for a week. She harried local officials and judges. We made a special trip to the consulate in Detroit, Michigan, pleading for help in our effort to get our baby. The attorney in California was called constantly, perhaps having to do more work than he wished, in this particular adoption process. Rita called whoever she could reach and speak to in Mexico, begging for assistance. She was relentless. Finally, someone in this chain of command got tired of hearing from her, and we were told that the adoption had been completed. We went back to the orphanage in Ensenada to pick our baby up when she was six months old. When we came through the customs in Houston on our way back into the States, I held our daughter so tightly, I wondered momentarily if she was still breathing. I was so afraid she would be taken away from us again. On our way back home, driving down south from the Cleveland airport, there were sunbows in the winter sky all the way home. Being humans who seize on natural events as portents, we believed that these rainbow colors in the sky for two hours were our God’s sign that this would be a happy lifetime union. It was Valentine’s Day, 1986.
Back in the United States of America, our pediatrician found that she was lactose intolerant, and had to be fed with soy formula. She was 2 percentiles below normal weight and height. She had chronic ear infections. The sutures, or bone separations, in her skull had already started to fuse, because she had been so malnourished. It appears rather likely that had she stayed in Mexico, she would have sustained brain and organ damage, leading to mental deficiency and early death. Once exposed to proper medicine and diet, she prospered, and joined the normal growth charts of her peers.
Fifteen years later, when we held a Quinceanera church ceremony and subsequent party for her, we paid special tribute to all those who had helped during the adoption process, and then had helped her in her developing life, to become a young woman primed to step forward on her own. We had all of them stand, and let everyone know how they had all helped her become who she was. We also let them know how deeply appreciative we were of their support of this international union. During the dancing, the recognitions, the celebrations, a strong storm came through with big black clouds. As the clouds lifted, a brilliant huge rainbow appeared in the sky. We got pictures of the three of us standing together on a small bridge, under this glorious rainbow. We then got a picture of her alone, posing seated at a balustrade, the rainbow curving above and coming down to her head. It was gorgeous. That rainbow again seemed to us to be a portent of great meaning, a message from our creator that the future would be good, and that we belonged together, in spite of our diverse backgrounds.
Years later, I joined three missions to Mexico, sponsored by our church, in an attempt to understand the background my adopted daughter had come from, and why her birth mother would give her up for adoption. On the last visit, we went back to Monterrey, to help construct a church there. I was overcome with moments of intense sorrow and pleasure, reliving those days in the past when we lost our daughter, then regained her again, in that same city. It was a bit of a shock to go through those same emotions again. Once out of the city, there was poverty all around, but somehow, no one complained, and everyone survived. These Mexican people lived in one room shacks with dirt floors, no door in the door space and no window in the window space. They did not have running water. When they walked anywhere to get food or water, they walked in mud, during the rainy season, because there was no pavement. Yet we were met by gracious, kind, generous people, who gave although they had almost nothing to give.
After the last day on the job we happened to go to a 400 year old monastery which overlooks the city of Monterrey, as a sight-seeing reward for our efforts. There were sunbows accompanying us all the way back into town, an event which had great meaning to me. We got there by taking a series of twisting roads up a hill overlooking the city, arriving at dusk. While we were there, at that picturesque spot, a wedding party suddenly appeared. They gathered as a group, laughing and chatting, on the steps in front of the monastery for pictures. The old stone monastery, bathed in floodlights, cast a deep yellow glow solid architectural background behind them. Out in front, the stature of Jesus stood looking over the city, with welcoming arms outspread, accepting and compassionate for all below him in the city. As if in response, the city lights slowly blinked on below in rows and squares. Suddenly, a group of giddy young girls swept around us, headed for the wedding party. They were resplendent in purple satin dresses, with white sashes, brown skin, red lips, bright black eyes, and flashing white smiles. Off to the west, there was a startling erect scarlet slash in the sky, highlighted by a background orange glow coming over the Sawtooth Mountains. Perhaps that awesome visual effect was due to city pollution, but it seemed to me to be an exclamation point from our creator. It was saying to me, “Now you finally understand.”
That was because I did finally understand. I had seen and experienced Mexican poverty. I had seen the acceptance of these gentle people. I had seen how they survive without wealth, and still reach happiness. I had seen why a Mexican mother would give up her sick baby, praying that she would find a better life elsewhere. I finally understood my adopted daughter’s past, and saw her future. I saw that she would find a way to reach happiness in life, regardless of the obstacles, saw what she would look like as an adult, saw marriage and children in her future, saw that she would find a way to reach fulfillment, and saw that all of it would always be accompanied by bright colors, brown skin, and a flashing white smile. Rosa and rainbows are, to me, poetic to the point of mythology. I also finally understood internationalism.
You see, something extremely special happened that first night we had our adopted daughter with us. When we got back to the Monterrey Hotel that night, I went out into the street to the market next door, and using what little Spanish I could muster, bought some street food that I thought would be safe. We ate sparingly, fed our daughter, bathed her, changed her, gave her clean clothes, and then played with her. After a short while, she started tongue thrusting, and got heavy eyes. She then reached down, picked up the blanket at her waist, and in slow motion, with arms straight out, pulled it up over her head, then fell asleep. This was apparently what she did at the orphanage to escape all the noise and commotion of that place. I suddenly, without any warning, was madly in love with this brown baby with the big black eyes. I was completely bonded to her, the same as I was to my three older children. I knew in a flash that I would protect her and take care of her for the rest of my life. That bound was intense and permanent.
I just did not see it coming. I had expected to love her and take care of her, but did not expect this. I was totally bonded to this child. She was me and I was her. We were the same. It did not matter that we had different genes, different builds, different skin color, much different ages, came from different nations and different cultures, had different bacterial colonies growing in our guts, would be prone to different diseases, would face different challenges in life. We were one. Human love knows no bounds of space, time, color, language, race, religion, shape, age, or culture. There are no barriers between humans unless we place them there. It was a great epiphany in my life, one of those events that changes how you think about everything that follows in life. It was one of those events that opens every door, and gives understanding to everything else in human life. Figuratively speaking, the black window shade went up and the whole room exploded with light.
Human ethics, by our definition, contains a deep respect for all other humans, which states that all other humans have just as much right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as you or I do .That respect must always be there, if we are to be ethical. Unfortunately, we put up artificial barriers of color, language, religion, size, and cultures, in order to serve our own self interests. Of course we must defend ourselves if we are attacked. Of course we must struggle to make ourselves better, and work hard to support our particular societies in any way we can. Of course the universe does not give a fig whether we are here or not, and would just as soon not have us here; it is up to us to fight for a better life. Of course we have to protect ourselves against natural disasters in any way we can. These are all givens. We should not, however, put up artificial barriers which keep us from seeing that all other humans also have these exact same rights.
It is heartwarming to see an outpouring of aid for those people on the other side of the world from any of us, when other populations have had their lives destroyed by one of our natural disasters. It is chilling, however, to see wars and killing in order to protect business interests, intolerant religious or cultural beliefs. These acts of violence are a deadly reminder of how unethical we remain as humans. There is virtually no fully expressed international ethics as yet. We all remain selfish nations, each of us trying to take whatever advantage we can get away with, each nation vying with other nations as opponents or enemies. That’s not going to work anymore. We are now one world, all of us tied together on one planet. We either become ethical, with deep respect for all other cultures and religions, and all those humans who are different from us in different nations, in any way, or we can all die together in wars of attrition.
Yes, there are a lot of people we do not like at all, because of their selfishness, their lack of cleanliness, their laziness, their disrespect, or other mannerisms we find quite distasteful. Yes, we should defend ourselves if attacked by them. We must, however, always have deep respect for that other person. We must always allow the opportunity for that intense and complete bond, that came in a flash, between an older freckled white man and a brown baby with big black eyes, in the Hotel Monterrey, Mexico, November, 1985. When we treat all others with such deep respect that this magnificent bond is always possible, then we will achieve international human ethics.