Dismantled - The Family On Williams Street East

By Suzy Mitchell Collin

THE COVER UP IS OVER!

A married gay couple adopted nine special needs children.  In spite of the challenging behaviors and diagnoses of the children, they were flourishing at home and in school. After a decade, baseless sexual allegations against the fathers were lodged and the once thriving family was dismantled.  The fathers

• Language: English
• Publisher: A Twelve Bird Day
• Release date: Jun 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9780692731789

Suzy Mitchell Collin

Suzy Mitchell Collin is an artist and writer. "Dismantled: A Family on Williams Street East" is a work of non-fiction that took over four years to complete. She witnessed the seemingly endless maze of the court system, false allegations and the resultant emotional wreckage that became the altered reality of a broken man. Suzy is a person with a passion for justice, believing in the concept that all persons are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. She is also passionate about injustices that occur to anyone suffering from any form of discrimination. It was a difficult story to write, and as difficult to watch the long months turn into years of injustices that seemed to be flourishing. Hopefully, in the end, justice will triumph. But that does not mitigate the casualty of a lost family and the scars that will forever exist in the hearts of George Harasz and his missing sons.

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DISMANTLED:

THE FAMILY ON WILLIAMS STREET EAST

SUZY MITCHELL COLLIN

Copyright © 2016 A Twelve Bird Day, Inc.

All rights reserved.  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.  If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [e-mail]  Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

This book is based on a true story of a family with eleven children that was systematically dismantled by lies that were taken as truth.  Lives were cruelly battered by damaging sharp shards of heart rain and soul flooding.  Some identities have been changed or altered.

The back cover of this book is an actual photo

of the historic home where this story took place.

For additional photos follow this link:

http://www.GeorgesFamilyMatters.ORG/Dismantled-Photos.html

Thanks to the many individuals who consented to be interviewed for this book and for their courage in speaking out.  The statements and opinions given by these individuals represent their best recollection and have been related to the best of their knowledge.

This book is lovingly dedicated to:

All the Harasz children who have suffered much and

To the pursuit of liberty, justice, and equality for all.

THE DAY THE KIDS NEVER CAME HOME

    The busy morning started like any other.  George had five sons to feed, dress and get ready for the bus.  Noah and Jacob were ten.  Ethan was eight.  Dylan was six.  Michael was four and traveled to pre-school in a van.

    The morning tradition found George hovering over each son at the front door, checking ties on sneakers, buttons on shirts, patting down errant hair before they were ready to walk down the driveway to wait for their noisy yellow mobiles.  As George fussed over Michael’s shirt buttons and winter coat zipper, Michael checked the buttons on Daddy’s shirt, something that always touched George’s heart.  Noah, in particular, seemed to bask in the personal attention of the morning check-over.  It was a part of the day that George enjoyed immensely.

When they walked out the front door, the school bus was just coming into view.  The five boys and Daddy sprinted down the long driveway.  Everyone smiled and waved as the bus driver pulled to a stop, slowly opening the door to welcome the kids who were all trying to be first up the steps. George laughed at their eagerness to get on the bus.  It felt good to entrust them to such a friendly woman who always took the time to say a few words of greeting.

    After the children boarded their school bound vessels, George, a stay-at-home Dad, walked back up to the house to start the daily chores:  cleaning, laundry and the daily trip to the grocery store to prepare for a healthy dinner that night.

    It was a busy day that passed quickly.  When it was time to make the long walk down the driveway to meet the bus and Michael’s van, George was in a happy mood, anxious to see his boys and hear about their day.  He looked forward to perusing the papers they brought home, proud of the stunning progress each son had made since the adoptions.

    But where was the bus?  It was never that late.  George began to feel his stomach tighten, that part of the anatomy that the body uses as a warning system.

    Twenty minutes passed, then twenty-five.  He called the bus company, no news there.  Michael’s van was quite late also.  What was going on?

  George called the school.  They said that all the children were at the school and that he needed to come immediately but received no answers to his questions. All the children?  How could Michael be there with the other boys when he took a separate van to pre-school?

    George raced to the school in a frantic state of foreboding, a tsunami of dread and fear washing over his thoughts.  He parked at the entrance and ran into the school office where five police officers stood waiting.  His life, as he had lived it, was over.  The life of the children as they had lived it was over as well.

THE STORY BEGINS: A REWIND

    Life rarely takes 180-degree turns.  Days turn into weeks.  Weeks to years.  The path is there to walk along until the road diverges into a fork.  Robert Frost had it right.  He wrote about a path diverging in a yellow wood and a traveler who took the one less traveled by.

    One of those travelers is George Harasz.  The first 180- degree turn that life took was when he discovered something startling about himself that he never knew, something he would not discover until age 33.

    The second 180-degree turn happened years later when one day, the school bus never came back with his children.  Both turns that life took were out of his control.

As a youth, George had traveled a routine, laid out path.  He considered himself a normal young man about the business of growing up:  getting married, having children, being a financial success, perhaps helping others along the way.

    George had discovered a foundational thing about himself: an innate love for children at age eight when his brother, Adam, was born.  He became somewhat of a father figure to him and Adam became his trusty sidekick:  The Lone Ranger and Tonto.

    George became involved in an unusual endeavor as a young man.  He was only 20 when he began volunteering at the Hartford Regional Center, a residential facility for severely handicapped children. There, he discovered possession of a unique gift:  reaching children with mental or physical health challenges.

    A few years later, his sister returned to Connecticut with a young son in tow after a marital separation.  They moved in with George.  His nephew, Chuckie, was in need of a father figure.  George embarked on fatherhood with ferocity.  Because of a shortage of religious education teachers in the Catholic Church George attended with his sister and nephew, he volunteered to be a CCD teacher (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine).  His teaching progressed through the grades with Chuckie.  He also became Chuckie’s Cub Scout Leader. 

    His sister eventually moved out but George stayed strongly connected to Chuckie.  George, who had worked at his father’s machine shop for years as a youth, started several home based businesses and was becoming quite successful financially.  He bought a rambling Queen Ann Victorian home near the Connecticut River in Rocky Hill where he met Heather.

George married at age 28.  Heather was a woman he had dated off and on for a few years and shortly after the marriage, Heather became pregnant.  A son was born.  Paul was to crystallize George’s reason for residing on this Earth:  Fatherhood.

    After Paul’s birth, George’s mother, Anna, came to live as a welcome addition to the young family.

    George had been making plans for a wedding to Heather when he discovered a disconcerting fact.  A girl he had dated only once during a period when he and Heather had briefly broken up, contacted him to state that he was the father of her unborn child.  George was shocked and dismayed.  With wedding plans to Heather in the works, he responded that he was not going to be with someone he really did not know because of a baby but that he would take responsibility for the child.

      And so it came to be that Nicole pre-empted Paul as George’s first born.  Nicole’s mother was less than pleased that George had chosen Heather over her and was to live out that rejection by keeping George away from his daughter.  It took five years for her to let Nicole meet her father.

    George felt cheated out of the joy of fatherhood with Nicole that he daily experienced with Paul during those first years of non-contact with his daughter.  George knew that Nicole’s mother had moved out of state.  He had hired someone to find her and Nicole but that effort was unsuccessful.  George was unable to force visitation.  He was not listed as the father on the birth certificate.  However, he began faithfully sending child support payments to the state.  When Nicole moved back to Connecticut, she insisted on meeting her father.

Nicole and George began their relationship as father and daughter with weekend visits to the Rocky Hill home when Nicole was five.  It was not long after that, the six-year marriage between George and Heather ended in divorce.  There had not been much discord but then again, there had not been much of anything between them.  George retained custody of Paul. Heather left their home and had regular visits with her son.

    George had begun to see a therapist for nine months before the marriage ended.  Nine months, ironically, was the time it took to birth his authentic sexual identity.

    George was a gay man. He was 33 years old.  Life was about to take the first 180 degree turn.  It was a mega shock, an internal human earthquake.  Being gay was something of which he had been unaware.  The discovery hit him as an unwelcome epiphany.

He had known that his older brother, Geza, was gay but had not really thought about it all that much since Geza had left home when George was a boy.

After the divorce finalized, George, still struggling with the realization that he was a gay man, started confiding to friends and family, receiving mixed reactions.  His mother, Anna, was surprised but stated that it did not change anything and only wanted him to make choices to live in happiness.

    George entered the gay world-dating scene.  He was looking for a relationship but found something else in the bar he walked into.  Promiscuity reigned supreme.  It was like walking through the forbidden door to Narnia, a foreign alternative reality with horned beings and the unexplored landscape of a snow-capped never world.  Most of the gay population was not represented in that bar, but just like any other bar, it was a pick-up joint.  He dated a few men but decided it was not for him.

He lost interest in meeting someone. Then along came Doug, the man who changed everything.

DOUG AND GEORGE

    Douglas Wirth had grown up on a farm in the mid-west.  He had experienced more relationships with other men than George had, but all had ended in disappointment.  Doug realized that he was gay when he was 13.  He went to school in a very small town community where 25 kids went from kindergarten through high school in the same schoolhouse.  He had experienced a lot of bullying over his sexual orientation that he could not change and on which he had never acted.

    As a teen, he had soaked many nighttime bed pillows with salty tears, praying that God would change him into a normal boy who wanted to kiss a girl.  However, those prayers went unanswered.  Doug tried to convince himself he was a normal guy when everyone around him knew that he was different, even his parents who had asked him about it when he was 15.  He denied the truth to even them.

    After high school graduation, he left the mid-west and settled in Connecticut, attending Central Connecticut State University where he had his first sexual encounter with another man.  Relationships followed that ended badly.

    Doug had been planning a move to California but when he met George, it was a love connection.  They had a fundamental thing in common:  they were both looking for a committed loving relationship.

  When Doug first came to the Rocky Hill Gothic Victorian for dinner, George shared his life.  He lived with his mother, another older woman, and his son, Paul, and he daily checked on his dear friend, Mary, an elderly woman who lived in Wethersfield.  He had a serious life in terms of responsibilities, obligations and commitments.  Some single gay men just looked for sex.  That was not George.  He wanted a loving, committed relationship.

Doug was impressed with George’s core values of devotion to family.  Doug had come to the point in life where having a family meant everything.  He admired George for his dedication to family and others he welcomed into his warm inner circle.  Doug wanted to be part of that inner circle. 

They both were looking for soul mates.  They began dating and the first summer, flew to the mid-west with Paul to meet Doug’s family and friends.  They both knew that they had found the one for whom they had searched.

    In 1998, Doug moved into the Rocky Hill home with George, Paul, Anna and a tenant.  Doug fell in love with Paul, a sweet, loving child, and was impressed with Paul’s requests for a brother.  This was not a fleeting request, Doug observed, but a keen and deeply felt need.  Paul was lonely.

    Paul’s half-sister visited every other weekend, but they did not have a lot in common. Nicole was a girl, spending time with Anna, fixing hair and whatever strange things girls do.

    Doug and George began talking about adoption.  Doug was raised in a large, extended family and relished the thought of having one, although the initial discussion was about adopting one boy slightly younger than six-year-old Paul.

    Doug was employed as an IT consultant in a Hartford insurance company where he was well compensated.  George had been successful in many home-based businesses and was wrapping up a banking consultant position.  George had been the stay-at-home parent since Paul’s birth.  Another child living in the house would allow George to continue to do what he did best:  be a Dad.  Although the couple talked at great length about fighting for custody of Nicole, they knew that she wanted to live full time with her mother.

      The couple talked about adoption.  They wanted to expand their family and make a difference in the world, even if it was only one person at a time. With Doug’s ample income and George’s considerable savings, the family could live life large, enjoying trips, sports cars and the finer things.  They had flown Paul to Disney World and there would be more exotic trips if life remained status quo.

However, they both wanted more out of life than status quo.  Arms linked in resolve and unity, the undeclared crusade began.  They really did not think of what they were about to do as a crusade.  If they had, they would have had no thought that crusades can actually beget many casualties.

THE CHILDREN ARRIVE

George called the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF), expressing a desire to adopt a child.  Multiple phone calls went unanswered for three months.  Frustrated, they called Downey Side Adoption Agency.  The social worker at the agency gently advised that a same sex couple might wait years for a placement.

    They followed through with classes and a home study before taking Paul to Disney World again.  They learned that sibling groups are routinely broken up for placement.  In the application, they agreed to check off the box, open to taking siblings as well as the single child box.  It turned out to be a lot easier to make a tiny check mark in that dangerous box than dealing with the challenges lurking around the corner.   

    Returning from Disney World, a call was waiting from the adoption agency. Calls were coming in from adoption agencies in other states who were informed of their unusual willingness to take a whole sibling group.  New Hampshire, proposing placement of five sibling girls, was forthcoming about the background of the girls: several of the older girls were involved in a sex club.

    Fiercely protective of Paul, they declined.  The couple had been adamant about one thing:  they would not accept a child with any kind of sexual history.  Several other offers came in from Ohio and a few other states whose agencies were also honest about background history of a sexual nature, an immediate disqualifier.

    Shortly after, Carolyn from Downey Side Adoption Agency called. Roberto had just turned five and was in Connecticut’s Department of Families and Children’s foster care system. Boys, after age five, are difficult to place.  Sibling groups of boys are almost never adopted.  Girls are easier to place up to third grade when they become hard to place. Roberto was considered very adoptable, as he had not started school.

    They were told Roberto had seven and eight-year-old brothers and would be required to maintain contact with them twice a year through phone calls. The couple replied they were interested in keeping the siblings together.  They wanted all three brothers.   That had not been what they had set out for, but they were willing to go the extra mile. Anna was concerned and warned that it might not work.  George, forever the altruist, did not believe it for a minute.

    George would look back one day, recall his mother’s caution and marvel at his inability to listen to what later proved to be profound wisdom. George firmly believed it was possible to fix people.  As a youngster, George was extremely mischievous, something he grew out of when he made a behavioral turn around.  He knew it was possible to change and grow with love and encouragement.  As a young man, he had spent a few years living with an older woman, Mary, who really was the impetus for a life stance change.  She fostered a growing spirituality that bestowed and ingrained a desire to help others.

The couple met with Connecticut DCF workers, a court appointed guardian ad litem, a social worker from the adoption agency who all advised, These are great kids, they just need minor social adjustment. The DCF social worker encouraged them to meet the children, ecstatic that the brothers might be placed together.

There was no disclosure of history of any trauma in their biological family, no disclosure of any issues similar to what other state adoption agencies had provided. There were no disclosures of any kind of sexually traumatic experiences that the children had experienced.  They were only informed the boys had been hospitalized for high levels of lead in their blood because of eating paint chips.

That was what the poor had to face, wasn’t it?  George and Doug were more than happy to provide the boys with a loving home and rescue them from a very bad situation.  It was spring of 2000, a new family for a new millennium. A new family was about to be born with promising days of happiness and fulfillment ahead.  George and Doug were duly excited like most expectant parents.

    Many people will read this story and ask why?  Why would these men adopt all those children?  The answer is that it is not something they set out to do.  The idea had been to adopt one boy, giving Paul the gift of a brother. However, when they sat with the social worker at the adoption agency, it was disclosed that many of the children up for adoption were part of sibling groups.  Well, why not?  Both men had large hearts.  Why not a large family?  Wouldn’t it just multiply the joy?

    Doug had grown up in a large family.  George had discovered fatherhood was his life ambition and fulfillment.  It made perfect sense.  Both men wanted to make a difference in the world.  Helping children who needed parents and keeping a sibling group together was the answer that would transform their world.  And transform it, it did.

THE CLASH BEGINS

    The couple was woefully unprepared for what can happen during an adoption.  While the two men were happily preparing to extend their hands to the new boys and make them feel welcome and part of a wonderful family, the boys were likely experiencing the opposite feelings of preparation:  dread.

    These children had experienced upheaval, abuse and horrendous treatment at the hands of their birth parents and subsequent foster parents.  Many of those hands had defiled the trust that any child deserves to enjoy. How were the children to know that the new two sets of hands that would greet them would be any different?  They could not have known.  History is the best predictor of the future.

    While Doug and George were exuberant in their expectations, waiting to bestow healing hugs of welcome, they could not have known that the children were having the opposite reaction.  The children were wary, anticipating their new home with abject fear.  What was going to happen to them next?  Who were these men?  It was bound to be another chapter in the long, sorry history of neglect and abuse.  The new parents were probably mistrusted before they were even met.

    The couple learned many years later that at the time they had come forward to adopt the three brothers, DCF had previously placed them in a safe house for protective custody because of issues in a foster home.  The foster father was arrested for alleged sexual molestation of foster daughters in that home.

    The unspeakable things that happened in that foster home were only a shadow of what had happened in their birth home.  The young children had witnessed a beating of their mother by their father and a beating of one or more of the boys, and been traumatized to witness their mother with a gun shoved into her mouth as police arrived.

When the boys were removed from that violence, there were repeated placements in foster care. Eventually, they were placed in a safe house. DCF regulations did not allow placement of children in a safe home for more than 45 days. Time was running out.  DCF workers were thrilled to have a place for the children to comply with their own regulation.   

    When the couple met Roberto, they thought he was as cute as a button, adorable, with brown curly hair, a charming child.  At the second meeting, Roberto went running down the sidewalk towards Doug and jumped into his arms. That, of course, was love at second sight.

    When they met Hugo, he was doing a ‘time out’ on the stairs.  Getting to know Hugo was easy. George remembers, Hugo was a really nice kid, different than the other two.  He was a polished diplomat at age seven with a silly little disposition that was cute. He looked like a little boy who just got off a plane from Spain.

    Carlos, the eight-year-old brother, was an engaging kid, showing off on a bike.  On a visit in front of their eyes, he fell off the bike and landed with handlebars in his chin.  Doug and George rushed a bleeding and terrified Carlos to the emergency room.  The couple was hooked.  The boys needed them.  It would all fall into place.  In the hospital, they looked knowingly at each other as parents often do and the decision was unspoken.  It was right.

    The couple learned of DCF’s provision of financial support for special needs sibling groups up until each one reached age 18.  They were most likely going to need a bigger home, so a subsidy was helpful. A few days after Paul’s eighth birthday, the couple brought three new brothers into their home.

    Driving up to the house, the boys were shocked at the abundant thirteen rooms and affluent appearance of the Gothic Victorian Rocky Hill home. They were street kids from the poorest neighborhood of Hartford.  They thought it was a rooming house and asked how many families lived there.  Their dark, darting eyes registered unbelief upon learning it was their new home as they pulled into the driveway.

Walking in the imposing front door, Rob clung to George, looking around with saucer eyes.  Carlos was wary, stepping in with catlike caution and asked immediately, What are the rules here? George replied that they would learn together over time.

George opened the door to the playroom where Paul was anxiously waiting to greet them when Hugo suddenly ran down the long corridor and collided with a six-foot suit of armor.  Crying, he ran back into the playroom, his face registering shock. Paul stood in his own frozen state of shock in the playroom that was a child’s paradise.  It was as fastidious and orderly as one belonging to any proper little prince.  The playroom was stocked with everything a child could ever want: a large TV, Nintendo and games, a massive magnetic board on one wall with letters and numbers neatly positioned.  There were so many letters on that board, the kids could have written a novel.  There were many bookcases with educational toys and a virtual library of children’s books neatly displayed.

    Carlos and Hugo ran past Paul like marauders, little wild men, and began to pillage and obliterate the room. Rob stood behind George, withdrawn, and did not attempt to touch the toys.  Not one of the brothers spoke to Paul who stood by, stunned, watching in disbelief as his kingdom was invaded and blown apart, a hostile takeover. After fifteen minutes passed and the playroom was in shambles, George, at a complete loss, suggested going out to eat at the Buckland Mall. 

    Driving to the mall, George said, Let’s go to the mall and whoop it up.  Roberto folded his little arms in defiance and sullenly replied, "Yeah, I’ll whoop your ass."  They were to find that their adorable, curly headed five-year old had the off-color language capacity of a crusty old, cussing sailor.   

Later, a neighbor, tinkering with his lawn sprinkler, looked up and spotted Roberto watching from his second floor bedroom window.  This kind neighbor had given toys and games to Roberto and let him ride on his riding lawn mower.  When the neighbor waved and called up to say hello, Roberto replied, Lick my balls, and slammed the window shut.

Roberto exhibited frightening behavior.  He pounded his head on the floor repeatedly.  George was the stay at home parent while Doug worked during the day. Nothing could have been adequate preparation for behaviors that became the challenge of each new day. George, afraid Roberto would injure himself, put him on a chair, instructing he could sit there and scream all he wanted but could not hurt the floor with his head. The chair was moved to a position that could be watched as George went outside to mow the lawn, tears of frustration clouding vision as he mowed the same patch of grass over and over, back and forth. George was overwhelmed, overcome with realization there was no way in the world he knew how to cope.

    He noticed the back of Roberto’s head was flat and called Carolyn, the social worker at Downey Side Adoption Center who called DCF, finding DCF was well aware of the issue. Roberto languished in a crib for extended periods as an infant. Roberto’s attempts at self-abuse lasted most of the summer. He displayed other challenging behavior: urinating on floors and rugs at will, defecating in his pants, wetting the bed and hiding soiled underwear and pajamas in bureau drawers, causing George to launder Roberto’s clothes and sheets daily.  Unfortunately, Hugo had the same habit but to a lesser degree.

This is minor social adjustment?

    George was convinced school was not a viable option for Roberto.  The boy needed time to bond.  He called DCF and begged for permission to delay kindergarten entry but DCF denied the request.  As time went on, he reported months of distressing behavior to DCF and asked for help many times. Carolyn at the adoption agency was the only one attempting to give suggestions. DCF’s consistent reply was to suggest respite care.  But George wanted help correcting behaviors.  It was not time to leave the boys.  It would only reinforce their belief system that they were not in a safe, forever home and were about to be abandoned again.

    On one of the first visits to the mall, Roberto bounded out of a chair in the food court as the family sat down to enjoy Burger King.  He threw flailing hands in the air, screamed loudly and ran as fast as he could to the other end of the food court.  Running at high speed, he smacked into a brick wall, fell back and hit his head on the marble tile.  George, running after him, arrived after the wall had stopped the run.  They left the mall and decided road trips to public places had to be postponed until Roberto settled down. The day before, Doug took the children to a grocery store, appalled by their behavior.  The kids had run to jump on a ledge inside the store and were bumping the glass with their rear ends, causing the glass to move.  They agreed the family had better stay close to home for a while.  They marveled, recalling the only advice DCF had given was to expect a honeymoon period of great behavior.  This is a honeymoon?

    The summer passed quickly.  Carlos and Paul were in soccer camp. George enrolled Roberto and Hugo in summer programs.  George permitted Paul to bring the boys to the library that was just across the street as Paul had always walked there alone since first grade.  It was a short- lived freedom.  The librarian looked shaken and disheveled walking the boys back to the house, stating as kindly but firmly as possible, the children were not welcome in the library without a parent under any circumstances.  Something had gone radically wrong in that library.

  During the summer, a rare tornado tore a swath through Wethersfield with effects felt near the house.  A bus stop station blew over.  When the boys saw it, George heard Hugo whisper, I hope my mother is all right.  The last time they saw her was immediately before the placement with George and Doug.  They would not be seeing her again because parental rights were terminated.  Even with all that had happened, surely they still loved and missed their mother, grieving that monumental loss.

Doug and George had many urgent conversations.  Failure was not an option.  They were committed now.  Besides, what kind of message would that send Paul? No, they had to make it work. They were going to make it work. There had been a promise made, they were going to care for the kids all their lives, even after they had grown up.  George also made the same promise to his mother.  She would never know a day in a nursing home. Doug and George had agreed on something at the start.  Their shared goal was to help the kids grow into the best adults they could be.  They would send them to college.  The children would be successful and happy in life.  They had all the love in the world to give and love was always enough.

    Wasn’t it?

    The new family drove to the shoreline one day during the summer.  It was the first time the three brothers had seen an ocean.  That was a good day.  They played and ran wild.  Paul seemed to be taking the change to his life very well. He displayed an equanimity and maturity far beyond his years. Paul was excluded from the three brothers’ inner circle, but at least he now had built in playmates.

    George recruited Paul to teach Roberto how to play.  Roberto had no interest in toys at all and it was not an easy assignment.  Paul persevered and showed great patience with Roberto to no avail.  George took over the assignment. A great boon during that summer was the park directly across the street.  The playground and sand boxes afforded the children the opportunity to enjoy the innocent freedom of the outdoors.  There was a swing set and monkey bars.  The boys were adept at digging in the sand and they employed water guns for the mayhem of cooling water wars.  Roberto continued to be reticent and slow to warm to the idea of play.

    George, always the prankster, devised a second floor water bucket that showered the children at the first floor front steps.  They seemed to enjoy it at the time but fun proved an enigmatic proposition. When fun was introduced, the children seemed to misbehave to a greater degree. They theorized the kids were always expecting the worst to happen.  Having fun was a frightening prospect.  Something bad was sure to happen next.   The children were indoctrinated to expect calamity. The more fun they tried to have as a family, the more challenging behaviors escalated.   

George marveled at the difference between his biological son and the three boys.  Paul had to be almost bribed to eat.  They ate all meals together, breakfast, lunch and dinner.  George served most meals on the welcoming back patio.  He introduced the brothers to vegetables and became very creative in enticing healthy eating.  He made vegetable lasagna, spaghetti sauce with vegetables and disguised vegetables in egg omelets. Roberto had arrived as a very skinny boy.  Before long, a potbelly was burgeoning and the other two boys were gaining weight.  They devoured everything like three starving puppies supping at one bowl.

    George had to explain everything including a simple question of Why do we have to sit down and eat together?  The boys never had consistent parenting and the structure of ordinary family events made them uncomfortable. The anger issues of Carlos were a source of worry.  He became enraged at times and once tried to choke Roberto.

After choking and punching Roberto in the belly, Carlos said he meant to knock the wind out of him and seemed to know just how to do it.  He menacingly shook his fist at others on a regular basis.  George knew he was only a frightened child, strutting pseudo meanness in order to keep people at bay, people who might be out to hurt him again.

    Carlos threatened Paul but knew not to cross that line. That would not be tolerated.  The brothers seemed to realize there was a natural boundary with the ‘real’ child, having learned that foster care lesson well.  And the brothers were resentful of it from day one.

    The couple had brought the poorest of the poor, Hartford inner city kids with a ‘harm before you are harmed’ mentality into a happy home that had been rather a blissful, peaceful place. Friends of the family, Linda and Helena, were asked to be godmothers that summer.  Doug and George realized the boys needed a woman’s influence beside Anna who had reneged on her threat to remain in her apartment forever.  Anna attempted to engage the boys like a tried and true grandmother.  But relationships take time to build and Anna was disheartened and confused at the boys’ level of dysfunction.

    The couple talked often about the huge surprise of the kids’ behavior.  They had not been prepared.  DCF gave no warnings or education, no tips or training.  They were on their own.  Carolyn at the adoption agency was a better contact and offered suggestions at least, but she was also in the dark about the boys’ histories.  DCF had kept the guardian ad litem, the adoption agency and the prospective adoptive parents in total darkness. No one really had a clue about what they were dealing with or had knowledge of the abysmal, horrific history the boys had endured.  If they had known the gory details of sexual abuse that came to light ten years later, they would have declined the placement, fearing for Paul’s well-being and perhaps, even their own.

    They came up with a plan to take one of the kids out on an individual, rotating basis.  As much as they knew Paul was in shock at his ‘home invasion’, George insisted that Paul learn it was not right to give up. The couple tried to relax; they had a whole trial year before the adoption became legal and finalized.  There was ample time to fix everything.

    Months went by before George and Doug found out a crucial piece of information denied them by DCF.  Carolyn, from the adoption agency, in near daily phone contact with George, called and said the DCF case worker who placed the boys had said (in a casual follow up conversation) Roberto had previously reported a false accusation against her and a juvenile court judge, accusing them of sexual molestation. Carolyn insured a shocked George that a letter would go into DCF’s file to protect the couple against any possible false allegations in the future.

They still believed the issues the boys faced were behavioral in nature and did not take the information about the false sexual allegation by Roberto too seriously.  He was already in their home, after all. Roberto did not like to be touched and the caseworker had probably just hugged him. He was such a cute little guy, wasn’t he?

    The first months together were as sobering and dismaying as waking up from a long dream and finding residence in Battlestar Galactica on the way to an alien planet and no means of escape.  Doug remarked that the boys had sucked the joy out of their lives.  Anna agreed.  But not George. Doug hated to come home from work and find George frazzled. The children acted much better when Doug returned home every day.  Their behavior was even better in front of company.  When Carolyn from Downey Side visited, they charmed her with talk about how happy they were.

You see, George thought.  They will come around.  They really are happy to be a family with us.  They just don’t know how to show emotion, poor damaged kids.  We are going to help them.  God help us, he prayed each and every day.

    A happy memory was of celebrating birthdays.  Each child invited their entire class at year’s end, a total over 100 students.  Play stations were arranged where each class rotated stations in 25 minute staggered shifts.  The kids loved the jumping castle, the food station and the dunk tank.  There was a check in table at the end of the driveway.  Each kid received a nametag with their name on it, their parents’ name and phone number.  Guests brought presents for the kids because this one gala was in lieu of individual birthday parties for each child. However, the couple soon discovered the new sibling group was not adept at celebrating birthdays.  Any holiday promised a major acting out session.  Actual birthdays were celebrated quietly with a subdued meal at a local restaurant.

DONZEL

On the second day of the brothers’ arrival in the house, George and Doug learned about Donzel, the oldest of the brothers.  Carlos mentioned to Doug and George that he had an older brother. 

George was shocked to hear that another sibling existed.  He inquired about Donzel to DCF who hesitatingly disclosed that another brother existed.  He eventually learned that Donzel was about to be placed in a residential facility, Brightside in Massachusetts, but DCF did not state the reason for commitment.

    George learned later from Brightside staff that Donzel was nine years old when he allegedly sexually assaulted the granddaughter of a foster mother.  How bad could this have been if he was only nine?

The couple decided to try to get Donzel out of the residential facility and unite the brothers.  It was a heart decision, not one borne of wisdom in any shape or form. Carlos was the sibling most troubled by knowing his brother was in a desperate situation compared to the three that were just rescued.  Roberto did not seem to remember Donzel and Hugo barely acknowledged him.  It was obvious that Carlos had a strong connection to his older brother and was deeply troubled by his placement in Brightside.

    They had been warned by other adoption agencies in various other states disclosing sexual issues with sibling groups and declined those placements.  They eventually knew Donzel was put into a facility for children perpetrating sexual acts on other children.  Something clouded their vision.  When had they put on rose-colored glasses?

It had been the sight of Donzel’s face, that beautiful, round face of a lost little boy.  It had been right to want to reunite the brothers.  Donzel would have been institutionalized until adulthood, missing out on the newly formed family, cut off from his brothers.  This decision was made because they were unaware of reports that came to light years later that would have disqualified Donzel from taking his place in the family.

    The only motivation all along was love.  Is there such a thing as blind love?  A curious thing happens when we love.  We cannot always see straight. 

    DCF workers were loathe to allow visits to Donzel, initially forbade it and refused to discuss Donzel’s placement even going so far as to threaten the couple with taking away the other brothers if they insisted on visiting Donzel.  Perhaps DCF really was trying to protect the fledgling family at that point.  Or, perhaps they were trying to protect the federal dollars they were receiving for the management of the child’s care.

  George, would not take no for an answer and took the children to Massachusetts to visit Donzel. After all, one of DCF’s rules was that siblings stay in touch with each other.  George could be obtuse as well as exuberant. It became the only long trip the family could reasonably make that summer besides the beach.  The boys seemed to enjoy the visits and were able to play outdoors on the protected grounds of the facility. The troubling fact was that Donzel lived in a locked facility and his brothers were very upset that he was not able to come home.

    Although DCF was not forthcoming with George about details of Donzel’s plight, he was later told by DCF that the previous foster mother’s license was expiring and this woman was not interested in renewing and may have fabricated the entire incident that had landed Donzel in Brightside.  After meeting Donzel and being charmed, that explanation made more sense.  They could not believe that the child was guilty.

    State of Connecticut DCF workers had advised Donzel he would live in that locked facility until age 18 and advised George against getting involved as the child had already accepted his fate. George was chagrined to learn Donzel was only receiving a pittance of one hour of individual therapy per week when they received $105,000 federal payment each year for each child.  No one seemed to be in any hurry to get Donzel out of this facility.  He was only a young child and now he was part of a new family, or at least, should have been. George and Doug regarded it as only rudimentary justice the brothers be reunited.

    George made an eight-month commitment to attend weekly family therapy sessions in Holyoke. Donzel needed to complete a workbook, Roadmap to Recovery about sexual molestation before he could be released, but progress was painfully slow until George took over. George obtained the workbook and visited Donzel to work on it in an accelerated manner.  Since Donzel had been accused of sexual molestation, it would be a protective teaching tool, so he insisted the other children get involved in studying the workbook.  They all accomplished a chapter a week, unheard of by Brightside standards.

    George also attended once weekly family therapy sessions that Donzel had been denied until George insisted they would attend.   He learned that Donzel had to complete therapy goals of working through the troublesome trauma he had endured in his birth family, specifically; witnessing his father put a gun in his mother’s mouth.  Therapy goals had to be accomplished before he could be released to a new family.

    Soon, Donzel had made so much progress that he was allowed to visit the family home on weekends. Donzel was finally released and reunited with his brothers.  Without George’s advocacy, Donzel would have lived institutionally until he became an adult. George and Doug were men on a mission, to create a wonderful family, and of course, all missions are mandated for success.  At least, until success dissolves in failure.

    The family welcomed the fourth brother in February of 2001, ten months after Carlos, Hugo and Roberto. Once Donzel was a presence in their home, George installed cameras in order to be pro-active for the safety of the children.  Although believing Donzel was not a sexual predator, it was good sense to have cameras in place because of the accusation, however questionable, put forward by the previous foster mother.

    Even with the camera installation, it did not occur at that point that there was something radically wrong with the picture they were painting of their new family.  It was the new reality, their calling, and they were going to triumph over any hurdles.  Hurdles were there to be jumped over.

    DCF, still declining to disclose Donzel’s history, ultimately approved the placement of Donzel with Doug and George. Donzel’s arrival meant that Paul was outnumbered even more.  Now there were four blood brothers. Paul was not one of them and they made sure he never forgot. Try as he might over the hopeful days of a decade, he never became one.  Hugo had made sure that Paul knew there were secrets, secrets that Paul would never know.

George was confounded by Donzel’s crying which took place at the drop of a hat:  at dinner, watching TV, outside playing.  There never seemed to be an identifiable trigger.  For the first two years, every time Donzel cried, George asked him to share the problem.  Donzel responded he did not know why.  He would not let George in. The third year into being a part of the family, he did start to open up to George about memories of his mother.  George was thrilled.  He was finally getting somewhere.

    Although Donzel was challenged academically in school, that was to be expected given his fractured history of learning and borderline low IQ.  He was able to charm teachers.  He was a nice, polite kid.  But behind the backs of teachers, he talked street: nigga this and nigga that.  He was proficient at constructing whole sentences out of swear words.  He often said, Shit, you f**ker, that ain’t the way it is.

Donzel enjoyed being the oldest but was not able to break free of the blood brother gang mentality.  He displayed an insatiable thirst for drama.  In sports, in school, with friendships, there was always some kind of drama.  He looked for ways to get out of things, switch schools, switch friends, trying to find something better. Donzel never resorted to behavior natural to Hugo and Rob: stealing.  But the lying was there.  It was not his biggest issue but it was there.  Donzel’s biggest issue was that he seemed to have no backbone. He bent like a fresh reed at the slightest breeze.  The other kids called him Woos.

    He was close to Carlos and Hugo.  Hugo routinely managed to get Donzel riled up and emotional. Donzel treated Roberto like a little kid.  But the real definition of closeness eluded Donzel.  It was more like a pack mentality of sticking together. Donzel showed a soft side and was the brother who was nicest to Nicole for a time. He eventually became more involved with friends, girls, got involved in school activities and enjoyed playing basketball in the town recreation league.

    Carlos once remarked to George, that Donzel, out of all the children, was the one with whom George had the best relationship.

GREGORY HILL: PARADISE LOST

With Donzel’s arrival on the horizon, the Rocky Hill home had become too small. Because of Donzel’s improbable history, a bedroom of his own was vitally necessary. How could George tell his mother they would have to move?  He hid it for as long as possible.  They brought the boys on weekend trips to look for a larger house without inviting his mother on the missions.  A new home would be a psychological advantage to all the children, providing a new start, a place that was not Paul’s lair. Even Doug would benefit, feeling like the home was also his, a feeling with which he struggled.

    Glastonbury was the ideal community with a reputation for the finest schools in the area.  The Rocky Hill Victorian sat on the market and had to be rented. George gave his mother a rebate for the amount she had given towards the Rocky Hill renovations.  She reluctantly accepted. After searching for much of the summer, they found a beautiful home in Glastonbury on Gregory Hill Drive. But the promise of paradise is always just a promise.

The other children began to disclose that Hugo was skillfully working behind the scenes to divide and conquer.  He surreptitiously spread lies to the other kids, Daddy said this or Dad said that.  The stories were untrue but designed to cast a wide net of doubt and confusion about each of the parents and sow toxic seeds of mistrust in the budding family, as vulnerable and tender as seeds about to germinate and break through ground almost as hard as a paved road.

    It was becoming impossible for Paul and Carlos to have friends over.  Hugo invariably stirred up trouble, whispering lies to their friends that George had complained about them. Paul started going to friends’ houses to play. George had a heart to heart with Paul, advising him to focus on himself and let the Dads take care of any problems.

    One day, George had a talk with Hugo.  Someone needed to be identified as the primary parent.  Since Doug was working during the day, George would be the decision maker. George said, Hugo, when you have a question, please ask me.  I’m the one in charge.  Let me talk it over with Dad and I’ll let you know our decision.  We are your forever family and you don’t need to worry about things.  Let me worry.  It’s time for you just to have fun and do well in school. George was trying to release the boy from the burden of thinking he was the parent.

They believed children needed the security of having a parent in charge, someone they could count on.  This was not the case with Hugo. George recalls after that conversation, Hugo looked at him in surprise as his eyes narrowed when he sarcastically replied, Yeah, right, turned his back, storming off. George and Hugo, even at the tender age of seven, were launched into a battle of power when Hugo, in cold steely defiance, seemed to tuck seeds of bitterness into his heart destined to grow with each effort George made to be his father.

Hugo was unable to adjust to rules or expectations.  Although it was inferior in every way imaginable to his previous life, he was trying desperately to hold on to his roots. Hugo seemed to despise George for stepping into a parental role.  He mounted a fierce battle at that point.  He was going to try to turn his brothers against George. Daddy was the bad guy.  Dad was the good guy who worked during the day and had less to do with hands on parenting.

    It was suspected that Hugo smashed one of Paul’s framed paintings.  Paul was seen as ‘the special child’, the ‘real’ son, the one who was in the way.