Today, Tonight, Tomorrow: Adoption, Addiction, Redemption A story of a Beautiful Life and Tragic Death, and My Recovery

By Jan Scruggs

I have experienced two of the most profound experiences God offers us on this earth: the overwhelming joy of adopting children, and the overpowering grief of losing a child from the tragedy of heroin addiction. In this book, I have placed everything my heart holds. It is a blend of happy experiences with my children as my husband and I raised them, horrific experiences as we helplessly watched one child's life painfully ripped apart in a storm of evil, and the unimaginable aftermath of losing a child. Tears from all these are spread throughout these pages. In his death, my child was redeemed and set free. I was left picking up the pieces of my broken heart, shaking my head, and trying to understand why. God's overpowering love and sovereignty had raised a sword against one of Satan's greatest tools, the power of addiction. Was my child nothing more than a casualty of spiritual warfare? God is good. Did I still believe that? This book chronicles my journey through His Word, listening for whispers from heaven, until finally, I too am set free. Today,Tonight,Tomorrow was written by Him,for Him,and belongs to Him. I pray that this book will help fight the spread of the addiction plague that has been so carefully orchestrated by the enemy and will help provide comfort to those already caught in the battle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644717721

Book preview

9781644717721_cover.jpg

Today, Tonight, Tomorrow

Adoption, Addiction, Redemption

A Story of a Beautiful Life, a Tragic Death, and My Recovery

Jan C. Scruggs

ISBN 978-1-64471-771-4 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64471-772-1 (Digital)

Copyright © 2019 Jan C. Scruggs

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Table of Contents

Foreword

Author’s Notes

Rescued Today

I Am Riley’s Mom

Rescued Today

Born Addicted

Redeemed Tonight

But Then the Beginning of the End

Restored Tomorrow

February 10, 2016 The Worse Day of My Life

Riley’s Words From Beyond the Grave

Onward Christian Soldiers

About the Author

To Dale, my loving, loyal, logical, levelheaded, lighthearted husband of 40 years.

You are my rock.

And God is yours.

When we met at 15 and 17, neither of us dreamed that life would be anything but rainbows and lollipops.

Or at least, I didn’t.

But there has been pain and there has been joy,

And along every step of the journey, you have led the way.

You have held my hand and never let go.

Foreword

Dr. Harry L. Reeder, III

Sr. Pastor, Briarwood Presbyterian Church

You are about to read a Mom’s story. This is a true story, well written by a mom who confesses it’s a story she has been called to write but never wanted to write. I know the mom, and I know much of the story. I am blessed to know the whole family, both personally and pastorally. I have already been blessed in numerous ways through this Mom’s story so much so that I can safely tell you that this is more than a Mom’s story—it’s actually three stories!

First of all, it is the story of a mom who bravely, openly, and transparently tells her story of loving three adopted children, with all the trials and joys that adoption brings. Her story brings focus to the extraordinary challenges and blessings of loving this one we know and the one that you, the reader, are about to know to some measure—Riley. This Mom’s story, with focus upon Riley, is told honestly and intentionally from a perspective that truly only a mom can see. Her story opens the door for us to see from a parent’s perspective, in general, and a mom’s, in particular, what it was like to parent Riley, a son who possessed extraordinary gifts and insights along with addictions that, to some degree, originated from his near miraculous birth. They were insidious addictions. They were fought with seasons of victory and yet, with seasons of defeat, always lurking in the shadow. But Riley stayed in the fight and kept up the fight for the Savior he loved throughout life.

As you read this Mom’s story of necessity, you will be reading a second story—Riley’s. Riley grew to be a big man yet a tender man, a football player and a poet, an athlete and an artist, a people magnet and a contemplative, fun loving, and sober-minded. In observing Riley throughout his life, it occurred to me that his story was much like King David’s. He was resolute yet distracted, strong but weak; a great warrior, and a great poet; a soldier of valor, and a singer of the psalms; a man with enormous abilities and significant achievements for God, and yet great sins and transgressions against God. But praise God, by the grace of God, King David was blessed with the gift of great repentance from God to return to God, by the grace of God, and so did Riley, a child of one greater than David—Jesus Christ, the King of Kings.

Riley’s story told through his mom’s story will capture your heart as she opens the door to the peaks and valleys of his life to his death—a death that was tragic, yet thankfully not a tragedy, a death that became an opportunity to examine a third story—a story that frames the mom’s story and allows us to understand and benefit from Riley’s story. It is the story of triumph over tragedy—the story of Christ.

The story of Jesus Christ is the story of the Son of God, who came to save His people from their sins. This is the story of the One, and only One, who is the redeemer and sustainer of any and all who confess that they are helpless and hopeless sinners without Him, but in Him and through Him, are more than conquerors on our uneven and imperfect but persistent journey of grace—a journey of sinners who are more than conquerors through Christ.

So read on…it is painfully well written. Read on…weep yet enjoy. Read on…and know the joy, know the tears in the valleys of despair, and the laughter upon the mountain’s peaks of gladness, which you are about to encounter in all three stories. You will learn much from two of the stories—Mom’s story and Riley’s story. But the third story is the story of stories. It is called The Good News—the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This story can become your story. The redeemer’s story is the good news that Christ redeems sinners so the tragic cannot bring tragedy when, by faith and repentance, you receive Christ as Lord and Savior. Then, even in a broken world with broken bodies, we will walk in the triumph of Christ—with measured victories in this day, bringing us to the unmeasurable victory on that day when He comes again, or when we go to meet Him.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels or rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depths, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. (Romans 8:37–39)

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:2)

Author’s Notes

I have spent more than a year writing and rewriting Riley’s Biography. I have been frustrated more often than productive, visiting and revisiting time periods and events over and over again. When writing the story, His story, I started with Riley’s own poem that his close friend Michelle gave me immediately after he passed away—Today, Tonight, Tomorrow. She had printed it on the back of a self-portrait in which Riley was neither smiling nor frowning, just accepting. His eyes appeared to see beyond the viewer, gazing somewhere we couldn’t. His Scruggs family crest tattoo was drawn in detail on his upper arm, a clear sign that no matter how lost he felt, he knew where he belonged.

Somehow, I knew that the poem would become the backbone of the book even though I didn’t understand many of the deeply hidden mysteries of Riley’s soul expressed in his carefully chosen words. I knew that Riley had left it with someone he loved very much for a reason. Inevitably, Riley chose the title of his life’s story.

I finally stopped fighting and realized that I was writing the story of a unique individual, who did not live his life along a conventional timeline or according to conventional rules; therefore, I could not write in a chronological, orderly format. This book began with no outline. It will end the same way. There are time leaps backward and forward because I think Riley’s brain thought that way. His brain was scrambled before birth, and his nature, early nurture, and life experiences just exacerbated the path that was inevitable. God designed him fearfully and wonderfully made and planned his life long before the foundations of the earth.

I stopped trying to add order where order never existed. Please take the journey, Riley’s journey, with me, but hold on to your hats—we will make many trips forward and backward in time because Today, Tonight, and Tomorrow tells the story of one life, the life of Riley.

Rescued Today

Volume 1

Redeemed Tonight

Volume 2

Restored Tomorrow

Volume 3

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty. (Revelation 1:8)

TODAY, TONIGHT, TOMORROW

By Riley Scruggs

THEY SHOULDER PAST EACH OTHER, THEIR FACES TO THE FLOOR

PASSING THROUGH FAKE ENTRY WAYS THAT LEAD INTO CLOSED DOORS

EYES DIVERTED ELSEWHERE FROM THE HIGH HANGING DÉCOR

HERDED TOWARDS PLUSH SPINNING WHEELS BY FLASHY MEGAPHONES

AIMLESS RANGING REFUGEES REMOVED FROM NATURE’S HOME

LURED BY GREEN SCREEN GRAZING LANES, VIRTUAL LAWNS TO ROAM

CHOOSING NOT TO STRAY FROM SIGHT AND REACH OF BROTHERS THRONE

THE SAVIORS SELECTED LOVE IS PROTECTION, SHIELDS HER SONS FROM HORROR

HER LIGHT OF UNDERSTANDING DESTROYS THE SHADES OF SORROW

FOUND IN HER QUIET HEART, A PEACE NO LONGER BORROWED

IN HER HANDS SHE HOLDS THE BULB,

TODAY, TONIGHT, TOMORROW

Rescued Today

Volume 1

Who Am I?

I am a Christian

A missionary

An athlete

An artist

A writer

A screen printer

A drummer

A singer in a band

A scholar

A son

A brother

A friend.

I am loved.

I was rejected.

I was adopted.

I love to smile.

I am tenderhearted.

I love to make people laugh.

I once always saw light in the darkness.

I now struggle to find any light at all.

I am Riley and,

I am a victim of the disease of addiction.

I Am Riley’s Mom

Sadly, I am telling you Riley’s story because he can’t. I think he would want me to tell you his story because it could be yours. So this is the life of Riley––and those that he left behind.

People tell me they are amazed as they watch God’s strength in me and how His presence glows through me. Really? Maybe that’s what suffering does to us and for God’s glory. God’s strength holds me up because I have no strength to get in His way. God’s light shines in the darkness because my light does not shine at all. I am broken. But maybe it will be beautiful brokenness if others are able to see more of God and less of me. For God is everything.

So many days, I look around the house, and Riley is just everywhere! Do I try to see the reminders staring back at me and let my heart ache unbearably, or do I try not to see them and pretend he’s just away for a little while? Will I ever stop crying?

I never wanted to write this book!

Rescued Today

The Road to Adoption

After Dale and I had been married for six years, wanting a child became an all-consuming thought for me. I had spent so many years playing mommy, and I had always assumed that I would be a mommy. I never really pictured a mini-me or even a pregnant-me. I just wanted a baby. If Dial-a-Stork had been listed in the phone directory, I would have chosen that route.

Interestingly, Dale had been thinking about adoption from the time we first started talking about getting married. When he found out he was diabetic at age nine, he read a book that said his life expectancy was about thirty years. When we were trying to have children, he was thirty years old. Fortunately, Dale’s fastidious efforts at keeping his diabetes in good control, plus improvements in treatment of the disease over the years, had left him in better shape than he had expected to be. However, Dale still wasn’t keen on the idea of passing this disease on to his own children.

We saw infertility specialists and got a bleak prognosis. I needed to know if God was closing the door because He didn’t want us to have children, so I prayed for him to remove the desire. When He didn’t, Dale and I were lead to adoption: three times, three ways. Our greatest joy together has been parenting the three children that God gave us: John, Riley, and Julieta. God chose us to be their parents, not them to be our children. I always felt more like we were their adopted parents because we were the ones being blessed.

We have loved those three with a fierce unconditional love that I never knew existed before becoming a mom. I would love to tell you that I can still hug all three, but I can’t. Riley is safely at home with his heavenly Father, but my heart aches for him every minute of every day. God is Sovereign, and He knew exactly when he would have to take him home. But it was a rescue mission of a talented, loving young man who was being destroyed from the inside by Satan’s great tool: liquid darkness; heroin. Riley had to be rescued from himself.

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit-fruit that will last-and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. (John 15:16)

The Three Gifts

The first time we saw John, he was dressed in a Santa suit, complete with hat, lying in a white bassinet. It was so miraculous that a friend passed me the bulletin in church which had printed on the front, For Unto Us a Son Is Born. John’s adjustment was easy. From the hospital, he went to a loving foster family and then to us. His foster mom came to see him regularly to ease the transition. John came from a world similar to ours. His biological mom was raised in a Christian home. Her dad worked on an Air Force base, just like Dale’s dad. Our other two children, Riley and Julieta, called him the perfect child, but no one is perfect in this fallen world. It was just, compared to the issues that were attached to the other two, John looked pretty good.

Looking back, I really wish, for John’s sake, he hadn’t been so good. I feel that he always drew the short stick in both the amount of money spent and time required to meet his needs growing up. I will always feel he was shortchanged and would have gotten more attention were it not for the squeaky wheels that came after him, but I can only pray that there were more good times than bad and the trials he went through growing up helped to make him into the phenomenal man of God that he is today—fully devoted to his God, his wife, his children, his extended family, his home, and his job—in that order.

I had been lonely growing up as an only child, only grandchild, and only niece. I wanted John to have the experience of having a sibling close in age so they could grow up together. We prayed. God gave us Riley.

Riley was chosen by God before birth. His birth mother told us, without any visible regret, that she had been pregnant twice before and she had aborted the children. Her friends advised her to get an abortion this time as well. She had broken up with her boyfriend, and he didn’t even know she was expecting their baby. She was a heroin addict and a starving artist—definitely, not a stable environment for raising a child. However, this non-Christian (at the time) birth mother told us that she didn’t have an abortion because God told her to have this baby. Yes, Riley was chosen by God, and God chose to have Riley live twenty-seven years on this earth.

John was only nineteen months old when he lost his position as only child. I remember walking on the beach with him, telling him that he would have a little brother. He was excited about his Baby Bwudder Widdy, and though they fought growing up like you would expect two boys close in age to do, they had a lot of fun together too. If you hang with me, I will tell you much more about Riley’s life.

When Riley and John were eight and nine years old, we saw a special on TV about the horrible conditions in Romanian orphanages. That is when we decided to help one of these abandoned children.

Julieta was twenty-three months old and living in an orphanage in the western part of Romania. Dale and I visited Dracula’s Castle in Transylvania and heard stories of Vlad the Impaler the day before we traveled eight hours by train to adopt her. Spiritually, Romania was a very dark part of the world.

Julieta came from a world vastly different from ours genetically and environmentally. Both nature and nurture had already established walls between us. Her favorite T-shirt, with a picture of the Tasmanian devil and the words, I don’t think so! were an indication that we would travel a rocky road with her. That proved to be a gross understatement, but the Julieta saga could be a book all on its own.

With all Julieta’s struggles accepting us as her family, she still saw adoption as a positive thing.

So this month is adoption month, as well as thanksgiving, and I’m thankful for my adoptive family and the memories we’ve collected over the years. From our first family picture to the last, God’s never let us fall from His hands. God is so good. Julieta’s Facebook post

John, Riley, and Julieta all accepted Christ as their personal Savior at a young age, so they were adopted twice: once by God and once by us! Adopted children are indeed special gifts!

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. (Jeremiah 1:5)

Of course, this book is about our middle child, Riley, and you will see the generational sin that burdened him from birth to death.

How We Became Riley’s Parents

We were visiting some close friends in Atlanta, and knowing our desire for a second adoption, they urged us to contact a lawyer who was listed in the yellow pages. We called but the lawyer was in court. Her secretary made a note of our names and our friends’ home number. There were no cell phones in those days. When the lawyer returned our call, she was quite discouraging, stating that she handled adoptions relating to custody lawsuits and had not placed an infant in many years. She told us to send her a resume describing our situation, and she would file it just in case, but certainly, we should not get our hopes up.

The lawyer was so discouraging that we forgot all about it. Two weeks later, we were driving to the beach for a reunion with old friends, and I impulsively asked Dale, What would you think about adopting a biracial child? I just said it spontaneously, without really thinking it through. I looked around wondering who had said it because it was not an option that I had ever considered.

Dale was as stunned as I was and replied, I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but I grew up living in military base housing all over the world. You lived in Selma and Montgomery during the civil rights movement! Dale assumed racial prejudice ran too deeply in my roots for either me, or my family, to be able to accept a biracial child, especially one of the common southern mix, Caucasian and African American.

We didn’t discuss the issue again until we were in the condo with our friends. I decided to throw the idea out there to test the waters, but our friends were quite discouraging. I know their intentions were only to protect us, but I assumed their reaction was an indication of what I should expect everywhere. I also knew that whatever emotional pain that I would endure, the heart of the innocent child would feel the rejection magnified. There would be no escaping the prejudice generated toward him because of his genetic racial makeup.

Later that evening, we received a phone call from our Atlanta friends! They had gotten a call from the lawyer that didn’t handle infant adoptions that day, and they had been trying to track us down, eventually resorting to calling my mother in Montgomery to find out how to get in touch with us. The lawyer told them excitedly that her secretary only allowed two weeks’ worth of sticky notes to accumulate on her memo stick, and she threw out the oldest notes at the end of each day. Today was the day for the note on which the secretary had recorded our name and friend’s phone number to be thrown away. The miracle was that on this day, a young lady, only a few weeks from delivery, walked into the lawyer’s office and asked for help in finding the right home for her child. Instead of following the standard adoption agency method of having a birth mother choose from anonymous profiles, she wanted to interview the potential parents herself. It wouldn’t exactly be an open adoption because the parents would not use their real names, give their address, or have any future contact with the birth mother.

We packed up and went straight from the beach to Montgomery, dropping John off with my parents. Then we headed on to Atlanta to be interviewed by the birth mother in the lawyer’s office.

We walked into the office and met the lawyer and the ever-so-pregnant birth mother for the first time. We weren’t sure just what we needed to do to be prepared, so we took a five-by-seven-framed photograph of our son John. I frankly can’t remember what she asked us, but I guess we answered her questions adequately. We asked a lot about the father, but she was very vague. We then started to tell her all about John: what his personality was like, the activities we spent time doing, how much we adored him, and how we wanted him to have a sibling close in age to play with. We hugged her and walked out, having no idea whether we had met or exceeded her expectations. She was going to interview other couples.

When we were back in Birmingham, the lawyer called and said that the birth mother had told her as soon as we left her office, They’re the couple. That’s who I want to have my baby. I don’t need to interview anyone else. One reason she chose us is that she had a sister who was eighteen months older and they were very close. She knew her child would enjoy having a sibling close in age. She had done a handwriting analysis using my paperwork, and the results showed that I was self-confident and creative. (Not sure that was accurate, but it worked in our favor!) Most importantly, she said that we had shown so much deep and adoring love for our first child that she knew hers would be loved like that too. I hope it was Christ’s love in us that she saw because we were being interviewed by God. Riley’s life was saved in the womb, and he belonged to Him. God blessed us with the privilege of calling Riley our son. But much sooner than we expected, we would have to give him back.

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised (Job 1:21, NIV).

Born Addicted

When we met with Riley’s birth mother for her to interview us, she said she had been on heroin for part of the pregnancy, and then when she realized she was pregnant, she had switched to methadone. It is now known that methadone results in a more painful withdrawal than heroin for the baby after birth, and nothing can help the suffering. It is the first chance for child abuse.

Because Riley was born to an addict, then he was born an addict, and he had to stay in the hospital for four weeks, being forced to detox from a drug he never chose. And during those four weeks, he was suffering alone: tremors and tightened muscles even to the point of seizures, hyperactive reflexes, sleep problems, poor feeding, inability to suck, vomiting and diarrhea, fever, sweating and dehydration, and excessive, high-pitched crying. He was miserable, and I’m sure every part of his body and mind was screaming, I want my mama! But he wasn’t hearing the voice that had been familiar and comforting to him for the nine months that he had spent inside his birth mother’s womb. He was in a bright, noisy neonatal unit of a charity hospital. These conditions are now known to greatly intensify the symptoms of withdrawal. The doctors didn’t know back then how important it was to provide an environment of soothing side-to-side rocking in a dimly lit room with soft music.

After a month in the hospital, we met Riley’s birthmother in the lawyer’s office once again. Riley was snuggled in his mother’s arms, wearing a worn, mis-sized, cowboy suit that I guess had been donated to the hospital. So sad. The birth of most babies follows an exciting preparation by parents who have spent a lot of time lovingly picking out just the right outfit. These faded clothes represented the beginning of Riley’s life. Cast-off. Not wanted. Put in the giveaway pile. Riley’s mom placed him in my arms. I could see the hurt in her eyes. I didn’t understand the intensity of that pain until the same pain was in my heart twenty-seven years later when I had to let him go.

We took Riley to our friend’s house. Due to the interstate compact in this private adoption, we couldn’t take him into Alabama for two weeks. The first thing Dale did was to strip off the worn clothes and get into the shower with him. Riley didn’t smell like a sweet little baby, and his hair was matted to his head. Dale held baby Riley tightly to his chest and let the warm water run over both of them. They showered for a long time. Riley melted into Dale as he felt the comfort of human touch, something that had been missing for the first month of his life, during the time he was experiencing the worst of the withdrawal pain. Dale and Riley bonded that day.

Riley’s misery was far from over. He spent another three months detoxing with us. I didn’t realize what we were experiencing at the time, and I wish I had understood what he needed. He had to be bound tightly so he wouldn’t claw his own little body until it bled, and he screamed day and night for eleven months. When I look back at those early pictures, Riley had a look of terror as he searched the faces of strangers who weren’t helping him at all. His feet and hands were often curled in, maybe from the heightened sensitivity to all the stimuli. His forehead was tense and wrinkled. I even said he looked like ET as I stuck him in the swing and turned it on, unsure of what else to do. He didn’t want to be touched, and yet that is what he needed. I feel horrible when I remember that I was always trying to get him to smile so I could take a picture while he was looking back at me wondering why I was not putting all my energy into stopping the hurt. At some point, I remembered the words of the state social worker doing Riley’s adoption home study. Looking at Riley’s hospital report, she said, "Are you aware that this is a fussy baby? Are you sure you can handle it?"

Dale always took the night shift and gave him three to four bottles a night to try to help with the inconsolable screaming. Dale would hold Riley swaddled in his arms until they watched the sun come up, and then he would go to work. He said I needed the energy during the day to take care of the boys. There are so many things that I did over the years that I am ashamed of. My selfishness in caring for our children is one of them. Dale was willing to be the primary caregiver, and I took advantage of the offer.

We really had no idea what to do when Riley screamed all the time. How do you provide the reassurance to an adopted baby that you will always be there for him and meet his needs when you don’t seem to be able to stop the constant pain or, worse, when you aren’t even aware of it?

We tried to transition from the bottle, but Riley wouldn’t eat. All baby food came right back, even applesauce. I gave up and fed him my mom’s favorite lunch every day, graham crackers and peanut butter, just before he was a year old. That was the first thing he liked! After that, he slowly added other foods: green bean beans, fruit cottontail, hot dogs straight out of the refrigerator and dipped in yogurt, corn dogs, and—of course—chicken fingers and fries.

Once the drugs were out of his tiny little body, Riley became a sweet, lovable child and earned the permanent nickname, Smiley Riley. He never really outgrew wanting to be rocked and cuddled! I don’t think his initial craving for comfort was ever met. Other cravings were added to compensate as he got older, and none of them were good for him. Even then, his emotional tank was never full.

I stare every day at a picture of him sitting in my lap that I have on the coffee table. His eyes are closed, and his head is pressed against my shoulder. He looks peaceful, and I look happy. I think he was about seventeen years old and two hundred pounds.

The effects of the nine months in utero addiction and four-month withdrawal never went away. Addictions always called to him: cigarettes, alcohol, anything the body could use to lead him back to where he came from—opiate addiction. His frontal lobe never developed properly, and he suffered from impulsivity and a lack of cause and effect thinking.

His Mama’s Courage

Riley’s birth mother was very evasive when I asked questions about his father during our one meeting prior to his birth. She told us that she had just broken up with her boyfriend and had a one-night stand with a guy that she met at a bar. Her description of the bar guy was, He was different. He was darker. She said she was really pretty sure the ex-boyfriend was the father but didn’t supply either name. Looking back, I am not sure the one-night stand even happened. I think she was protecting Riley to make sure that she had control over whether she aborted him, kept him, or placed him for adoption. If she had named the baby’s father, the lawyer would have been forced to contact him to obtain termination of parental rights, and a custody battle could have erupted, which might have taken the baby’s fate out of her hands. And remember, God told her to give this baby life. The decision had already been made, and it wasn’t made by his earthly father but his heavenly One. He had been claimed. He was already a child of the King.

I really admire Riley’s birth mom for her conviction to follow God’s command. She didn’t choose what was easy. She chose what was right and evidently without the support from friends, boyfriend, or family.

Riley’s mother knew that God had spoken to her and that she should listen. She had ears to hear. Who knows? Maybe Riley’s birth and God’s voice led her to salvation. When Riley contacted her years later, she told Riley that she got saved while in a Sanitarium in Mexico, where she stayed for the two years immediately following his birth.

Welcome to the Family!

Though we had talked about adopting a biracial baby on the way to the beach, only a few hours before the lawyer called, the birth mother never mentioned that the baby’s biological father was African American. Since she was a pale, redheaded Irish girl and the hospital pictures were of a rosy cheeked baby (probably rosy from the pain and fever of detoxing), it never crossed my mind that God was preparing us for this very child! I had forgotten the conversation, but God had not.

In fact, our extended family, mine all from Alabama and Dale’s all from Arkansas, had no trouble accepting, no embracing, Riley. Riley had a very close relationship with my mom (Mona). As soon as he could hold a crayon, he drew her pictures and wrote her notes. He even managed to hunt and peck a note on an old manual typewriter: You are very speitel to me. During the darkest of Riley’s days, if she found out Riley was hungry, she bought him groceries, or if he needed his power bill paid, even while we were trying tough love to get him into rehab, she often just couldn’t say no and would pay it. She couldn’t live with herself if she thought he was hungry or cold.

Riley would leave work at lunch and bring Mona a Hamburger Heaven chocolate milkshake on many days when it had been months since the rest of his us had seen him. Their bond was unlike any I have ever seen between a grandchild and grandmother. The letter that he wrote to her on her ninety-first birthday said the words every mother dreams of hearing. He thanked her for always believing in him and never giving up on him. She treasures that letter more than anything. Mona said God was only keeping her alive so she could see Riley straighten his life out. But then he beat her to heaven.

My dad (Gramps) also adored Riley. When I tried to talk to him about Riley being biracial to see if he was okay, he flippantly responded, "Riley is just Riley. Gramps didn’t care if he was green or purple, he also loved him unconditionally. Their early times cuddling and reading in the big chair and later spending hours playing monopoly are some great Gramps and Riley" memories. Gramps was very tolerant of the antics of both John and Riley. One of the times that John and Riley stayed with Mona and Gramps in Montgomery, they watched the movie Home Alone. The next morning, Mona and Gramps found their door tied shut and the house booby-trapped, the hall covered in matchbox cars! I also have a picture of Riley sitting in Gramps lap while he and John fix his hair with shaving cream, making him look like a Dairy Queen ice-cream cone! Mona and Gramps weren’t just tolerant of most things; they actually indulged them with pretty much everything.

Dale’s family, though born in Arkansas, had moved twenty-three times and lived in base housing all over the world. They all were color-blind. Everywhere from Cocoa Beach, Florida, to the Panama Canal Zone to Tachikawa, Japan, the bases looked alike. Each base was just a bunch of Air Force families living close together with children playing together.

John and Riley had the typical brotherly love-hate relationship. John pushed baby Riley down the basement stairs twice. Mostly, they played well together inside and out, and Riley was always eager to please John. Because John had trouble pooping, he would call Riley to bop him on the head to make his poop come out. A strange thing to request and amazingly, Riley complied! For voluntarily staying in a bathroom while your brother stinks it up just because you want to help him out should have earned Riley an award as Brother of the Year!

So in our family, everybody loved Riley. But he was never adored by anybody more than his little sister Julieta. I must tell a little of her story before I move on because she was a piece of Riley, or Riley was a piece of her, or maybe both.

From the time we returned from the orphanage in Romania with Julieta, Riley was codependently, protectively attached to his little sister. Julieta hated me from the time she laid eyes on me. Dale lugged all twenty-four pounds of her, and she didn’t know how to help by holding on since she wasn’t used to being held, all over Romania. She screamed when she saw me in the orphanage and then bit me. Dale won her over with the spoon airplane while feeding her in the orphanage, and I evidently looked and continued to look like the suppository lady. When we got to the states, like all children in the world, Julieta saw something special in Riley and attached to him and only him. She saw a heart that was worth trusting—the only heart that she trusted, ever.

Julieta continued hating me, and this was the lowest point in my motherhood and my marriage. I was failing miserably at both. Riley rescued Julieta, bound up her wounded heart with unconditional love, and ended up being much more of a caregiver than I was. I retreated to the dark room to run my photography business. I was a good photographer, but I was rejected as a mother by the daughter I had dreamed of all my life. Riley, at eight years old, took on the responsibility of caring for and nurturing Julieta, and he was good at it. I was a failure, and my personality had always been if you can’t be the best at something, move on to something else. That philosophy is a little difficult when you adopt your third child and then decide you’re a terrible mother. However, I still stayed in the darkroom being a good photographer, and Riley continued to do what I should have done for Julieta. He met her physical and emotional needs, and she followed him everywhere.

Julieta always claimed that she and Riley looked just alike because they both had dark skin. She wanted to look just like him. All that to say, there was no racial prejudice from within the safe walls of Riley’s family.

The World Is Not Color-blind

All racial rejection toward Riley came from outside our family. By far, the worst negative comment came from a pastor’s wife. Fortunately, she made it to me when Riley was too young to understand. This woman, whom I had greatly respected until this moment, asked me if we were going to get any more children. Riley was a baby snuggled in my arms, and I was registering for something at the church. I can picture the incident from twenty-nine years ago in my mind like it was yesterday. That’s what traumatic events do to your brain, and I would call this a traumatic event. The pastor’s wife followed her first question with a second, and I felt the words in my heart louder than I heard them with my ears: Well, the next time, are you going to be more picky?

As I feared, the