This little person.

My little Bean has been on the planet for two years as of today. Though I was not there when she greeted life that first time, her entrance into being fills my heart with light. She is special. And I know all parents — all loving parents — say that about their children. But my Bean really is special.

Her bond with her sister is telepathic. She empathizes better than most adults I know. At 22 months, she walked over to Jenn at the end of the day, patted her on the shoulder and said, “How’s your day, Mama?”.

Her memory for names and faces rivals any database. She takes care of those around her. She works the room. Just a couple weeks ago. as her Uncle Luke sat in the armchair, she walked up, touched him on the arm and said, “Hey Buddy, Buddy” before handing him a button that read ‘I’m okay, You’re okay’.

Sentences spill out of her like ribbon, her urgent curiosity to understand everything around her alive with music and color and a criminal deluge of ‘Why?’ questions that give me no choice but to eat three pieces of chocolate cake per day.

And she’s funny. Her newest endeavor is to take off her five-pound diaper every morning by herself (!). One morning not too long ago, she stepped out of her froggy feet pajamas, unfastened the velcro diaper tabs with the concentration of a military bomb diffuser and let the soiled behemoth plop to the floor. She lifted her shirt and leaned forward slightly to peer down over her belly.

“These my privates, mom?”

“Yes, honey. Those are your privates.”

“My privates! My privates!”

She is not a baby anymore. She wears her hair in poofs. She has become this little person.

My sunshine, my tender heart, my Bean.

Happy 2nd birthday to my favorite Nya in the whole wide world. I’m sorry we’re taking you off Pediasure cold turkey. You’re okay.

The Bean at Two, "Playing" Elefun with a wedgie, loving every minute of it.

Love and the law: An adoption story.

On November 21, 2011, I adopted my own children.

When we sat down with our attorney last February to discuss how to create a legal bond between The Bean & The Bear and I, we expected the unequal, minimally protective status of guardianship at best. The law in Wisconsin states that any single adult or any married couple may adopt children. With the state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage or any similar union staunchly in place, families like ours are legally invisible. The agency that licensed us, despite their marketing campaign to recruit same-sex foster parents, told us flat-out that we would have to choose which one of us would be able to adopt the girls. We knew this going into the process and decided before our first home visit that the decision would be made in the best interest of our children.

Adoption Number One: April 4, 2011

So, on April 4, 2011, because she had better health insurance and a more stable salary, Jenn adopted the girls.

The judge spoke quite eloquently about both Jenn and I being the girls’ true parents and how we had done a remarkable job caring for them. He even invited me to testify on the record about my lifelong commitment to the girls, underscoring the importance of providing them a stable, loving family. Sadly, he said, his hands were tied and he could only grant the adoption to one of us.

Our smiles were genuine for two reasons: 1) the awful and uncomfortable impermanence of foster care was over and 2) we had started to work with an attorney from a more progressive county to pursue a two-parent adoption.

In Wisconsin there is adoption (see above), second-parent adoption (i.e. when a mother births and her partner adopts a child), step-parent adoption (i.e. when a biological parent re-marries and their new spouse legally adopts the child), and two-parent adoption (i.e. a mind-blowing new view of archaic and ambiguous law that makes it possible for same-sex partners both to adopt their non-biological children.)

When our attorney first told us about the possibility of a two-parent adoption, I’m pretty sure I said, “Shut the front door” (or something to that effect).

The argument, she told us, was based on the language of the law. Why couldn’t two single adults both petition to adopt if it could be proven to be in the best interest of their children?

We talked it over and decided to go for broke. Guardianship, after all, while good for school permission slips and consenting to medical treatment, still places one parent above the other in status. For example, the legally adoptive parent (Jenn) would petition the court to allow the non-legal parent (Erika) to serve as guardian of the children; Jenn, therefore, would retain the right to dissolve the guardianship at any time, for any reason. A spat over unfolded laundry could turn into a revocation of the non-legal parent’s ties to her children.

We set a date for our two-parent adoption. I had a necklace engraved for Jenn with April 4th on it and we planned to do the same for me with June 27th on it. We continued to put in place all the other pieces that would help our case — life and estate planning, a co-parenting agreement, beneficiary designations, and more.

When our attorney called us in late May to say her firm had to recuse itself from two-parent adoptions until further notice, I could not breathe. There was a case pending in the Court of Appeals, she told us. A couple, not unlike us in the beginning of their relationship, had dissolved. One of the partners accused the other partner of coercing her into the two-parent adoption. She also implicated the law firm, the guardian ad litem, and the judge  in allegedly forcing her into a two-parent adoption. All allegations were ultimately proven false when the case died in the Court of Appeals, but because of the timing, this one person held hostage every other same-sex family in the state. Our court date was cancelled. We regrouped.

Our choice at that point was to drop any pursuit of a legal relationship between the girls and I or for Jenn to petition for guardianship in our home county, the most powerful conservative county in Wisconsin. It was unacceptable to me to give up, so Jenn filed and we held our breath.

On August 12, 2011, our attorney presented our case before a known conservative judge. No other same-sex couple had achieved guardianship in our home county. Even if granted, a guardianship was not what we wanted. Our enthusiasm ran low.

We testified in a courtroom where rules about dress, conduct and how to address the judge were laminated beneath the glass of the briefing table. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. It did not take the judge long to make his decision, but it took him ten whole minutes to render it. He had no choice but to rule against the petition, he said, because our children were not proven to be in need of a guardian. My heart pounded my eardrums. Powerless.

Co-Guardianship (with our attorney): August 12, 2011

Fortunately, the guardian ad litem on our case this time had experience with this judge and had coached our attorney on how to implement a plan B:  petition for co-guardianship. To this day, I do not understand why this changed the judge’s mind, but it did in a matter of seconds. With another swipe of a pen, Jenn retained her status as the girls’ legally-adoptive parent and we both gained status as court-appointed co-guardians. It was something, but not enough to infuse our smiles with joy. (Our attorney was thrilled because it was a first for this particular county. The Bean and the Bear only smiled because they were buzzing on fruit snacks and Capri Sun.)

We had a laugh about making T-shirts that read “Who’s your co-Guardian”, provided copies of the orders to school and the pediatrician and went about finishing the emotionally exhausting process of life and estate planning.

In late September, our attorney informed us that the Court of Appeals case had died and that, while she could no longer represent us on an adoption matter in another county (again, for reasons I do not understand), another attorney had continued to achieve two-parent adoptions despite the Court of Appeals debacle. We took his name. My Grandma Clare had just entered hospice. I had just left my job. I was starting my own business.

I had nothing left to give.

Jenn took it on. We had to rush because the tax law changes and the adoption tax credit will no longer be granted as a refund after 2011. She contacted the new attorney, arranged for a home study, coordinated with another new guardian ad litem. Our biggest concern was getting a court date as we were limited to one judge in one county. The timeline for everything? One month. Anyone who’s been through the adoption process knows the miracle required in this situation.

On November 20, 2011, we packed the Bean and the Bear into our (yes) minivan and made the long drive to the hotel. We played in the pool, ordered pizza, and warded off “first night in a hotel” ghosts at 1, 2, 3 and 4 o’clock in the morning. On November 21, 2011, We ate sausage and cereal, dressed the girls in their pretty clothes and sparkly shoes, and headed to the courthouse. Everything about it seemed too easy.

We arrived at the courthouse, this time very unceremoniously. We met the guardian ad litem in person for the first time. We met our attorney for the first time. Ten minutes later, we entered the courtroom. Ten minutes after that, thanks to a handful of brilliant legal maneuvers, one of which required Jenn to legally terminate her parental rights for roughly twenty seconds, it was finished.

Jenn and I were both named, by court order, the girls’ legally adoptive parents. Equally. Both our names would (and do) appear on the girls’ birth certificates as if they were born to us. (How much do I want to wave that in the face of the haters while shouting, ‘Plumbing my ass!’).

Adoption Number Two: November 21, 2011

It feels different to be a legally recognized parent to my children. I felt wholly their mother before, but now — I can be their mother free of the paranoia that comes with being a gay, non-legal parent in my home  state where, for so long, I felt invisible.

I remember sitting in my car before one of my graduate seminars Fall 2006. Public radio was covering the then-proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage that would appear as a ballot referendum the following month. The guest that hour was a Republican assemblyman from the northeast corner of Wisconsin.

He said, “There is no need for gay marriage. Any homosexual couple can go to an attorney and have papers drawn up that will give them all the rights and protections they could get with marriage.”

We went to an attorney. In fact, we went to two attorneys (after consulting with two others). What follows is an invoice and proverbial middle finger to that arrogant, lying blowhard.

• Legal Name Changes ……….$750 (free with marriage)
• Domestic Partner Registration……….$125 (same cost and responsibilities as marriage; 1/4 of the state rights/protections and no federal rights/protections)
• Initial Consultation with Attorney……….$300
• Co-parenting Agreement……….$1,000 (to illustrate intent to parent together & foundation for all other legal matters regarding the security of our family; straight couples need only open a cheap bottle of wine)
• Life & Estate Planning (more involved for same-sex couples)……….$3,650
• Co-Guardianship……….$6,535
• Legal fees associated with Adoption Number One (failed attempt)……….$925
• Adoption Number Two (including home study)……….$9,500

GRAND TOTAL……… $22, 785

We will recoup the cost of the second adoption via write-off and earn a tax credit for the first adoption.

A straight married couple adopting through foster care in Wisconsin would pay nothing and would obtain a tax credit.

The emotional strain on us as a same-sex couple going through these unpredictable, invasive, redundant legal processes is something our straight counterparts do not experience. We found it odd that in our initial consultation, our attorney focused heavily on the possible dissolution of our relationship. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense that a relationship — even one like ours — would not survive.

Still, every step was necessary and we would do more if the law allowed it.

Such strange bedfellows, love and the law.

Both are needed for any family to make it, but only one is present when I lean over to pull up their covers, kissing their hair before I tiptoe back to my room.

I love you more. (Tribute delivered at my Grandma Clare’s memorial service today in Williams Bay.)

I struggle to understand how I stand here today, how there could possibly be a reason for us to gather as we’ve gathered. Because still, even after the roses, the bedside vigils, the phone calls to relatives and friends, and the memorial programs you hold in your hands, I feel her here with me as if she’d never gone.

I remember standing in the hallway of our upstairs apartment in the gray house on Jefferson Street, the olive green phone cord wrapped around my legs, the fingers of my free hand running up and down the slats of the folding closet doors. At four years old I made my pitch. “Grandma, you have to stop smoking. I do not want you to die.”

She responded, “I won’t die, Sugar. Grandma’s magic.”

My Grandma Clare was not a conventional grandmother by any means. She did not bake cookies. She did not knit or play solitaire or bridge. She did not wear an apron or her hair in a bun.

She told me stories about tying a rope from the house to the barn when she was little because the cows needed milking, even in snowstorms. She drilled me on spelling words and made sure I knew the names of all the important elected officials in our town. She dressed me in a sandwich board when I was eight years old. “Clare Mitchell for Sheriff”, it read as she waved like royalty from the back of a red convertible.

She taught me how to take pride in my work, whatever the task at hand. Whenever I visited her here at George Williams, she granted me admission to her temple, a place few were allowed to enter — the office supply closet. I would plunk out nonsense on her typewriter, filling page after page of her “From the Desk of Clare Mitchell” stationary with the pink carnation on it. It always felt like I was in the Oval Office when I visited her at work. She commanded that level of respect and decorum.

I remember sleeping over in her trailer on Geneva Street, rolling out my Strawberry Shortcake sleeping bag alongside her provincial bedroom furniture, her brush and mirror set displayed on top. Only my Grandma Clare could turn a mobile home into a palace. She let me stay up late those nights. We would eat cookies and cream from cavernous bowls, me on my stomach on her gold shag in front of the television, her behind me in her gold velour armchair. Watching Moonlighting and Cheers with Grandma Clare taught me everything I know about human behavior. I will never forget the sound of her clearing her throat over my shoulder.

My Grandma was a politician, a gardener, and an avid fan of the Green Bay Packers. She taught me my first dirty jokes and reminded me constantly to enunciate properly, look presentable, and do my best. She loved bouquets of baby’s breath and taking the Lord’s name in vain. She could not start the day without smoking a Kool cigarette and drinking a glass of orange juice. When we went out, fresh black coffee and water with no ice prolonged our breakfast routine.

She has always had a following among my friends. In high school, she won fans for tying her butcher knife to her broom handle, hanging out her second story window, and giving the branch that had been keeping her awake at night what it had coming.  My college friends found it hilarious that she left my college graduation ceremony to use the restroom and didn’t return for over an hour, having stopped for a burger and a beer at the sports bar across the street. Even in my adult life, readers of my online blog adore her from around the world.

My Grandma Clare was a monument of fortitude, a fighter, fearless.

In 1986, the idea possessed her to run for Sheriff. This left an indelible mark on me and, I’m convinced, transformed me into a person who does not accept the rules at face value. During a candidate forum, for example, my grandma, the only female candidate, the only candidate without a background in law enforcement, held her own. An article from the Janesville Gazette at that time read: “Before the question period, each candidate gave an introductory speech with Mr. Nelson offering Ms. Mitchell a ‘ladies first’ opportunity to address the crowd. Ms. Mitchell was quick to dispel any notions that she sought special consideration as she displayed a target sheet riddled with bullet holes. [She said] ‘This was my target using a .38 Smith & Wesson 6-inch at 15 yards, and 10 of my 12 shots qualified. Don’t mess with me.’”

My Grandma Clare was also a connoisseur of beauty, a lover of nature, and despite her tough exterior, a lady at her core. I will never be done apologizing to her for not inheriting her make-up gene, her jewelry gene, or her appreciation of antique figurines.

She had panache, from her bright red Jackie-O sunglasses to her collection of leather-trimmed driving gloves.

And did she know how to work a room. Her innate people savvy, her grace, her ability to make almost anyone feel special. She told me in one of her last lucid moments that she worried she would not be here to make a positive influence on others.

And again, I’m taken back.

“I won’t die,” she said so simply it became a promise. “Grandma’s magic.”

Her final weeks play over and over and over in my mind.

I spent all but two days at her side in her final three weeks.

In three weeks time, this icon of independence became like a child again, requiring care and tenderness, delighting in life’s simplest treasures, like her great-granddaughter, my daughter, squeezing her toes in her hospital bed, or the last few cool drops of water from a straw three days before she died.

“I won’t die,” she said thirty years ago. “Grandma’s magic.

In three weeks time, I came to respect her on a new plain, taking in the broad view of her life for the first time. I sat humbled as my mom applied Vaseline to her lips, as she reminisced with her about memories I had no idea existed.

I talked with her about her initial fear of dying, about her wishes for this day, when all of us would gather here in her honor, about the flowers and the music, about the food. She loved food.

The hours I spent with my Grandma Clare in her final weeks were a gift, though they were not enough. I have far more questions for her now that she’s gone than I ever asked when she was alive.

In the white noise of her cube in the Intensive Care Unit she said the one thing that has and will continue to carry me through my grief.

She said, “All my life, if I wanted to do something, I did it.”

I take solace in knowing, that even as the light approached her, as she drew in her final breath, it was on her own terms.

I talked to my Grandma Clare on the phone at least once a week for thirty years. Some conversations were trivial, like the series of phone calls about American Idol’s Adam Lambert being her television boyfriend. Other conversations were philosophical exercises on any number of topics. A few were lifesaving, in both directions. Almost all of them contained lighting-fast banter. I miss her music box laughter whenever I caught her off-guard with the quick wit I did inherit from her.

Every week for thirty years, our conversations ended with, “I love you more.”

Over time, the exchange expanded to “I love you more, I love you most, I love you more than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow.”

This continues to be true, wherever she is now, whatever she’s doing, proof, despite the unplugging of things, of her magic.

I love you most, Grandma Clare. Rest in peace. (March 28, 1937 – November 4, 2011.)

“In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there”

~Sarah McLachlan

Losing Grandma Clare.

My Grandma Clare is dying.

What started as an infection in her knee has led to hospice, where she has been for eight days. She is 74 years old.

In the past week and a half, I have participated in decisions to end treatment, to remove IVs, and to place a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ bracelet on her wrist. I have paid her bills, turned off her phone, rerouted her mail, and cancelled her cable.Tomorrow, we will collect her valuables, dispose of the food in her refrigerator, clean out her car to sell it, and tell her landlord that she will not be coming home.

I have sat with her for hours, spoken with her about her wishes (when she was still lucid enough to do so), held her straw for sips of water on better days and spoon-fed her chips of ice, as many as she will take on less than better days, like this one.

I have consoled her friends and leveled with her sisters from many miles away.

I have chosen a place for her memorial service.

Every week, for as long as I can remember, I have called my Grandma Clare. I’ve said, ‘Hi Grandma!’ and she’s said, ‘Hi Sugar!’ more than two thousand times. The last three times I called her, she could not answer at all.

Everyone keeps asking me how I’m doing. What they don’t realize is that the answer is in the question.

I am doing, and that is all, because that is all I know how to do as I watch the life of my Grandma Clare become undone, bit by bit, from the pink flesh of her lips to the month-old, half-empty glass of water left next to her recliner before all this ending began.