My Kids 2012

Reunion with Isaac's Birth Mother and Family

Before yesterday, we had only met Desiree, Isaac's birth mother, once: On the same day that we first met Isaac when we was five months old.

A day later, we never saw Desiree again.

Yesterday we attended a memorial service in Oceanside. The service is for Lila, Isaac's biological grandmother and Desiree's mother. We had never met Lila before a few weeks ago, but then I received a Facebook message from Lila. She said she had been looking for us for many years and found our Baldwin family web site a while back. She said a day hadn't gone by in 12 years that she didn't think about Isaac. She asked if Isaac might want to meet her, and when we talked to Isaac about it, he said he'd be very interested. (By the way, he said he wasn't quite ready to meet Desiree yet).

So on October 25 we met Lila for dinner at Island's restaurant in Carlsbad, shared a great conversation, watched Lila and Isaac exchange glances, prayed for Lila, and then agreed that next time we might include Sally, Lila's mother and Isaac's bio great-grandmother. Lila also said that she'd planned to stop smoking again the next week.

On Halloween, Melissa received a call from Sally saying Lila had had a heart attack, had a collapsed lung, and had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance and was in ICU.

The next day Lila passed away.

Isaac thought it was nice to have a grandmother that had this special bond with him and so he wanted to go to her memorial service, knowing of course that Desiree would be there with her three children.

Everyone seemed very excited about meeting Isaac, especially a biological cousin, Ashley, who is only a few months older than Isaac; and for much of the time Isaac was also flanked by his biological half-siblings: Alyssa, Hope and Chris. Uncles and cousins also embraced Isaac, but none so much as great-grandmother Sally did. In one day she said good-bye to her precious daughter and reunited with a beloved great-grandson.

The day was about Lila and her life, of course, but we appreciated the invitation to have Isaac be part of the day, and to have us join the family gathering.

Ten Years Later

I have no memory from a few minutes before the crash until I woke up on a gurney at Mercy Hospital in Hillcrest, a hospital specializing in trauma that was several miles away, and heard the voice of our friend Andra as she stood over me. Melissa had been taken to Mercy, too, but was then transported to Kaiser because our health plan was there and she was eight months pregnant with Emma. The boys were both taken by separate ambulance to Scripps Chula Vista, the nearest hospital, and Landen was cared for there, but Isaac, because he was only eighteen months old, was then transported to Children’s Hospital even further away than Mercy. At one time the four of us were at four different hospitals, and because it was still Thanksgiving weekend and family had been gathered together, there were enough people to disperse. The whole time elapsed must have been an hour or more I guess.

Today it is exactly ten years later and I still don’t remember any details, thankfully, except passing our friend Jose Chavez and his family as were driving up Telegraph Canyon back home after a rainy day out as a family. What I don't remember at all is that we were at a stop sign across from the golf course only blocks from our house and a man driving a red Suburban was coming toward us and, as Melissa tells it, he didn’t look like he was going to stop, and didn’t. The Suburban struck our white Honda accord on the driver’s side with Isaac directly behind me in his car seat. Except for some bruises, Isaac ended up walked away unscathed. Landen has a scar on his chin that was more visible for years than it is today, and we think the hit he took was from a loose middle seat belt or object inside the car. Melissa went into pre-term labor but walked away okay, too. For years she had nightmarish memories of the drunk driver of the Suburban walking toward the car and standing at her window.

The whole event happened a block or so from the home of our friends, the Stephens. Blair was a San Diego police officer and was off-duty but heard a report of the accident on his radio and recognized the street names and came to us right away, along with his wife, Denise. Calls were made and other friends and of course our family responded right away.

In the same six weeks, Isaac’s adoption was final, we moved into our new home in Eastlake, survived the crash, Emma was born, and Melissa turned 30, all while I was probably trying to do good work in a job I’d been in for only a year. Thank God for times like these where we can experience his mercy, his grace, his provision, and the gift of family in rich and comforting ways.

Road Trip to SLO

Two weeks ago we decided it was time to go on a family road trip since the kids were on their three-week break from school. We took two days to drive up the coast to San Luis Obispo where we stayed two days and visited some of my childhood stomping grounds. The kids seemed intrigued by some of the places I used to go and play: Montana de Oro especially (photo) where they hiked and explored; Bubble Gum Alley and downtown SLO; walking along the creek at Santa Rosa Park, seeing up close the sea lions lying around at the pier at Avila Beach, eating seafood in Morro Bay, and even walking past a concert by Sean Kingston on the Embarcadero. We stopped at Los Osos Cemetery where my grandparents, great aunt and uncle, and several other extended family members are buried, and walked around looking at headstones. Maddie commented as we drove away: “Next time I want to look at all of them (headstones) to see of one of them says, “Birth mom.”

It was good to get away together, and as expected, nice to go back to where I feel grounded.

My first son is now a freshman in high school. I really never imagined the day would come, or maybe I hoped it wouldn’t, and yet I couldn’t imagine a young man more ready for this challenge. He’s ready for it, whether he knows it or not. Landen has the intellectual curiosity, world perspective and biblical foundation and that I wish I had 25 years ago, and that his mom had, although I did have self-discipline, optimism and faith, which he has, too. I’m more excited than I ever dreamed for Landen and the life God has prepared him for. It’s just happening way too fast.

Rhonda Buell, a Childhood Friend

Last week I realized that my previous three postings had to do with death. I've been very busy this week at work, and with Melissa and Emma away visiting Granger and meeting our movers, I figured I wouldn't have time to write. But friends, there must be a message here. My childhood pal Joanna (whose birthday was yesterday), wrote a few minutes ago with the sad news that Rhonda Buell died of breast cancer on Tuesday. She was our age, so I'm guessing 39. I'm not fatalistic, but this is another opportunity for me to see that I need to make my days on Earth count, and for me that means living for, and in response to, the gospel of Christ for God's glory.

Bedtime Reading on a Summer Night

Here' s a great way to relax and wind down at the end of a long stressful work day: It's warm in the house and all the kids have been cranky, but when it's time to read with Emma she wants to be outside when the sun is setting and she can listen for dogs "chirping" to each other, as she says. (By the way, she considers herself a dog rescuer, and she's found several stray dogs in the neighborhood since we've arrived.) We sit together on a porch swing in her grandparents' backyard, she with her Animal Ark horse book reading aloud, and I with my eyes closed in the coolness of the gloaming, and with each sentence my muscles are relaxing and the tension is released, and I'm thankful for this moment with my first daughter who seems to enjoy this time as much as I do.

James Robert Tracy (Cousin Jay)

Tonight at seven, Jay went to be with Jesus. Those were the words my Aunt Carolyn shared with me when I returned her call around 10 o’clock tonight on my way to Pasadena. She and my Uncle Jim rejoice that my cousin Jay is no longer in pain and is home with his King, but I know how deeply sad and exhausted they must be after caring for Jay all these months and years, traveling back and forth between Albuquerque and their home in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Jay had been suffering from the effects of AIDS and he was only 38 years old.

Tribute to Keith Coros

Today I want to pay tribute to my friend, Keith Coros. Keith was killed last Wednesday as he was crossing a street in South Bend in his wheelchair. I became friends with Keith at Bella Vita Coffee in Granger, Indiana. Keith had cerebral palsy which tended to make conversations very slow and deliberate on both sides, but like the baristas that opened the door and welcomed him with a smile, I too fell into easy and enjoyable conversations with Keith about life, work and eventually his cause.

Keith sought support and understanding for the organization that he founded, Michiana Center for Independent Living. He made it his mission to provide information, accessibility and rights for people who were disabled locally. Unfortunately, finding the help and especially the funding was never easy. In an e-mail on January 5, 2007, Keith told me, “I have met some very nice people as we try to go forward, but I have a feeling that business people don’t take me seriously.”

If you could get beyond the discomfort or embarrassment of not quite understanding him speak at first, and really listened, you’d find that Keith was a very smart and compassionate man who knew what his purpose was. He was determined and independent, and used every tool he knew how to get his message out.

Lord bless you and welcome you home, Keith.

See South Bend Tribune stories July 24 and July 25.

Maddie's deep thought

While we were walking: "... daddy, what if we get to Heaven but we forgot to die?"

Responding to Melissa's Blog Question July 21

I wanted to respond to Melissa’s question since I have a blog that I haven’t posted to since last October. First I thought I should mention why I do (or did) feel like blogging.

When I was traveling every week to Texas and back, I hoped it might be a way to stay rooted with my real life while my body was physically removed from my family and the routines of life in Indiana slowly started to fade. The nature of the season was temporary, leading ultimately to life back in California, so the whole period was to be an adventure I could write about.

So for the reasons I haven’t blogged for the past nine months, here are a few:

1. Life gets busy. When I was “living” in my apartment in Texas, the idea of writing everyday seemed doable. It was for a while, but my trips became shorter and less frequent, and the whole travel thing was more sporadic and unpredictable, with recovery periods lasting a long time and the guilt of tasks left undone or time spent with family always taking precedence.

2. What to choose to write about? As weeks pass by, I become frustrated that I can’t capture each enjoyable experience before the next one comes along. The kids will say or do something worthy of cherishing forever, and then it’s gone. I’ll read a passage in one of my books or devotions, underlining or asterisking like crazy, and then I turn the page and forget to share it. I’ll watch a movie, or hear a song, or feel like basking in the weather and wanting to somehow describe it to somebody far away, and then I arrive at my destination, and I forget.

3. Privacy. When I was traveling to Texas I was careful not to say where I actually lived, lest I lead some online predator to my fatherless family. Also, I was careful, maybe paranoid, about getting too specific about my kids, their ages, where they went to school, or something, and simply kept everything I wrote safe or vague. I know there’s nothing fun about reading a blog that doesn’t somehow give the reader a glimpse into the author’s private thoughts or insights, but I was guarded, and probably overly so.

4. Anonymity. I really didn’t think anybody was reading, and frankly I don’t think I ever told anybody that I had a blog at all. Apparently Melissa had a link to it, and at least one person was reading the blog which I figured out when I ran into a friend at Bella Vita (oh no, did I just share a specific place?) and he said he’d read the last posting about bottled water. I was totally convinced nobody had ever seen it.

So these are the answers that come to mind, and just writing them causes me to want to have a do-over and give it another chance.

Fiji Natural Artesian Water

Sorry, but it tastes no different than tap water.

Review of Dinner with Dad by Cameron Stracher

I was intrigued by the title and sure it would be on my reading list before I ever checked reviews or sales rankings for Dinner with Dad by Cameron Stracher. A lawyer, professor and author in New York, Stracher tells the story of his hurried life, saying:

As my salary increased, my appetite grew, until I needed every dollar I was making and lived from paycheck to paycheck. I was trapped in a cycle of my own making from which the chances of escape appeared dim. But I could stop the carousel if I wanted. I could get off.

The author is caught up like so many in chasing success and avoiding life but eventually promises to turn it all around. With his wife and two young children at home, he deeply desires to return not only to his family, but to his favorite pastime: cooking. The book is framed through the story of planning for, preparing and cooking dinner, and then sharing meals together at least five nights a week including weekends, for one year.

I thought he presented the experiment beautifully, even without possessing a basic appreciation for the Zen of cooking myself. I underlined several well-told lessons that I found intermittently woven throughout his story. He tells of the inescapable trade-off between family and work, later alluding to Eugene O’Kelly’s Chasing Daylight (another one that I’d recommend), and speaking of the inability to control the future or the outcome of one’s own dreams. He describes his role as father: “Who [my children] were what they would become, [was] a function of who and what I was and how I lived.”

At times the book takes long stretches to describe the process of preparing meals with detailed descriptions and list of ingredients that I’ve never heard of, and also at times feels like grandstanding for his recent noble efforts, sometimes minimizing his wife’s attempts to contribute to family meals, and making sure to describe the newfound admiration he receives from others. But if the reader shares Stracher’s passion for cooking and his promise to be a better family man, then the book might be a most inspiring.

Here’s the best excerpt for making the correlation between cooking and working:

Unlike my jobs, which nourish my family in their own way, putting a plate before my children is direct, visible, and tangible. The results are immediate and clear. Working is abstract and conceptual, while cooking is concrete and corporeal. Work takes me away; cooking brings me home. The former is necessary but not sufficient, the latter essential and primordial. One is absence, the other presence. On his deathbed, no one has ever prayed for more work. Plenty have died from hunger, however.

Meet Ben

Benjamin Midler was born in Poland 79 years ago and spent four prime years of his boyhood from ages 11 to 15 in concentration camps during World War II. Later he fought with the Israeli Army, including the 1948 War of Independence and the 1956 Sinai Campaign. At age 23 Benjamin married his sweetheart, born in Egypt, and he has been married to her for the past for 56 years with three daughters and four grandchildren. For 25 years Benjamin owned an auto parts store in the Chicago area before retiring to San Diego where he worked for two years as a driver for Car Quest store, and then retired for good, presently living in Rancho Bernardo.

Early last Friday morning I’d taken my aisle seat on the United flight from San Diego to Chicago and was reading Sick, a book by Jonathan Cohn about the healthcare crisis in the United States, unaware of the great story sitting beside me in the middle seat. Eventually the man and I engaged in small talk. He was on his way to Madrid for an eight-day tour while his wife stayed home because she doesn’t like to travel anymore. We chatted a little about current events, and he offered his People magazine to me with an article he found interesting about a woman who recently had a baby from invitro fertilization using the sperm of her husband who’d perished in the War in Iraq a few years ago. He said a few words about the tragedy of war, and then uttered something about spending time in concentration camps as a boy. I dropped the magazine onto my lap, turned aghast toward the man, and nearly asked him to repeat what he’d said. “You were in concentration camps?” I asked the man with something between incredulity and shock. He rotated his left forearm and presented the evidence: a faint blue series of numbers tattooed on his skin many years ago.

For a couple hours I asked questions and he shared stories. He remembers seeing a photo of himself as a boy with a younger sister but has no other memory of her. He said people who’d gone through that experience tend to block entire periods of time from memory, and this is probably why he doesn’t remember the sister in the photo. He seems heartbroken by the toll of wartime – all wars, even today. He meets monthly with the New Life Club, a group of about 100 survivors of concentration camps now living in the San Diego area. I asked him if he’s written down his story, and he replied instantly that he wrote a book in 1993, self-published and given away to his friend and family.

We introduced ourselves to each other. “I’m Ben,” he said.

Halloween candy

Halloween is coming and Melissa was recently quoted in this Washington Parent article with her "unique solution to the dilemma of too much candy."

Schedule time for blog posts

I realize that I'm not fully taking advantage of this blog. I had all the best intentions, but I've spent nearly all of my time lately enjoying the presence of my family, diving into the new job and spending hours getting up to speed, or traveling to and from work. There are only a couple times typically when I might stop to assemble blog-worthy thoughts, and regretfully it's either when I am lying in bed at night or when I'm captive on a plane. In any given day there are dozens of situations that lead to streams of memories, spontaneous prayers of thanks to God for his goodness and grace, and sometimes new ideas. Even the one-sided conversations that I have in my mind could find some resolve in such posts, but instead they remain frustratingly imprisoned and doomed to be forgotten. So I haven't figured out when or how to consistently disengage from these moments and channel the inspiration into writing. I'll schedule time for it, which has worked for other worthwhile habits, and we'll see how it goes.

All Pro Dad Article Published

One of the things I believe God has called me to do is reach out to dads, or guys thinking about being dads, who might be considering adoption. All Pro Dad asked if they could republish my story from a couple years ago. I made some updates and it was sent out as the “Play of the Day” on September 7 to almost 31,000 e-mail recipients, mostly men. I’ve had some really great responses from dads who have adopted, and others who are currently contemplating the decision with their wives and can relate to some of the concerns that I addressed. Feel free to pass it along to anyone you know who might benefit.

Insights and Faith of My Teenage Son

Most on my mind today is my son Landen’s MySpace entry last night which describes his eighth grade weekend retreat called Fall Forward, the purpose of which Landen more aptly explains in his piece. From a parent’s perspective, it is one of the most overwhelming and satisfying sensations to read your thirteen year-old’s writing, more intelligent and insightful that most adults I know if asked to describe what they learned at a weekend church retreat. (See it on Melissa’s blog)

Reading Today: Simplicity, Focus

After finishing The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris on my flight to Fort Worth this morning, I date the last page and then grab this week’s Entertainment Weekly. Anyone else tired of seeing Britney in the news? The very first thing I read, since I read magazines back to front, is Stephen King’s column on traveling across Australia with his friend Carter Withey. He writes about how for the whole month of August he saw no movies and no news, realizing that “so much of what we watch, read and listen to… is disposable crap.” His piece simply reinforces what I’ve just finished reading in the Ferris book, that I do tend to distract myself too often with less meaningful activities, delaying what I know is time better spent on improving life, connecting with people who might share my career goals, going deeper in the gospel, or simply enjoying a shared experience with my family without the pressure of my perceived must-do’s. Ferris talks of eliminating “excuses for senseless pseudowork procrasturbating.” That’s hilarious, but so true.

Economy Plus

As if the antiquated notion of first class wasn't bad enough (I still don't get the sheer curtain that doesn't really hide anything but clearly sends the message that people in the front shan't be bothered), now there’s a new class in the middle of the plane: On United they call it “Economy Plus.” Anyway, you have all these extra seats that nobody wanted to upgrade to for an extra forty bucks or whatever, so instead we all sit closer than ever, knees pressed firmly against the magazine pouch on the back of the seat in front of us, praying that the guy in that seat won’t figure out how to use the recline function. I’m sure the idea thrown around in the sales & marketing think tank was something like: We could increase revenue by getting more seats in the back and charge the same as before, plus use the extra space left over to sell premium seats; but we can’t take away first class and their private lavatory, so we’ll leave that alone. And the please-use-the-lavatory-in-your-ticketed-cabin-because-this-is-for-security-purposes-and-for-your-safety thing just doesn’t make any sense. And I don't rant very often, so let me also mention that it must be hard for those poor airline attendants, because the same people ticked about not being able to move forward to an empty "Economy Plus" seat are also grimacing at the offer to purchase snack packs or headphones. So let this be my public declaration that United Airlines, among others that, frankly, are too much like them to tell the difference, could learn something from Southwest. They do it one easy way, they’re very successful, and they rule.