Christmases Past: Family For A Reason, Not Just A Season

On August 19, 1976, Chung Young Soo, Chung Mee Young, and Chung Young Kuk were "born" out of a KAL jetliner to my then husband Paul and me, anxiously awaiting their arrival at the Minneapolis airport. After our Korean social worker helped new parents connect with new children, our patchwork family all rode home to Granite Falls in the green chevy station wagon which had been the previous year's Christmas gift from Paul's dad. Soon followed whirlwind visits to meet grandparents and other extended family in Ohio and Tennessee.

Then, back in Granite Falls, the children began getting used to neighborhood games and then American-style school (smaller classes, no beatings). In the evenings the three children staged little shows in the basement, inspired by all of us laughing at the Carol Burnett Show. Soon, Jessie Mee Young was learning to play piano, Max Young Kuk was learning to tie his shoes, and Opah (elder brother) Ben Young Soo was making little kites for his classmates; and all three children were bugging me to get pregnant!

My mom died right before our first family  Christmas, which was one of those blowout floor-covered-in-gifts "welcome to America"occasions. A few weeks later I discovered I was pregnant. Merry post-Christmas, indeed! And perhaps also a sense that, just as our Korean children's parents had, through their dying, made room for their children to be reborn to an American family, so also had my mother helped make a way for the baby I'd thought I could never have. Baby Corrie arrived in the early hours of a November morning in 1977, a little over a year after her three older siblings had arrived.

During that winter Ben and sometimes Jessie and Max, along with a whole neighborhood full of children, were ice skating and sledding 'til 10 at night. In the summer there were pickup softball games and bikes and swimming and night games. There were also gardening, preserving foods, and Carolion learning - after many failures - how to make kim chee. Our family also had Tuesday night outings to the "Clown" restaurant for fish suppers, being entertained by Max fluttering his nostrils faster than a speeding hummingbird while we waited for our dinner to arrive. So many good memories!

 By Christmas #2, not only did we have new baby Corrie, but there was Max with his mighty hot wheel bike, and the hilarity of big brother Ben managing to trick his siblings into giving him part of their packages of dried squid, the favorite stocking-stuffer. Indoors that winter, Ben and Max often played toy cars all over the living room, building roads for them out of encyclopedias. Jessie, who is now a fashion designer, was just beginning to sew gowns for her Barbie doll. There was one last visit from Grandma Vivian and Grandpa Gerald before he surprised us all by dying. Soon we made the decision to leave Granite Falls, Minnesota, and move closer to family near Yellow Springs, Ohio. We made that move in August, 1979.

These days our family, now split in so many directions through divorce, misunderstandings, job moves, and divine callings, is also in the process of gaining new understandings and forgiveness and better connections, like so many, many other families now and forever.  There's a time for everything, for every single thing. We discover we still have so many good old memories to share, so much learning together yet to do. Here's to the memory of Carolion's mother, Jean W; to Paul's father, Gerald V; and to Ben Young Soo's, Jessie Mee Young's, and Max Young Guk's Harabuji and Haimoni and Omah and Abuji. All these who have helped us form our lives and who are on "the other side" now, are always, always welcome in our hearts and in the stories of our family heart.

A couple of years ago I sent a letter out to all my family members on "Adoption Day," which, for us, is July 19. From my sister-friend Carol, who is my ex-husband's wife, my childrens' step-mom, and co-grandma of eight beautiful grandchildren (so far), I received a lovely thank you. Isn't life a trip? 

Family love ain't always easy - its road can be full of bumps and holes and puddles - but every family, no matter how it's patched together, is a family for a reason, and not just for a season.

NOTE: This article was first published in Gather in 2007.