Aaron Eske - My Family, a Symphony: A Memoir of Global Adoption

A MEMOIR OF GLOBAL ADOPTION

AARON ESKE

The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the authors copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

To the Memory of

Lenore Anita Kyle Thomas

In Whose Beautiful and Delicate Life

There Is the Perfection

That Endures

WE THE PEOPLE LOVE A GOOD ORPHAN STORY. So much so that as I write this, twenty-five of the fifty all-time highest-grossing movies where I live in the United States feature an orphaned protagonist. Were captivated by parentless tales of the Caped Crusader, a hobbit from the shire, a Jedi Knight from a galaxy far, far away, and the boy with a scar on his forehead who lived to defeat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Ever since baby Moses drifted along the banks of the Nile and into the Pharaohs palace, countless fantastical orphans have grown so intertwined in our collective heritage that we know their stories by heart.

Once upon a time Cinderella lived with two ugly stepsisters, broke curfew, and married a prince. Tom Sawyer lived with his Aunt Polly, pretended to pirate the Mississippi River, and befriended the half-orphan Huck Finn. Annie sang about her hard-knock life, wore a red wig, and moved in with the bald Daddy Warbucks. And orphan Dorothy went over the rainbow, stole some fabulous shoes, and immortalized the saying, Theres no place like home.

In some stories the reader feels compelled to pick up a pitiful orphan like Oliver from the sooty page and give him a home and a good meal. And in other popular fables like King Arthur and Spiderman, its the orphan who rescues us. Without their parents, these superheroes are the worlds orphans and, as they see it, the worlds avengers. Superman is the steel model for this mold, but his story stands out from the literary orphan tradition for reasons other than his red cape and kryptonite allergy. In the realm of orphan fantasy, Clark Kent is the rare international adoptee, interplanetary even, who as payback for the chance to grow up with loving parents, assumes the values of his adopted homeland in his never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way.

I HAVE MY OWN STORY ABOUT ORPHANS that is a little different from all of the others. Although my quest involves some villains and each hero in my story has a weakness, my narrative isnt like Batmans or Frodos or Harry Potters. Thats because the orphans in my life are nonfictional. They are my brother and sisters, and this is our familys memoir.

It might embarrass my family members and me, but all the facts and memories in this story are true and, of course, as in most memoirs, the point of view is my own. As for the incidents that may seem too absurd to be true, they have been verified and are every bit as accurate as the rest. I learned from an early age to believe in unbelievable realities. Like when my brother was kidnapped as a baby because of his light skin tone, and my sister was robbed while hitching a ride on top of a train going 70 miles per hour through an Indian jungle, and my other sister was supposed to have a surgical pirate peg leg installed after she was born to a runaway dwarf but instead grew up halfway around the world to become a dancer with her own two feet. I know it might sound a little crazy at this moment, but read on and I promise it will all come together, just as my family has, like a symphony with many movements that sometimes go in different directions but were all composed to be one in the end.

BEFORE I END THIS PREAMBLE, I have one last note. Because this story is partly theirs, 25 percent of the authors royalties of this book are being donated to all the orphaned children in Holt Internationals care. I will forever be in awe of and debt to this organization that does so much to give kids worldwide a family. So now you can feel even better about buying a copy for all of your friends if you like itwhich Im sure you will because, if youre anything like the rest of us, you love a good orphan story, even if you didnt know that until now.

LENORE WORE A TIARA TO HER EIGHTIETH birthday party. It crowned her angelic white hair. The wife of a gregarious minister and the mother of two, she played the role of the lovely wallflower at most of lifes celebrations, but this day was her blooming day. If her husband, my grandfather, had been there, he would have said something about what it was like to grow shorter together, but Alzheimers stole his voice, mind, and life before they had the chance to find out. Now it was her turn to do the talking to the full room of relatives, former bridesmaids, and her new eighty-eight-year-old boyfriend.

Im a lucky lady, she said. Terrific family, terrific friends, a new hip. She popped it sideways to show it off. I have a beautiful life.

Whenever I went to my grandmothers house at Eastmont Towers Retirement Community in Lincoln, I looked at that beautiful life, neatly chronicled in fourteen photo albums labeled A to N and displayed within easy reach on her bookshelf. The sticky pages traced her black-and-white beginnings in Great Depression Omaha, her two-year stint on an air force base in reconstruction Korea, and onward to the Boeing homecomings of her colorful grandchildren from three Asian countries.

Grandmother Lenores albums told the story of the century. And as interesting as Albums A to J of the 1900s were, Album K was still my biased favorite. Bound in furry brown velvet, Ks pages were the storyboard of my life growing up with four adopted siblings. We were best friends thenbefore I fled them and lost touch.

You could guess the year each photo in Album K was taken by which house was in the background. With every new child in my family came a new house with another bedroom until at last all five of us were home. The albums first picture was dated 1983, but the clues in the photograph said more than the caption ever could. Moms blond hair was crimped and long like Bon Jovis without the bangs. A black Groucho Marx moustache sat on Dads less stiff upper lip. They were holding me, their first and only biological child, whom theyd made the old-fashioned way.

I was an only child when we lived on B Street in a tannish fixer-upper in Lincoln, Nebraskaa quaint city in the heart of the Heartland. At the time, a street map of Lincoln showed a tall rectangular grid much like that of Manhattan, but that was about the only thing the two places had in common. From the top of the three tallest buildings in the city, you didnt have to squint to see the flat and forever prairie in the near distance stretching beyond the city limits. The good people of Lincoln would say they were just thatreal good peoplewho worked hard but not too hard, enjoyed a medium-well-done steak a few times a week, and aimed to live life simple and right. Weekends were for worshipSunday to Jesus and Saturday to the Cornhusker football team. Meanwhile, I liked spending my weekend mornings eating Coco-Puffs and watching Rainbow Brite and the Smurfs light up our 13-channel TV set.

Around the time I slung my Bert and Ernie backpack over my shoulder for my first day of school, Mom and Dad had the urge to have another child, and they didnt care where that child came fromas long as it wasnt from Moms uterus. Pregnancy and childbirth were on Moms list of never-doing-that-agains right below riding a motorcycle and living in Texas. They all resulted in too much pain. When their application for adoption was approved, my parents told me I would be getting a new sister, but the news didnt faze me. They might as well have said, Aaron, we ordered a V-neck sweater from the Lands End catalog and it should arrive in the next few weeks. I was too young to understand what it meant to add a family member, let alone care which countrys seal was stamped on her passport cover.