My mother and I never made things easy for one another. But she has come a long way in four years: from her silence and absence at my wedding, to gradual phone calls and a couple holidays. Last year, my wife and I spent Christmas at her home. Our first morning there, my wife and I were headed out for a walk. My mother said she’d drive us to a nearby park. “Don’t walk here,” she said, “Not in my neighborhood.”

When my wife and I began dating, one thing I learned was that God had placed in her a desire to adopt. As a teen, Dorene was a fan of “Anne of Green Gables”, a story about an adoptee who grows to become an intelligent, strong, and resilient woman and teacher in her small town.

The summer before I started high school, my family was in a bad car accident in upstate New York. When we returned home to New York City, we were still nursing a number of injuries from the crash.