Finding Zoe

by Brandi Rarus

  But the biggest shock was back when Zoe turned two and then three years old. She was the spitting image of the girl Tim had described in his story—blonde and sassy, a little princess who carried herself and signed with such amazing confidence. It was as if he had seen into the future.

  The ending of the adoption story was really just the beginning for Zoe and me, our family, and the others. At the time of this writing, with Zoe at ten years old, the lives of our cast of characters have twisted, turned, and evolved further.

  Where are we all now, and how did we get there?

  BJ

  On February 1st, 2005, a thick, brown envelope came in the mail for BJ from New Horizons. Zoe had been home with us for almost three months and was content as could be and making great progress with her physical therapy. I had taken an eight-week leave from work to be with her, and we were together all the time. Christmas had come and gone, and we were all settling in.

  BJ knew the envelope was coming because a couple days earlier New Horizons had sent a letter saying that they would be forwarding something. A whole stack of mail lay on the kitchen counter, and BJ went over to open it. His parents came over and stood by him as he pulled several letters out of the envelope, along with some photographs that fell to the floor. The three of them picked up the photos and started looking at them.

  “Who are these people?” BJ said, seeming confused.

  “Yeah, there are three boys here,” his mother added. “I thought that she had only one brother.”

  “Well, maybe they’re cousins,” his father chimed in.

  BJ quickly took one of the letters and started reading it, and his parents each took a letter to read as well.

  Then his mother cried out, “Brandi? That’s not the mother’s name! Who’s Brandi?”

  BJ just couldn’t believe it. “Wait a minute,” he said, now looking at one of the photographs, “this isn’t the family that she was with. She’s got another family!”

  He felt sick. They all felt sick and couldn’t believe that no one had told them what had happened.

  As BJ read my letter, his hands were shaking. I had sent three letters to the adoption agency a few months before for them to forward to him, but for some reason, they hadn’t forwarded them until now. In the first letter, dated December 13th, I introduced myself and let him know that we had adopted Zoe. I remember writing how much we had wanted her, and how grateful we were having her as our daughter. I wanted him to know that. I had also included some photographs. In one of them, Zoe was sitting in a swing giggling while Tim pushed her, and in another, she had just finished eating and had Oreos all over her face.

  In the next letter, dated January 3rd, I thanked him and his parents for the stuffed animal and the adorable outfit they had sent Zoe for Christmas via New Horizons, and in the following one, dated January 8th, I sent our regards along with several new photographs of Zoe.

  It was quite a lot to take in at one time. Not hearing from anyone for months, BJ had thought that no news was good news—that Celine was with Sandy and Stephane and doing fine. After seeing their portfolio back when he had visited Celine at New Horizons, BJ had a vision of where she was going and was so relieved that she would be with such a good family. When he and his family found out about her hearing loss and that Sandy was a speech pathologist, they all thought, “She works in a hospital with doctors, and she’ll be so good for her.”

  After BJ finished reading my first letter, he sat down at the kitchen table and read the other two, along with a letter from Marlys explaining that his daughter had gone to a new family. For ten minutes, he just sat there, going back and forth between the letters and photographs and feeling really strange—though he was finding out a “bad thing,” it didn’t seem so bad. Seeing that we were deaf and how happy Zoe was and how well she was doing, he even started thinking that perhaps it was a good thing. Later that day, he was grateful that she was with us and not with a different family.

  It was just such a shock. It had been so hard for him not to fight for Celine in the first place. Then he made a gut-wrenching decision to let her go, only to discover that things hadn’t worked out. Had he known, he felt he would’ve stepped in and said, “This is it. She has a dad right here in Algona who wants her so badly.”

  For two years, BJ was profoundly disappointed in himself and carried around a deep regret for not fighting harder for his little girl. Finally, in October of 2006, when Zoe was two and I drove with her to Algona to meet them, he let go of that feeling.

  Years later, he told me how nervous he had been that day and how he had really wanted to make a good impression on us. He and Zoe spent an entire hour alone together—just running around in the back yard and playing. I can only imagine how healing it must have been for him. He and his family were all such lovely people.

  BJ BRIGGS AND HIS FAMILY CAME TO VISIT. LEFT TO RIGHT: BJ, ANGIE, DALE, JOANN (HOLDING ZOE), ME, AND TIM.

  Before we left, BJ’s father pulled me over to the side and said, “Brandi, I want you to know that you’ve just ended two years of heartache for BJ and our whole family. He no longer feels like he made a mistake.”

  After that, BJ arranged through New Horizons for us to be able to get together on our own. It worked out perfectly because whenever we traveled from Sioux Falls to Minnesota, I let them know and we would meet up. We also began emailing each other, and I’d send him pictures of Zoe that he’d hang all over his refrigerator. To this day, it is covered with her pictures.

  “Zoe helped me to realize that if you’re going to make a decision, then make it,” BJ said, “and if it comes from inside of you, and you feel that it’s right, it’s going to be pretty darn close to being right. The worst that can happen is that somebody will say that you’re wrong.”

  BJ AND ZOE

  As for Marlys, we may never know why she didn’t tell BJ that Sandy and Stephane had relinquished Celine and that she had gone back to foster care. While I can certainly appreciate BJ’s anguish, in a way I believe that what Marlys did turned out to be a blessing. It prevented him from fighting for Zoe all over again, saving him and his family so much extra pain and heartache. And it allowed Zoe to find where she really belonged.

  In the winter of 2012, BJ applied for a license to start his own construction company and named it Zoe Construction. At the time of this writing, BJ is thirty-four, single, and living in Algona, Iowa, about ten miles from his parents. While his busy work schedule has prevented him from seeing Zoe over the past few years, his parents, who think of Zoe as their granddaughter, came to visit us last winter, and it was almost as if BJ were there himself. His love for Zoe fills me with such joy every single day.

  SANDY AND STEPHANE

  About a month before Sandy and Stephane had visited Zoe and me in April of 2005, they received a phone call from Marlys one evening, “There is a baby boy waiting for you. His parents have terminated their rights. It’s done. There’s no waiting time. Nothing is going to take this child away from you. And, by the way, you’ve got to find a name for him by tomorrow. We open our doors at 5:00 AM.”

  Shocked beyond words, they said, “We have a name for a girl but not a boy!” They spent the rest of the evening picking out a name for their new son and decided on Jacques. The next day when they met his birth parents and told them the name they had chosen, his birth parents started crying. “All of the men’s names in our family start with the letter J,” they said. And that was that.

  Thinking about it all, Stephane said, “You could say that God was watching over us, but it was through Marlys. She did it that way on purpose, knowing that we couldn’t go through another adoption ordeal.”

  Jacques has red hair, looks Irish, and is feisty like you won’t believe! He brings out the humor in everyone, and his teachers say that he is so funny he should be in television commercials. In 2006, their family moved from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to Toronto, Canada, and then Stephane took a new job in Boulder, Colorado, in 2011, which entails a lot less travel
. Sandy was very happy about that. She still works as a speech pathologist. Antoine is eleven years old, and Jacques is eight.

  JESS

  After we brought Zoe home, I felt compelled to call New Horizons, asking them to find out if Jess wanted to see Zoe again. I realized that I had been so obsessed with adopting Zoe that I never even stopped to think about how Jess must have felt after all that she had been through, relinquishing her not once but three times. I wanted her to know that Zoe was really fine. She’s growing, thriving, and communicating. I wanted her to see that while we were embracing the fact that she was deaf, we would not let it define her.

  Jess said yes, so Zoe and I drove to Blue Earth, Minnesota, and visited her (and Lois, as well). I brought along some of Zoe’s books; one of them was about farm animals, her favorite. She read it to Jess, signing the names of all the animals.

  I remember sitting in New Horizons that day. Zoe, who was a little over a year old, was standing in her white pants and pink shirt, holding onto the couch. When Jess came into the room and saw her, she immediately leaped toward her, as if her mother’s instincts had taken over, but then she caught herself, realizing that Zoe didn’t know her. It was such a natural reaction, and my heart so went out to her. Appreciating her enthusiasm and wanting to honor her visit with Zoe, I went to buy some milk for Zoe’s sippy cup, giving them some time alone together.

  When I returned a half hour later, I watched the two of them through a two-way mirror so they couldn’t see me. Zoe was sitting on Jess’s lap and playing with her hair. When I finally walked into the room and Zoe saw me, Jess set her down and she ran straight to me, signing, “Mommy, Mommy.”

  I’d always known that Jess had given me an angel, but now I could see how much she loved Zoe and decided that she would always be a part of her life. Also, I didn’t want Zoe to ever wonder about her birth mother. Jess and I began emailing, and over the following year or so, while she was in college, we all saw each other two more times. We met for dinner and went to her dorm room, which was filled with pictures of Zoe all over the walls.

  It’s funny. I remember people asking me back then if I was afraid that Jess would want to take Zoe back, and I always said no, that I knew that I was her mother. The fear in peoples’ minds came from all the negative media hype—of cases years ago where the judge gave back a baby to the birth parents. That doesn’t happen anymore.

  After some time had passed, Jess emailed me, saying that now that Zoe was getting older it was becoming too difficult for her to keep seeing her. It was because she needed to take a break from all the memories and live the college life. She had to find herself again. I understood all too well. Yet, I wanted her to always know where to find us, in case she ever needed to reach out to Zoe, and continued sending her pictures and updates every now and then. In the summer of 2007, when Tim got a promotion at work and we had to relocate to Clearwater, Florida, I let Jess know, just in case she wanted to see Zoe, since it had been a year. She did; so Zoe, Blake, and I went to her father’s house (he had invited his entire family), and we spent the whole day there, having lunch and planting flowers, with her father videotaping the whole thing. Jess cried and cried when we left. We didn’t see her again until three years later in March of 2010, when she visited us in Clearwater on Zoe’s sixth birthday.

  What a day.

  Way before Zoe could comprehend it, I had been telling her this adoption story. I didn’t want there to be a day when I finally “told her”—I wanted her to always know. As a four- and five-year-old, she would tell me that she was in Jess’s tummy and was born and then Jess gave her to me. But now, as a fully grown child, I had no idea how she would react to actually seeing Jess and spending the entire day with her. You teach your children what you feel is important, hoping that when they’re older they’ll embrace it.

  But to see it all come to fruition in one day was overwhelming! I was so proud of Zoe.

  I took Jess to her classroom, and as soon as Zoe saw her, she ran right over and hugged her leg. Jess knelt down and hugged her back and then started crying, of course, as did I. Later in the day, she signed to Jess, “You gave birth to me.” She understood that Jess was her birth mother who gave her life, that I was the mother who was raising her, and that we both loved her very much. At one point, she put her arms around both of us and squeezed us tight, as if to say that she understood.

  It felt so great to see my influence on her, especially concerning something of this magnitude. What a deep thing for a six-year-old to understand, I thought. It just confirmed for me what I had always known—and wanted Zoe to know—that there is enough love to go around for all of us.

  I realize that having an open adoption of this kind may not be right for other adoptive families, but it is right for ours. When I see Zoe embracing who she is and where she came from in such a beautiful way, I see my own self in her and know even more that she is truly my daughter.

  When it came time for Jess to leave, Zoe said, “So long. See you again sometime.”

  We received Jess’s wedding invitation in the summer of 2012, when Zoe was eight, and the following September she and I flew up to Blue Earth, Minnesota, where the wedding was taking place. Zoe was a junior bridesmaid. At the time, I didn’t even know if Jess had realized that it was Zoe who had taught her how to really love someone, but she had. Lois was invited, too.

  Zoe looked darling in her waterfall blue dress that highlighted her golden hair, as she stood with all of the grown-up bridesmaids enveloped in their sea of blue. I had already explained to her that Jess had fallen in love and that she wanted Zoe to be part of the wedding because Jess loved her. Yet, as Zoe walked down the aisle all alone, her air of confidence so palpable I could practically reach out and touch it, I wondered what she was thinking.

  She took her place at the altar with the others and watched quietly as Jess walked down the aisle, a vision of beauty herself draped in white, and then she waited patiently as Jess and her groom, Jerrick, turned and faced the pastor. When he began speaking, Zoe looked to Ann Marie whom we had brought along as her interpreter, so that she could understand.

  “Jessica Lynn,” the interpreter signed, “do you take Jerrick Lee to be your lawful, wedded husband, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?”

  “I do,” Jess said.

  “Then with the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

  After their kiss, the organ pronouncing their way, Jess, before retracing her steps, went over to Zoe, crouched down in front of her and gave her a big hug and then said, “I love you.”

  For me, that hug contained all the love that had brought Zoe to that wonderful place and would surround her in the future. In the winter of 2014, Jess gave birth to a daughter, whom she named Adelynne Zoe. I don’t know when and where we will all see each other again, but I know we will.

  ZOE AND JESS AT JESS’S WEDDING

  THE RARUS’S—BRANDI, TIM, ZOE, BLAKE, CHASE, AND AUSTIN

  It just amazes me how many people tell me that Zoe looks just like me. (These days, we even have our hair cut the same way.) When I explain that we adopted her, they are shocked and say, “But she looks so much like you,” to which I respond, “I know. But it wasn’t my doing, it was God’s.”

  Zoe wants to be like me, and I do my best every day to teach her by example. She sees the way I am in the world, that I am comfortable with both hearing and deaf people. She knows my opinions about things and how Tim and I are both proud of who we are and of our community. She knows that we embrace our Deaf Culture, yet are in no way limited by it. Already, she is so much more comfortable in her own skin than I was at her age.

  A few years ago, when she was six, Zoe and my then-ten-year-old son, Chase, and I were in my bedroom. Chase and I were sitting on the bed talking. Wanting to be included in our conversation, she kept signing, “What are you saying?” but I kept ignoring her because I was totally engrossed in my conversation with Chase. Finally, after
about two minutes, she looked at me hard and signed, “Stop talking and sign!” as fiercely as if she were saying, “Hey, don’t ignore me!”

  Initially, I felt awful, thinking that I, of all people—who knows exactly what it feels like to be excluded—had left her out of the conversation. But then I thought, You go, girl! I felt so proud of her because there she was at six years old, already standing up for herself in a way I never had.

  In the summer of 2011, our family moved from Clearwater back to Austin, Texas, so that Zoe could attend the Texas School for the Deaf (TSD). Just as Camp Mark Seven was an eye-opener for me, TSD was the same for Zoe. Even though she has deaf parents and complete communication at home, she was mainstreamed in Clearwater, so her interaction with deaf adults was limited. However, at TSD, she has deaf teachers and is in an environment that embraces ASL. She has really become Tim’s daughter since attending the school, as she takes great pride in being deaf and in our culture and language. She just loves it there, and Tim and I are so grateful for their program and educators who are so committed to giving deaf children a great education. Zoe plays volleyball and basketball on deaf teams. Her language is continuing to blossom, and we are very proud of her. As of this writing, Zoe is in her third year at TSD and is in the fourth grade. Of course, she is thriving, like I always knew she would. One of her best friends is Skylar, Ann Marie’s adopted daughter from China. They are like two peas in a pod. Skylar is hearing but signs, of course; when need be, she is Zoe’s little interpreter.

  ZOE AND SKYLAR

  Blake is a sophomore in high school, Chase is in eighth grade, and Austin is in sixth. With the city of Austin so deaf friendly and people signing out in the open in most public places, the boys are signing so much better and have a good mix of hearing and deaf friends. They are part of a large Kids of Deaf Adults (KODA) community, and the friends they meet at school and bring home have all taken an interest in learning sign language.