Choosing Hope: Moving Forward from Life's Darkest Hours

by Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis

  If I didn’t know then that I wanted to teach little kids, my mind was certainly made up as I pursued my master’s degree. Kindergarten through third grade was the best. The students were so sweet and funny and eager to learn. Everything is a lightbulb moment for them. One of my favorite stories is from my final semester, when I was interning at the local grade school. Three of us from the master’s program teamed up to help the faculty there implement the concept of High-Order Thinking into their guided reading program for first- through third-graders. High-Order Thinking is a method in which students are asked questions in a way that helps them to dissect and comprehend information and not simply memorize it. Our team project was putting together a small, bound book with focus questions for each area of comprehension. It was interesting work, but I wanted to work with the kids.

  I finally got my wish toward the end of the school year when I was assigned to observe a kindergarten class. I was so excited. One day, the teacher asked me to read a book to the students, and they all gathered in a circle around my chair. I don’t remember the name of the book anymore, but the theme was diversity and acceptance. The message of the story was that we all have similarities and differences, but we are all special, and differences should be celebrated, not judged. Just as I was finishing reading the last page of the book, one little boy’s hand shot up. He was sitting in the front row, so I could hardly miss him. When I didn’t respond immediately, he began to shake his raised hand. He was jumping out of his skin. He really wanted to tell me something. I noticed he was holding the arm of one of his classmates, the only African American child in the class. When I finished reading and finally called on him, he was wide-eyed and breathless. “Miss Roig!” he cried. “Miss Roig! This book is just like our class! Ben is black and everyone else is white!” The other little boy looked down at his arm and his mouth dropped. “Oh my God!” he exclaimed. “I am black!” He was absolutely serious. Until then, he had apparently never noticed he was different from the other kids. It was the most wonderful moment, and such a credit to his parents and his teacher. That’s why I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be part of that kind of world.

  I graduated from the master’s program with honors in 2006. I was twenty-one years old. That fall, I took a long-term subbing job as a reading specialist in Westport, Connecticut, and sent my résumé out to every district that had an elementary school with an opening. The Newtown Public School District was one of the districts that responded, requesting that I apply for a position to teach the fourth grade. I wanted to be a first-grade teacher, but I went to the interview anyway.

  The principal and I hit if off and the next day she called. “I have bad news and good news,” she said. “The bad news is that I hired a teacher who had lots of fourth-grade experience. The good news is a first-grade position has just opened up. Would you like it?”

  I felt like jumping up and down (and maybe I did). “Absolutely!” I cried. “First grade is my dream!” I could hardly believe that my lifelong passion was about to become my purpose. I couldn’t wait to get started.

  CHOOSING YOUR PERSPECTIVE

  “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

  —OSCAR WILDE, Lady Windemere’s Fan

  Kate’s Day

  The way I see it, my entire life prepared me for the journey I am on today. I have always been a positive person. It’s something I hold tightly to, my optimistic outlook on life. I am a glass-half-full kind of person. I smile a lot. I love unabashedly. I feel joy at the slightest things. In many ways, I have the heart of a child, and maybe that’s why my first-graders and I relate so well to one another. I don’t do cynical well. I figured out a long time ago that there’s nothing positive about being negative. I’m not saying there aren’t times that I’m angry or sad or disappointed, because everyone has challenges. The mean girls in school bullied me for being too thin. My heart’s been broken and I’ve lost in love. I’ve grieved the deaths of cherished family members. But I also understand that a rich life means you feel all of the deep emotions, not just the happy ones. Acknowledging anger and sadness and disappointments is the first step in working through the tests that are put in our path. With the good there is bad, and with the bad there is good. That is life. Yet how we look at the day is our choice to make, and I really try to face every encounter by looking for something positive to cling to.

  Perspective is such a powerful tool. It determines the quality of our lives. I’ve known people who seem to have everything, yet they always take the point of view of a pessimist, focusing on what they think they want but don’t have. On the other hand, especially since the tragedy, I’ve met people who are facing wrenching challenges—the death of a child, a terminal illness—and they’ve chosen to set their eyes on whatever light they can find in the world. Those are the kinds of people I want to be around.

  In Letters from My Garden, the French novelist wrote, “You complain about seeing thorny rose bushes; Me, I rejoice and give thanks to the gods.” Although now I have witnessed the worst of mankind, I have chosen to embrace gratitude as a way of focusing on the abundant good in the world and the inherent kindness of people, because that is just as real. I suppose, especially in light of what happened at our school, I could make the tragedy and all of its crushing implications the focal point of my day-to-day living. I could focus on the truths that terrible things happen to us and malevolence exists in the world, the negative over the positive. In fact, I did for weeks after the shootings. But what does that accomplish?

  I think about Stephen Hawking, the renowned physicist who has become progressively disabled with the motor-neuron disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), colloquially called Lou Gehrig’s disease. Hawking is confined to a wheelchair and speaks through a computerized speech synthesizer. His disease has no cure and he needs full-time care, yet his perspective is defined by something he said during one of the many interviews he’s conducted over the years. “When one’s expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does,” he is quoted as saying. Maybe that’s why he’s lived literally decades past doctors’ diagnoses that he’d be dead within two and a half years. How easy would it be for him to get stuck in the negative and be bitter over what has been taken from him? And how would that impact the life he has left? Instead, Hawking has chosen to be grateful for what he can still do, and he continues to make huge contributions to science.

  I learned about the possibility of perspective at a very early age and it shaped the way I look at everything. I am adopted, which is one of those life events that can produce a jumble of emotions, both good and bad. I was a little girl, between three and four years old, when my parents sat me down on our deck one summer evening and told me. Mom recalls that the conversation took place just before dinner. Dad was still in his suit from work, and we all sat down for crackers and cheese and drinks (mine was always a glass of tonic, which I thought was very grown-up!) as we always did. I was sitting on my mom’s lap, enjoying my pre-dinner snack, when she spoke up.

  “Kaitlin, you are adopted,” she said. (That’s my mom, straight to the point, no frills. I love that about her.) “Do you know what that means?”

  “No,” I said, sipping my drink.

  My parents went on to explain it to me. A very nice lady had actually given birth to me, they said. But when I was still a tiny baby I had come to live with them because they had more love in their hearts than they knew what to do with and they wanted to share it with me. They asked if I had any questions and I shook my head “no.” That was pretty much that. Mom said I seemed unfazed by the whole thing. What could have been an earth-shaking moment played out like an ordinary family conversation. I’ve since read that that’s a pretty normal reaction for a child that age.

  As I got a little older and began to understand better about how my life began, I instinctively felt grateful to my parents for bringing me into their lives and loving me
the way every child deserves to be loved, and also to my birth mother for giving me the opportunity to have the parents I do. I truly believe that God meant for us to be together, and that with them was where I was supposed to be. I’m not sure why I’ve always looked at my adoption as a gift.

  At first, I was probably too young to process that there was an alternative to my way of thinking, so I followed the lead of my parents, and they were always open and positive about it. Later I just accepted it as a footnote in the larger narrative of my life.

  I know it’s not uncommon for adoptees to grieve the loss of their birth parents, and to feel abandoned, rejected, and as though they are not good enough, because if the person who gave birth to you didn’t love you enough to keep you, then who would? I understand how someone can go down that road. But for me, gratitude was the great healer. I’d always just assumed that my birth mother’s reasons for giving me up were based in her own selflessness, and her love for me, and her wish for me to have the kind of life she felt she couldn’t provide, but I never really knew why she did, and I didn’t dwell on it. Whenever I did think about my birth mother, I chose to think of her as a blessing.

  For most of my life, I didn’t know anything about her or the circumstances that led to my being put up for adoption. All I knew was that I was born on Halloween in 1983 and spent the next few weeks with a caretaker until my birth mother’s legal right to change her mind expired, and I was finally free to be adopted. It was only much later that I learned she’d written letters to the adoption agency and the courts waiving her right to the waiting period so that I could move on to my permanent home, but the law is the law.

  My adoptive parents finally got to take me home in the early afternoon of December 23 when I was almost two months old. (I reference them as “adoptive” for the purpose of clarity. They are my parents.) They named the day Kate’s Day, which we still celebrate today. They were my saviors and I was theirs. That’s really where my story begins, when I went home with my parents. Ironically, my dad’s mother, who lived with my parents toward the end of her life, had passed away in her sleep only hours before my homecoming. When they arrived home with me at around 1:00 that afternoon and waited for their family members to arrive to meet the new baby girl, my parents held me and wept. “Are these tears of happiness or sorrow?” my father asked. My parents agreed that they were both. One life ends, another begins. What a bittersweet moment it was for my mom and dad, suffering the loss of a beloved parent at the same time they were receiving the child they had wanted for so long. Yet even in their grief, my parents found room for joy.

  My dad said on that first night I slept in a bassinet at the foot of their bed and they got almost no sleep, listening to my breathing. On my second day home, they decided to give me my first bath. Instructions on how to bathe your newborn were strewn over the kitchen counter. Dad placed a small tub in the kitchen sink and Mom began to read him the directions. Lay out a towel and a clean diaper . . . Make sure the room is warm so your baby doesn’t catch a chill . . . Fill the tub with two to three inches of water and test the water temperature on the inside of your wrist . . . Slip your baby into the water feetfirst. Check. Check. Check. Check. While Mom observed, Dad bathed me. When they were finished, they wrapped me in a cozy blanket, “proud as peacocks,” Dad says, that they’d succeeded at their first task as parents. The moment passed when they suddenly realized they’d forgotten to use soap. They were off to a rocky start, but at least they were able to laugh about it.

  What wonderful, loving people my parents are, although as different as night and day. Mom is stoic. She doesn’t wear her emotions on her sleeve, but she’s the kindest woman I know and she’d do anything for anyone. She rarely expresses her feelings with words, but she’s always made me feel more loved than anyone else on earth. Everything my mom does, she does quietly, whether it’s work for her church, or volunteering at a soup kitchen, or coming to school with me during our first week back after the tragedy. Her actions speak for her giving nature. Dad, on the other hand, has emotions oozing from his pores. He’s all warmth and affection, which he expresses with words and great big bear hugs. You don’t have to ask how he’s feeling, because he always tells you. He’s as open and outgoing as Mom is guarded and reserved. Even politically they fall at opposite ends of the spectrum. Dad’s a conservative Republican. Mom’s a liberal Democrat. (That made for some interesting dinner conversations. “You’re voting for who?”)

  I know that nobody’s life is picture perfect, but my childhood was pretty close. I grew up on a dead-end street in a middle-class neighborhood in Connecticut with lots of kids my age to play with. During the warmer months I was always outside, riding my bike, or climbing around in my tree house, or playing games such as SPUD (which is kind of like ball tag) or capture the flag (where the goal is to capture the opposing team’s hidden flag). I’d stay out for hours, until Dad showed up on the front porch with his plastic whistle to call me in for dinner. I loved being an only child and having my parents all to myself. They both doted on me.

  Saturday mornings were father-daughter time. While Mom gardened or did household chores, Dad and I ran errands, dropping off the recycling, gassing up the car (only at Mobil, that was Dad’s rule), picking up groceries (and always two Almond Joys—one for him, one for me). On the way back home we’d pass a McDonald’s and Dad always stopped and ordered a large fries and two apple pies, my favorites, all for me. Mom wasn’t a shopper, so sometimes Dad would take me to the mall and give me an allowance to spend. (I prided myself on making the most of the money and, even as a little kid, I always picked through the sale and clearance racks, looking for a steal.) Dad was always so much fun to be around.

  Mom was a nurturer. Whenever I was hurt or upset, she held me on her lap to comfort me. When I woke up frightened in the middle of the night, she crawled into bed with me (once, for two months straight!). When I needed a good talking-to, Mom would do it, and when I needed help with homework, that was Mom, too. Every night after dinner, we sat together at the dining room table as she patiently went over my school assignments with me. Mom studied English in college, and she was a stickler for grammar and spelling. Still is. She showed me the right way to do things, but I had to do my own work. I remember trying to learn the states and capitals. I just couldn’t get it right. Mom finally bought flashcards, and every night we’d go over and over them. I could fidget and complain all I wanted, but Mom wouldn’t budge. “We need to get this done,” she’d say, calmly, but in a way so I knew I wouldn’t win. “It might take some time, but we’ll work on it together until you get it.” Education was as important in our household as practicing proper manners. Even my place mat was a map, so that while I was eating my breakfast, I might learn something. Looking back, and especially now as I teach, I understand there was a method to Mom’s madness and I’m grateful that she taught me the value of learning. But at the time, all I really wanted to do was go outside and ride my bike.

  Our extended family included my dad’s brother and his wife and my mom’s family. My mom is the oldest of five sisters, and they were all very close. I have three cousins on my mother’s side and, growing up, we were more like siblings. Every summer, mom and her sisters rented a beach house, usually in Cape Cod or Maine or on the New Jersey shore, and we’d all spend time there. We celebrated birthdays and anniversaries and graduations and holidays together, whenever we could. Holidays were family days. Mom had Thanksgiving at our house. Easter was at one of my aunts’ homes and Christmas was always at my grandparents’ place. We were a tight-knit group and I never felt as though I was anything other than a whole part of it. Even many years later, when my birth mother sought me out and I finally met her, nothing about that changed. But more about that later. A family is bound, not by blood but by love. That is one of the great lessons my parents taught me, one I likely would not have learned had it not been for the decision by my birth mother to let me go.

  But perhaps
the most profound lesson I got from my parents, and the one that has carried me through the most difficult chapters of my life, is that your outlook determines how you react to everything. You can curse the rainy day or appreciate the beautiful flowers that result from it, they said.

  I can’t imagine giving a child a greater gift than that.

  8 Snowberry Lane

  Growing up, I spent hours sitting at the top of the staircase at my grandparents’ house, staring down at a picture that hung in the middle of the wall on the landing below. The picture was a half-moon on a black background. Sometimes when I looked at it I saw the moon. Other times, a woman’s face stared back at me. What I eventually came to realize was that what I saw depended on my perspective. On what set of eyes I was looking through on that particular day. Did I want to see the moon, or was I looking for the woman? What I sought was what I saw.

  That picture now hangs next to the door in my home. I look at it every time I come and go. Not only is the picture a constant reminder of happy times from childhood, and my wonderful grandparents, but it is also a reminder of the precious family values I might not have learned had my parents not invited me into their family.

  My grandparents’ house on Snowberry Lane in Wilton, Connecticut, was tucked away on a leafy cul-de-sac, next to a stream that I played in. It was a big brick and cedar shake colonial with white shutters and a screened porch on the side. The porch was my favorite spot. I loved the white wicker furniture with baby-blue cushions that were fashioned after the outside décor at the Breakers resort hotel in Palm Beach, my grandmother’s favorite getaway. As a child, I spent countless hours on that porch, sitting in my very own child’s version of the wicker chairs, eating my lunch, or coloring, or reading my favorite books (Curious George or Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle when I was very young; Matilda and Harriet the Spy as I got a little older; then I turned into an adolescent and I was “too cool” to read). It was such a quiet, peaceful spot that sometimes even a slight summer breeze sounded as loud as a swarm of bees.