The
Gift of a Loving
Family
Karen Johnson was just 10
months old, and the youngest of nine children, when her mother died. The father, at the time, was serving a jail sentence for
abandoning the family, leaving the children to fend for themselves.
Wanting to keep the family
together, the oldest teens took turns skipping school to take care of the
younger children. The children survived for nearly a year on their own
with only their determination and what financial help the oldest, a
21-year-old brother, Larry, could provide. As hard as he tried, Larry
could not keep the family together. With great regret, he contacted a
local social service agency. He felt that the health of the children was
in jeopardy and he feared they were starving.
The oldest children became
emancipated adults. Some were sent to northern Minnesota to work on farms,
and the younger ones were placed individually in foster care homes. Karen
lived in a variety of foster homes. At age five, she was placed in the
care of Lutheran Social Service and adopted by a family.
"In foster homes, I had been
well cared for by some families and abused and neglected by others," Karen
said. "At the lowest point, I was locked in a
basement for more than a day. I learned to hoard food and, by age five, I
was
very manipulative and fiercely independent."
"When I was officially placed
in the care of Lutheran Social Service, my life greatly improved. My new
parents were chosen well for me. As a child with no sense of security and
an understandably independent nature, I needed, and got, parents with a
strong will and a great desire to help me overcome those early years. I
lived a very normal, ordinary childhood, with a strong sense of structure,
and am grateful for it every day."
When Karen was 15 years old,
she and her adoptive mother connected again with Lutheran Social Service
to talk with a counselor, Ann Chartrand. "Ann helped answer the many
questions I had as a young teen, including the circumstances that brought
me to adoption and how different I looked from my adoptive family."
" Ann was so sensitive," Karen
added. "She had a description of my birth mother that mirrored my
appearance. She also filled me in on the details of those early years. I
was greatly comforted to know that my family had not abused me and to
learn all they had gone through to protect me and to take care of me.
Instead of being unwanted, unloved, and removed from my family, I learned
I had been loved, and that I had come from a nice family that had tried to
stay together, under the worst of circumstances. It was only one visit
with Ann, but handled with great care, and I felt much better because of
it."
Four years ago, Karen
undertook an Internet search to find her birth-siblings, with the blessing
of her adoptive parents. Within nine days, she had found her family
members and had made plans to attend a family reunion that summer in
Detroit Lakes, Minn.
Although meeting all of these
brothers and sisters and their families was daunting, Karen and her family
were pleased to discover that this new extension of their family was full
of wonderful people! In spite of the hardships they had all experienced
following their mother's death, all of the children had grown into
pleasant, married people with children and grandchildren, good jobs, and a
strong Christian faith. Hearing all of their stories at the reunion helped
Karen to see that she had fared better than most of them; her difficult
days had ended after her adoption.
The most touching moment at
the reunion was when Karen met Larry for the first time. Larry threw his
arms around her and, sobbing, asked for her forgiveness. He had been the
one to call social services, and never knew if he had made a mistake and
put her in harm's way by doing so. He was relieved to learn, after almost
40 years of worry, that she had eventually been placed in a loving,
adoptive family.
Besides the amazing resilience
of each child, Karen and her family say that God's grace and the
determination of the older siblings helped them through extraordinary
hardships and brought them all back together. The other children had all
been reunited for many years, and had tried many times to find Karen. When
she made that first tentative phone call to reconnect, the family was,
once again, complete.
The adoption story continues.
Karen and her husband, Jay, live in Maple Grove and are adoptive parents
to Jacob, 13, and Will, age 8. Karen's positive experience with adoption
made it an easy choice for her and Jay when, after years of infertility,
they needed to seek other options. They entered the adoption process,
leaving it to God's hands to assemble their family. As a result, they have
two lively boys and are a happy foursome.
As parents, Karen and Jay want
to pass on to their children the stable and nurturing love of a family
that they both knew - Jay from a traditional family, and Karen from one
that was far from traditional.
