Exactly one year ago…

The social worker is melted into my vintage sofa with an ease that tells a story of a thousand visited sofas. She scribbles manically in her notebook. A small athletic sprite in her forties, her nearly black shoulder length hair is a well controlled chaos of tight natural curls. Black framed glasses, perched at the edge of her nose, restore the credibility that the wool-socked feet curled beneath her may try to steal.

Jesse is twitching nervously beside me. But only because this is what Jesse does. He is not really nervous about this woman sitting before us with so much power to affect our lives. The power to say yes or no. He just is nervous energy. But he laughs easily when telling her the details of our unusual lives. We are not afraid of who we are.

By now we have learned it is this very strangeness that causes people to like us.

 

Melissa, tell me about where you were born… tell me about your parents… tell me about your childhood…

My mother, a free spirit. Raised in Hollywood high society, her own mother was a busy actress and model, her father a cold distant film producer. A life of country clubs and nannies and being seen but not heard.

She was the wild youngest child. The smallest and the boldest, as per the usual combination. A head-strong little hippie that knew exactly who she was and never conformed to expectations. She never loved money or position the way she was supposed to.

My father, neurotic and creative and animated. Born and raised in Burbank. His family owned the biggest mortuary in Los Angeles and he was supposed to take over the business. But one night, as a teen boy, while working late and alone, one of the bodies, as he tells it, suddenly sat up and burped.

And that was that.

He had an extraordinary aptitude for art however. Straight out of high school he started working at Walt Disney studios in the mail room. Soon he was leaning over the desks of the animators and story board artists, showing them what he could do. Before long he was one of them. Never went to a day of college in his life, but became very successful and well-known in the industry, working for the top animation companies in LA, making cartoons the good old-fashioned way. When every scene sliver was carefully drawn and colored by hand and then animated into the next. This is how he supported the family my entire life.

 

Van Nuys, California. December, 1981. A white colonial on Norton Street.

A planned home birth. My mother, age 22. Her first child. Father, age 36. His fourth child, third daughter. They had both wanted a girl. My mother had my name chosen since she was twelve years old. Melissa Lyn.

 

My little brother came eighteen months later. Bridger Carson, named for the scouts that first explored the southwest region we came from. And I was reportedly fascinated by this little person. Smitten.

 

Our little family was complete. And we were so very happy.

But our parents wanted to escape the city they both grew up in. My dad had always dreamed of owning a ranch and my mom had never fit into the Hollywood mold she was born into. They bought a 120 acre farm in a small town in Northern Minnesota and promptly fled to its other-worldly serenity.

I had gone to preschool in California, but we moved to our farm right before I started Kindergarten. I had never seen so many white kids in one room before in my life. At first I did not know I was one of them. And the teacher did not always understand my slight Spanglish. You have to go caca? What does that even mean? And I did not always understand Northern Minnesotan. What the heck is a Pellow?… This is NOT a salad! There’s mayonnaise and noodles in it! 

 

Farm life suited all of us. We were one with the land.

  

We swam in ponds, dissected dead animals we stumbled upon, went barefoot, climbed every tree, built forts and teepees, collected chicken eggs, rode horses, fed cows, took care of abandoned lambs, wandered for hours and were still in our own yard, ran home to the dinner bell, planted huge gardens and ate a lot of meat. It was bliss.

My mother was warm, attentive, fun, carefree, stormy, and wild.

 

My father was protective, neurotic, artistic, funny, animated, intuitive, and gentle.

There was a great deal of healthy physical affection, hugs, kisses, sitting on laps, wrestling, and holding onto each other. There was a great deal of spirit, sometimes volatile, often jovial, always boisterous. There was church and community. There was tucking in every night, prayer every day, and I Love Yous at every goodbye. Discipline was balanced and we respected our parents. We trusted them. And my parents really loved each other.

 

Life was just right growing up at Rural Route 2, Box 148 in McGregor, Minnesota in the 1980’s and 90’s. I just couldn’t have been happier with the life they chose and created for us.

  

 

The social worker nods impartially as I tell her my story. She writes non-stop, pausing to ask questions only once in a while. She is warm and friendly. I feel completely at ease.

Though in the back of my mind I feel the imminent approach of The Subject looming. I mean, how do I tell this woman, someone I am trying to convince to give me someone else’s lost child, about the time I lost one of my own kids? How does one feel completely at ease in a long interview process when words like child endangerment and Child Protective Services must be uttered about two-thirds of the way in?

Consciously I am unafraid. I know that enough time has passed. I know the story is more complex and not so black and white. I know I am a good mother and the previous ten years of my life are a spotless picture of stability, at least on paper. But a whisper of unworthiness still sits on the edge of my periphery. And I do not even know it is there.

But I do not have to go there quite yet.

 

 

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