Salon.com > Beth Broeker

Life after near-death

Mon, 18 Dec 2000 20:27:00 +0000

In a quiet courtroom in Phoenix, a mother is speaking softly into a microphone. The court reporter, who is sitting 2 feet away, can't hear her.

"Can you speak up, please? I need to hear everything you say and you're not loud enough."

The mother looks down. Her eyes fill with tears. "Do I have to talk about this?"

"I'm sorry, but yes you do," the judge says.

The mother, Danielle, is going to tell us what happened the night, more than a year ago, that her infant son, Thomas, was nearly murdered. This hearing isn't ostensibly about Thomas; it's about his new baby sister, Karina. But for most of us here, it is about Thomas, his massive head trauma, his kidney failure, his blindness, his constant diarrhea, his relentless pain.

Karina was born this summer, about three months after the court placed a "Do not resuscitate" order on her brother because the violence done to him had left him in constant danger of physical failure that would be excruciatingly painful -- and impossible to reverse. Thomas' was a terminal diagnosis and the DNR gave some assurance that he could die quickly when the time came.

Richard knows best

Thu, 24 Aug 2000 19:32:00 +0000

Richard Hatch, the duplicitous schemer who created the alliance on "Survivor" and went home Wednesday with a $1 million prize, was on "Dateline NBC" the other night, talking about the child abuse charges against him -- how upsetting it's been, how his community has demonized him, how he is viewed as a "psycho dad."

It's all so unfair, says Richard, so easy to explain. Folks just need all the facts, the gory details.

You see, Richard's son is not his biological child. In fact, explains our hero, this boy was a very troubled 7-year-old foster child when, a few years ago, Richard took him in and eventually adopted him. Before his "Survivor" adventure, Richard had his son on a strict diet and exercise regimen, because he (like his adoptive dad) tends to be overweight.

When Richard returned from "Survivor" he found his previously healthy, happy son to be sullen and fat. "Eureka!" he thought. "This kid needs exercise!" And off they went, to resume their 4:30 a.m. six-mile runs. Only junior wasn't very happy about it, and told his teachers that his father roughed him up when he refused to run any farther. Richard was arrested, and his son was put into a state-supervised shelter (though he has since returned to live with Richard).

Picking parents for Joshua

Tue, 22 Aug 2000 19:30:00 +0000

I feel sneaky and invasive, but titillated, as I read these files. They are better than the best fiction. Thick folios of unexpurgated personal narrative, they are full of crises overcome, life-changing regret and thinly disguised hostility. There are sweetly unabashed plot points of intense joy, unapologetic pride and revelation. I read about drug abuse, marital problems, financial instability, mental illness. I also read about dog pedigrees, children's swim meets and spelling competitions, job promotions, success in the stock market and a mother's gourmet cooking hobby.

The information is, for the most part, either too shocking (Grandma committed suicide at age 47), too private (after four years of therapy, dad is finally conquering his obsessive-compulsive disorder), or too mundane (little brother Jimmy loves Elmo and Barney) for the principals to share with anyone outside of family. But it is all laid out for me, a complete stranger, on crisp white papers with the occasional Xeroxed photo to illustrate an achievement, a catastrophe or piece of ordinary life.

Stalked by my birth mother

Mon, 08 May 2000 16:00:00 +0000

I really hate those television shows that feature reunions between adult adoptees and their birth parents. The Learning Channel's entry in this tear-stained derby, a show called "Reunion," is the worst. In each episode, they plod through years of buildup and anticipation, tugging heartstrings with murky photos of the biological parent when they relinquished their child and baby pictures of the adoptee. We see letters that were never sent and arty footage of each person staring dreamily out a window. Inevitably, it all culminates with a tearful reunion, garnished with roses and balloons.

It's not that I'm completely unsentimental. But those shows irritate me because they have motivated a generation of adult adoptees and birth parents to believe in that perfect reunion -- the meeting that will fill all the voids in their lives, resolve all of their feelings of inadequacy, assuage all their guilt.

In fact, this image of divine reconciliation has fueled the voters and lawmakers of a growing number of states to amend adoption laws to allow adoptees access to their original birth certificates or their adoption records. A countermovement, comprising mostly birth mothers who entertain no fantasies about meeting the children they gave up for adoption, has grown in response, creating a deadlock on the issue, mostly in court.

Letting go of Thomas

Tue, 25 Apr 2000 16:00:00 +0000

The cramped juvenile courtroom is full of people and ice cold from the air conditioning. Thirteen of us, including six attorneys, are assembled to learn the decision that will determine Thomas' fate.

There was some early drama before we all entered the courtroom, when Thomas' parents showed up with two little girls in tow. Could the girls come in the courtroom? Where would they go if they couldn't? But then it was agreed that if they sat very quietly on the back bench, they could come in.

The caseworker and I exchange raised eyebrows, alarmed that parents held responsible in juvenile court for nearly murdering their infant son are now watching someone else's children. But we are powerless to do anything about it, since there are still no criminal charges.

The judge enters and we all rise. The bailiff records everyone's presence: the parents, with separate attorneys; the caseworker, with two lawyers from the Attorney General's Office; the guardian ad litem, who is an attorney appointed for Thomas; the two little girls; the judge; and me. I am the 1-year-old boy's court-appointed special advocate.

Life as a fate worse than death

Thu, 30 Mar 2000 17:00:00 +0000

The intensive care unit of Phoenix Children's Hospital is a remarkably cheerful place, considering the sadness it sees each day. The rooms are decorated by local college students with construction paper cutouts that herald the upcoming season. Today the theme is Valentine's Day hearts and cupids, with X's and O's scrawled across them in crayon.

I am here to visit Thomas, who will be 1 year old on Saturday. The steel bars in his crib are decorated with bright helium balloons, and the crib is crowded with stuffed teddy bears, rabbits and Teletubbies, all gifts from his foster family.

Thomas is asleep now, sedated, because he had been awake and crying for nearly 24 hours. He cries constantly when he's awake because his pain is so severe. His internal organs were, as his doctors phrased it, lacerated. The medical report says that the injuries to his abdomen are the kind that usually come from being kicked or punched, or from being in a violent car crash. His skull was fractured, and he suffered a brain injury that left him blind. He was legally dead for a while, but the doctors brought him back. When his parents first learned the extent of his injuries, they decided to take him off life support. He lived.

A child shoots a child

Mon, 13 Mar 2000 17:00:00 +0000

Last night, I watched "Wild Rescues" on Animal Planet TV. A family of four pilot whales had beached themselves off the coast of Florida, and 100 people a day volunteered to stand in waist-deep water to hold the enormous mammals up off the ocean floor so they could heal, so they wouldn't lie down in the mud and suffocate. They did it for weeks, until the whales were able to survive on their own.

Two weeks ago, 6-year-old Kayla Rolland was shot and killed by a first-grade classmate. The child who fired the gun found it at "home," which happened to be a crack house where a second gun and drugs were found. The boy lived there with an uncle who was supposed to be caring for the child after the boy's father went to jail and his mother was evicted.

Immediately after the killing, there were some perfunctory expressions of pity and a resurrection, now almost reflexive, of the gun debate: Kids shouldn't have them; guns should have safety latches; schools should have metal detectors even for kids who are 6 years old.

But where were the 100 volunteers -- before or after the tragedy? Where were the people who recognized this boy's misery, who would hold him so that he might heal, so that he wouldn't suffocate from neglect?

Damaged goods

Thu, 24 Feb 2000 17:00:00 +0000

Earlier this month, the parents of murderer
Jeremy Strohmeyer filed a $1 million lawsuit
against Los Angeles County and four county adoption
workers, complaining that the adoption workers
failed to inform them about his biological mother's
history of mental illness.

Strohmeyer, 21, was convicted in 1998 for the May
1997 murder of 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson, whom he
had lured into a casino rest room while playing a
game of hide-and-seek. The murder was quick and
brutal. A security camera recorded Strohmeyer
entering the rest room with Sherrice and exiting
without her. He immediately confessed to his best
friend, and later to a judge.

He was sentenced to four life terms with no
possibility of parole. He has since recanted his
confession, but he lost his bid to withdraw his
guilty plea and take the case to trial.

At the time of his sentencing, the fact that
Strohmeyer was adopted became a huge issue for
public discourse, as talk shows debated whether
adopted children are more or less likely than
biological children to be emotionally unstable or
to commit heinous crimes.

Goodbye forever

Mon, 07 Feb 2000 17:00:00 +0000

Today I watched a woman give up her child.

By "watched," I mean that I sat in an agency
conference room at a table with the mother and her family as she signed the papers to
relinquish her child to the state. There was no scene like you might expect -- the caseworker
tearing the child from the mother's arms, the mother collapsing to the floor in hysterics as her
child was carried away. No, the mother sobbed silently as she signed four copies of a series of
papers that said that she would no longer have any rights whatsoever to her child.

As much as
I've wanted this for the child, it was distressing to witness -- an event so packed with meaning,
yet plagued with the familiar trivialities of buying a car or a house. The caseworker read each
page out loud before allowing the mother to sign. After she signed, the mother slid the paper
down the table for me and an agency employee to sign as witnesses. The notary sitting next to
me then stamped and dated each page.