Happy Endings

Scrolling through all the stories I missed while not listening to the radio this weekend, I purposely skipped over the story about aid workers abusing children and adults in refugee camps. I think someone else can take the hit on that one.

Instead, I listened to this wonderful story about children writing essays about their favorite literary characters. I will warn you now that it is a long story and you have to wade through a lot of children before you get to the main event, Mark.

Mark likes Squirrel... a stray dog who goes through many adventures before being taken in by a loving family. This is just the smallest snippet, to whet your appetite; or to satiate if you don't have time to listen.

Martin says Squirrel finds out just how resilient she is through the course of the story.

"As she finds her way through wintertime, through cruel owners, cruel people that she meets along the way, she also discovers that she is a stronger dog then she thought she was," Martin says. "You have to be a strong animal — and a smart one — to be able to survive."

"Squirrel and I kept going because we knew there was a family waiting for us out there somewhere in the real world," says Mark in his essay.

Literacy coach Mary Turner, who helped Mark write about Squirrel, points out that while he and his canine hero both had to deal with unhappy situations, Mark was very clear that he wanted to tell a story about hope.

"Both of our stories have happy endings," writes Mark. "Two months ago, I was adopted into a loving family, and at the end of the book a nice lady adopted Squirrel."

If you haven't guessed, Mark was in the foster care system and recently adopted.

As you may know, I am on the board of an adoption agency and plan to grow my family (someday) by adopting kids (as many as I can) like Mark.

Some of the other folks on the board get really upset when people are more interested in adopting pets than adopting children. I believe that the people who feel that strongly about rescuing and adopting pets feel much the same way we feel about wanting all children to become a part of a forever family. Hearing Mark talk about his struggle to find the right fit and remembering the struggles so many children our agency has helped, the tears welled in my eyes.
There is great strength in this story, both the fictional story about Squirrel and the non-fiction story about Mark... and in the stories of the many wonderful (and challenging and deserving) children and youth we have helped to find forever families. It is remarkable to feel the strength, the tenacity and the resiliency.

One last bit you have to read from Mark's essay:

"But we knew there was a family out there waiting for us, so we never gave up," Mark says. Reading about another creature's struggle to find a good fit, he says, "kind of made me feel happy because I'm not the only one.

As you can imagine, Mark's story has touched many people. You can join the conversation here.

If you want to know more about the agency, you can find us here.

Here's the book that inspired Mark.