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A family's year of thankfulnessEditor's note: A year ago, John and Carole Towriss chronicled their overseas adoption of two infants -- Johnny and Dara -- in a CNN.com series called "The New Americans." When last heard from, the new family returned home to the Washington area from their adoption trip to Kazakhstan and celebrated Thanksgiving. Of course, the story didn't end there. A year later, here is an update.
By John Towriss
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- First, let's catch up on the babies. Johnny and Dara have developed into cute, and yes ornery, toddlers who can walk, climb, talk a little and get into just about everything. They are a study in opposites. Dara, now 19 months old, has grown quite literally off the charts and is only two pounds lighter than her 4-year-old sister, Mira, with whom she shares the same shoes. Johnny, now 18 months old, started out small and, while beginning to catch up, is still a lithe, wiry, little guy who seems about the right size for laps and shoulders. Over the past year, their personalities have gravitated toward opposite ends of the spectrum as well. Johnny's persona is like a meteor shower that grabs you with its brightness, overwhelms you with its dazzle and moves at a light speed that pulls you along in its wake. He takes to everyone, hugs total strangers, flirts with all Carole's girlfriends and has learned to pucker and kiss us with great smooches. But Johnny is as demanding as he is gregarious, and he has also learned to say "mine" and throw quite a tantrum when he doesn't get his way. One of Johnny's favorite activities is to climb on Daddy's lap when a ball game is on and hold the remote control. Perhaps the men-TV remote connection is somehow innate ... a scary thought! Dara on the other hand is like a beautiful vine growing on a garden trellis. She lives life at an unhurried pace, takes time to think about things and is more deliberate in her learning. She doesn't smile as often but will look deep into your eyes and give hugs with real affection. While she doesn't dazzle people on first meeting like Johnny, she has a sweet way about her that slowly wraps itself around you and invariably wins you over. We have friends that stop by just to see Dara. But Dara also has a real mischievous streak. One of her favorite tricks is to take a toy from Johnny and then run away, giggling as Johnny gives chase. It never upsets Dara when the speedier Johnny catches her and takes the toy back. It seems enough for Dara that she created the fun of the chase. What have we learned? Well, in adopting Johnny and Dara, we not only provided our two daughters -- Mira and 9-year-old Emma -- with a new set of siblings, but also unknowingly discovered a statistical math model that would stump an MIT grad. We instantly doubled the number of children in our house, but somehow we quadrupled the work required and multiplied by 10 the amount of noise and chaos in the house. Fortunately, this new math also produced a countless number of moments that were enlightening, full of discovery and, well frankly, just downright fun. The final statistical count at our house reads like this: six people, four children, three adopted, three ethnicities. It will be a fun day when the Census Bureau worker shows up at our house in 2010. We just might require our own new category. Then, there is the damage report. The list of broken ceramics, bent or torn pictures, crayon-colored walls, lost remote controls and mismatched clothing sets reads like an insurance list after a hurricane. Of course, we "child-proofed" our house, but in our world of four children we've learned that child-proof is more a concept than an attainable reality. Hard choices, big changesThe year has brought some difficult decisions and significant changes necessary for our growing family. Emma and Mira have accepted Johnny and Dara well, and there are times when the four playing together in unison can do things so hilarious that Carole and I are doubled over in glee. Yet there are underlying concerns. The two babies have taken a lot of attention -- sometimes all our attention -- and there has been less time for Emma and Mira. At times, Emma and Mira have struggled to understand that Carole and I love them just as much as before. And Carole and I have struggled to find ways to show this to them. In another difficult decision, I left my job at CNN in December after two decades in the news business. As much as I loved the work, the unpredictable and sometimes demanding hours of 24-hour news seemed ill-fitted for a family that I believe will require my consistent presence and diligence to shepherd properly. But perhaps most significant has been a substantial transformation in outlook --increasingly seeing the world through the eyes of my children. Given the variety of ethnic heritage in my family, I find that I pay more attention to the events of the world and sometimes worry how they might someday affect the children's understanding of their past and future. As articles have surfaced in our local papers noting the increasing diversity of our community, I find that I welcome the trend. I don't know that I would have seen it that way before our adoptions. A new view of the worldBecause of my children, I have been given a new prism by which to view racism. I've seen it firsthand, think about it often and have begun to notice the subtle nuances and innuendoes so prevalent in parts of our society. I've learned that life's memories rarely come back to us as a "movie" with smooth-flowing action but rather as snapshots -- frozen moments that have seared their image and set the mileposts of our journey.
So, as we come upon a particularly poignant holiday for my family, it is perhaps appropriate that I find myself lost in a moment of reflection as a cascade of the year's images floods my heart and mind. As the holidays, vacations and simple moments of everyday life go by, I am overwhelmed again and again with a central theme. The formation of my family has been a defining moment in my life. It has simply changed everything. It has changed my view of the world. It has changed my involvement in community. It has changed my concept of family. It has changed my ideas about fatherhood. And it has brought humility with thankfulness and changed my view of where I fit. A year ago, I noted that a final lesson of our trip had taught me that it was not my children but rather I who had found redemption through adoption. That work is far from complete, but now a year later, I realize that each day, I have four reminders that the world is a bigger place than just me. In fact, I've come to believe that any legacy I would hope to leave my children will have little to do with anything I've accomplished and everything to do with the values and time I have invested in Emma, Mira, Dara and Johnny. So for now, I'll remember the cluttered house, messy kitchen and nights of little sleep, but I'll also savor each of those special moments when we laughed and learned and simply became the Towriss family. It's been a great year. John Towriss was a journalist and executive at CNN for 21 years. He left CNN in December 2001 and is now senior vice president at the McGinn Group -- a strategic consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at Towriss@aol.com.
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