Today I had the pleasure of meeting a woman named Kelly. Kelly is a woman in her mid 40's who is disabled and suffers from cronic pain. Kelly has 3 children, a son in his 20's, a daughter in her early 20's and a son who is 15. Now you are probably wondering why would AK adopt this family. Let me tell you why. Kelly was in an abusive relationship with the kids father for many years. She told me that he was physically abusive to the children and her daughter told me that he was mentally abusive to Kelly. She was finally able to escape from him 8 years ago and it has taken her a while to realize her self worth.
Kelly's oldest son lives on his own, her daughter lives with Kelly to help her with her 15 yr old Autistic son, Lucas. Kelly's son Lucas is over 6' tall and looks like a man but has the mentality of a 4-5 year old little boy. When looking for families we don't usually look at ages, and maybe we were a little concerned about adopting this family. Not anymore.
After spending a couple hours with Kelly and her daughter, who came along to help mom shop, you would have thought that they were talking about a 4 year old. Lucas likes to run around in his underwear and he will only wear t-shirts, he loves superhero toys, Spiderman, Ninja Turtles, Jake the Pirate, and will only play with certain types of toys. They cannot be to big or too small and they told me many things that made my heart go out to them. Just think about it, many of us have dealt with little kids and how they act. For Kelly she has had to deal with that for many years. She has a 4-5yr old who will never grow up and is 6' tall. She cannot take him to the store with her because he has a problem with people getting to close to him. She has a van so that he can sit all the way in the back and have plenty of room. She told me of an experience where her daughter took her and Lucas to a doctors appointment in her daughters car and Lucas grabbed his sister from behind and it almost caused an accident.
I hope at this point you understand why we adopted this family. Now let's get on to the fun stuff.
This shopping trip started out in the clothing department. Kelly explained how Lucas loved his superhero shirts and if she didn't tell him that they were dirty that he would wear the same shirt all the time. It was hard finding a spiderman shirt in his size but they were able to find a few shirts that they were confident that he would wear.
We moved on to the toys where they were extremely thrilled that they found all 4 Ninja Turtles and a Ninja Turtle car. The other thing that he really wanted was small animal toys and we found some pretty cool ones. The 2 packages that we found had quite a few of the animals that he liked in them.
This shopping trip was the first time that I really experienced a mom who was very confident in everything that she wanted for her son. If she thought that he wouldn't play with it then we passed it up. Kelly made sure that there were not too many little pieces. As the shopping trip went on I felt more and more like I knew Lucas and that he was really a little kid. She made sure that every penny was going to be spent on making him happy and giving him the best Christmas he has ever had.
As we neared the end of our shopping trip I just wanted to grab this woman and give her a big hug. For everything that she has gone through and for what she has to deal with on a daily basis my heart just went out to her.
After checking out we walked out to the parking lot and probably spent the next 20 minutes just talking. The morning before I called her she had told her daughter how she just wasn't sure how she was going to make it through the holidays and her daughter told her to have faith that something positive will happen. Two hours later I called her.
The trip ended with a hug and a huge Thank You to all the members here. Again this was probably one of the most heartfelt Thank You that I have ever gotten. This was an experience that I will always remember.
Kelly's oldest son lives on his own, her daughter lives with Kelly to help her with her 15 yr old Autistic son, Lucas. Kelly's son Lucas is over 6' tall and looks like a man but has the mentality of a 4-5 year old little boy. When looking for families we don't usually look at ages, and maybe we were a little concerned about adopting this family. Not anymore.
After spending a couple hours with Kelly and her daughter, who came along to help mom shop, you would have thought that they were talking about a 4 year old. Lucas likes to run around in his underwear and he will only wear t-shirts, he loves superhero toys, Spiderman, Ninja Turtles, Jake the Pirate, and will only play with certain types of toys. They cannot be to big or too small and they told me many things that made my heart go out to them. Just think about it, many of us have dealt with little kids and how they act. For Kelly she has had to deal with that for many years. She has a 4-5yr old who will never grow up and is 6' tall. She cannot take him to the store with her because he has a problem with people getting to close to him. She has a van so that he can sit all the way in the back and have plenty of room. She told me of an experience where her daughter took her and Lucas to a doctors appointment in her daughters car and Lucas grabbed his sister from behind and it almost caused an accident.
I hope at this point you understand why we adopted this family. Now let's get on to the fun stuff.
This shopping trip started out in the clothing department. Kelly explained how Lucas loved his superhero shirts and if she didn't tell him that they were dirty that he would wear the same shirt all the time. It was hard finding a spiderman shirt in his size but they were able to find a few shirts that they were confident that he would wear.
We moved on to the toys where they were extremely thrilled that they found all 4 Ninja Turtles and a Ninja Turtle car. The other thing that he really wanted was small animal toys and we found some pretty cool ones. The 2 packages that we found had quite a few of the animals that he liked in them.
This shopping trip was the first time that I really experienced a mom who was very confident in everything that she wanted for her son. If she thought that he wouldn't play with it then we passed it up. Kelly made sure that there were not too many little pieces. As the shopping trip went on I felt more and more like I knew Lucas and that he was really a little kid. She made sure that every penny was going to be spent on making him happy and giving him the best Christmas he has ever had.
As we neared the end of our shopping trip I just wanted to grab this woman and give her a big hug. For everything that she has gone through and for what she has to deal with on a daily basis my heart just went out to her.
After checking out we walked out to the parking lot and probably spent the next 20 minutes just talking. The morning before I called her she had told her daughter how she just wasn't sure how she was going to make it through the holidays and her daughter told her to have faith that something positive will happen. Two hours later I called her.
The trip ended with a hug and a huge Thank You to all the members here. Again this was probably one of the most heartfelt Thank You that I have ever gotten. This was an experience that I will always remember.
