Dear Casey – On your 11^th angelversary, I share this letter I wrote about 100 days before you left us, not knowing the fireball that was about to come. Your guidance counselor at Redwood, Mr. Kelly, asked me to write about you so that he could incorporate it into his college recommendation; he was new and didn’t know you very well. Eleven years later I wouldn’t change a thing. You were about being true to yourself, being authentic and not selling out. You were a far bigger person than I ever was. I never showed this to you because I thought it might embarrass you.

You will never ever be forgotten. We love you.

Dad 

September 18, 2007

 Mr. Randall Kelly

Redwood High School

Larkspur, CA.

Dear Mr. Kelly,

To really appreciate Casey Brooks’ unique qualities, strengths and talents, you need to look beyond the resume and the quantitative record of her work and activities. Unlike those who may be seeking to manufacture the ultimate resume, get a ticket punched with the right name school, or follow the path of least resistance through high school and college to the real world, Casey is a genuine seeker of academic challenge. This became evident to me when we took college tours (e.g. Reed College, Bennington, Bard, etc.) that featured “graduate” level thesis projects as a graduating requirement. I was somewhat intimidated by this but Casey was energized by it. That was a major revelation for me about who Casey is as a person. She is seeking an academic stimulus that has somehow evaded her in high school, even though she took 2 AP courses last year and 3 this year. It seems that the challenge of AP courses only begins to get her engaged. 

Many of her teachers, since middle school, have commended her on her writing. There are probably many excellent writers at Redwood, but I think Casey has a special talent of weaving together a very compelling piece of writing. She demonstrates an ability to hook you in, to take positions that may not be popular, and to reveal an unusual depth of thought in her subject matter. There are no specific examples that come to mind, but in general Casey’s thought, analysis and strong opinions have been especially evident in her writings for history, politics, literature and economics. 

When looking at Casey’s extracurricular activities, it might appear on the surface that she has not contributed as much as she could. There is probably some truth in this, but it is also true that she prefers to participate when she has a genuine interest or passion, not because she is simply looking to impress. As an example, this past summer, she desperately wanted to attend a 2-week seminar at Brown University focusing on environmental and political science issues. She preferred this over a trip to Hawaii or Europe as some of her friends did. Unfortunately she wasn’t accepted to the Brown program. Disappointment is a good, though painful, learning experience.  

While some kids may have already found their passion in life, she is still looking for hers (like most of us). She wants to make a difference in the world, but is still looking for the right path to achieve that goal. She would love nothing more than to go to a small, rigorous liberal arts school, and maybe onto graduate school. I believe that at the right college she will truly blossom. But don’t take my word for it. Talk to her cheering squad at Redwood – Paul Ippolito, Bernadette Rattet, Mitch Cohen and others. 

Sincerely,

John Brooks

“All I know is something like a bird within her sang. All I know is she sang a little while and then flew on.” by Jessica Tai

Aaron Duffy is a friend of Casey’s who studied media arts at the prestigious New York University Tisch School of the Arts. I share videos and slideshows I’ve done on iMovie but Aaron’s work is on an entirely different plateau (as well it should be; NYU is to media what Julliard is to music.)

His Youtube video, I Heart Casey, is a powerful and moving tribute to Casey as told through her Marin friends’ Facebook posts.

Aaron has given me permission to share this.

Erika and I have had the pleasure and privilege of getting to know Casey’s friends, and I can’t think of a more talented, compassionate and inclusive crew. Aaron’s video shows how young people mourn the disappearance of their dear friend from the Golden Gate Bridge.

I invite you to click the link above and check out Aaron’s other Youtube videos.

They are hilarious.

A great report I saw yesterday in my San Francisco Chronicle. Global effort to get kids out of orphanages gains momentum. Essentially, worldwide countries are moving from an orphanage to a group home/foster care type system. This is what the U.S. did after WWII and, to my knowledge, what Poland began in the early 2000’s. Group and foster homes are far from perfect but they are a vast improvement over orphanages. I estimate that the caregiver-to-child ratio in Casey’s Polish orphanage was roughly 10:1 which seems consistent with other reports. But that assumes each caregiver gives each of these 10 children equal time. Casey may have gotten less than her 1/10th of a caregiver’s time because most of the kids in the orphanage were severely mentally or physically disabled and at risk for self harm. Still this is an improvement over the system in place in the early 90’s.

Though I’m hesitant to inject politics into this blog, I couldn’t help but shake my head over the GOP tax bill written by adoptive parent, Kevin Brady (R-TX), which does away with the adoption tax credit capped at $13,460 as reported here in the Washington Post.

When my wife Erika and I adopted our daughter Casey in 1991, we paid about $15,000 in legal fees, all cash, plus travel costs. At that time we were a few years shy of the Adoption and Safe Families Act which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1997. It would’ve been nice to have had that around in 1991.

evidenceinmotion.com

One thing that became painfully clear to me in researching and writing The Girl Behind The Door is how much emotional baggage many (but not all) adopted people have, given their early separation. That trauma can sap ones coping skills, ability to self regulate, connection with others and sense of self, to name a few. Our 17-year-old daughter Casey, adopted at 14 months from a Polish orphanage, suffered from all of these before she took her life almost ten years ago, and yet my wife and I were utterly oblivious to the root cause – her infancy.

We tried therapist after therapist to get help with her emotions and extreme behaviors, but to the professionals she was like any other Marin County teenager acting out: annoying but not necessarily alarming. So they tried treating her behavior (just be tougher with her and she’ll straighten out) without ever getting at the root of the problem that now seems obvious. They all knew about her infancy but no one ever connected the dots. The result was tragic. To make matters worse, when we confronted the so-called professionals post mortem, they seemed more intent on protecting themselves from a malpractice suit than offering any solace.

“It was drugs!” her therapist insisted. She impressed upon us that in her 40+ years in practice she’d never had a problem with a “troubled girl” as she put it. So the message was: not my fault, she was a bad girl and you were lousy parents. Same message from a Polish adoption facilitator back east: I’ve had no problems with Polish adoptees, go away.

Since my book was published a few years ago I’ve heard from a great many in the adoption community. We were hardly alone in our desperate, and disastrous, attempts to get Casey help. I’ve heard from as far away as Warsaw, Poland and as near as my Bay Area home way too many stories of desperate, lonely people in that triad in crisis. Like us, they couldn’t find the help they needed, but unlike us they knew that their challenges were rooted in the attachment issues that arose from their children’s separation at birth. Some parents have lost their children to suicide as we did; others live in fear of their children’s self-destructive impulses that put them at high risk of harm or worse.

They’ve reported to me about their inability to find adoption/attachment professionals, failures of therapy, problems at school where teachers and administrators discipline out of ignorance, even when presented with the facts. In my short experience with my local school district, I’m not surprised at the small-mindedness and lack of creative thinking in high school administrators.

Even if an adoptive family finds a qualified adoption specialist, there are additional hurdles. Is that specialist taking new patients? Is it covered under their insurance plan or do they need to shell out hundreds of dollars an hour out of pocket? Will their child connect with that person? If not, are there other alternatives?

I wish I had an answer for these desperate families. I don’t. But let me offer this in the hope that it leads a family to the help they need, as imperfect as it is.

• Check out the Resources page on this blog where I’ve posted every data source I came across in my research and writing.
• Reach out to adoption groups like the American Adoption Congress and Families For Russian and Ukrainian Adoption. They could be valuable tools for networking.
• There are a good number of adoption groups on social media (including AAC and FRUA) where you can connect with other parents, swap tips and hopefully make a valuable contact.
• There are more adoption-oriented podcasts and programs online such as Adoption On that may provide more networking opportunities.
• Search online in your community and state for any adoption resources.
• Check out adoption books, as more of them are coming out.

Many of these sources either didn’t exist or were unknown to us when Casey was alive, when we could’ve been more effective. It’s understandable to sometimes want to give up from exhaustion and constant dead ends. But I can say from experience that once your child is gone, there’s no hope.

P.S. – Sorry I haven’t posted in awhile but after over 100 posts, one tends to run thin on material!