As Is

Abbie Blair was a social worker back in the 1960s. On one occasion, she set up an adoption that she will never, ever forget. Let Abbie tell the story.

I remember the first time I saw Freddie. His foster mother had brought him to the adoption agency where I work, so I could meet him and help find adoptive parents for him. He was standing in a playpen and gave me a toothy grin. What a beautiful baby, I thought.

His foster mother gathered him into her arms. “Will you be able to find a family for Freddie?”

Then I saw it. Freddie had been born without arms.

“He’s so smart. He’s only ten months old, and already he walks and talks.” She kissed him. “Say ‘book’ for Mrs. Blair.”

Freddie grinned at me and hid his head on his foster mother’s shoulder. “Now, Freddie, don’t act that way,” she said. “He’s really very friendly,” she added. “Such a good, good boy.”

Freddie reminded me of my own son when he was that age, the same thick dark curls, the same brown eyes.

“You won’t forget him, Mrs. Blair? You will try?”

“I won’t forget.”

I went upstairs and got out my latest copy of the Hard-to-Place list.

Freddie is a ten-month-old white Protestant boy of English and French background. He has brown eyes, dark-brown hair and fair skin. Freddie was born without arms, but is otherwise in good health. His foster mother feels he is showing signs of superior mentality, and he is already walking and saying a few words. Freddie is a warm, affectionate child who has been surrendered by his natural mother and is ready for adoption.

He’s ready, I thought. But who is ready for him?

It was ten o’clock on a lovely late-summer morning, and the agency was full of couples—couples having interviews, couples meeting babies, families being born. These couples nearly always have the same dream: They want a child as much like themselves as possible, as young as possible, and—most important—a child with no medical problems.

“If he develops a problem after we get him,” they say, “that is a risk we’ll take, just like any other parents. But to pick a baby who already has a problem—that’s too much.”

And who can blame them?

I wasn’t alone in looking for parents for Freddie. Any of the caseworkers meeting a new couple started with a hope: Maybe they were for Freddie. But summer slipped into fall, and Freddie was with us for his first birthday.

“Freddie is so-o-o big,” said Freddie, laughing. “So-o-o big.”

And then I found them.

It started out as it always does—an impersonal record in my box, a new case, a new “Home Study,” two people who wanted a child. They were Frances and Edwin Pearson. She was 41. He was 45. She was a housewife. He was a truck driver.

I went to see them. They lived in a tiny white frame house in a big yard full of sun and old trees. They greeted me together at the door, eager and scared to death.

Mrs. Pearson produced steaming coffee and oven-warm cookies. They sat before me on the sofa, close together, holding hands. After a moment, Mrs. Pearson began: “Today is our wedding anniversary. Eighteen years.”

“Good years.” Mr. Pearson looked at his wife. “Except … “

“Yes,” she said. “Except. Always the ‘except.’” She looked around the immaculate room. “It’s too neat,” she said. “You know?”

I thought of my own living room with my three children. Teenagers now. “Yes,” I said. “I know.”

“Perhaps we’re too old?”

I smiled. “I don’t think so,” I said.

“We don’t either.”

“You always think it will be this month, and then next month,” Mr. Pearson said. “Examinations. Tests. All kinds of things. Over and over. But nothing ever happened. You just go on hoping and hoping, and time keeps slipping by.”

“We’ve tried to adopt before this,” Mr. Pearson said. “One agency told us our apartment was too small, so we got this house. Then another agency said I didn’t make enough money. We had decided that was it, but this friend told us about you, and we decided to make one last try.”

“I’m glad,” I said.

Mrs. Pearson glanced at her husband proudly. “Can we choose at all?” she asked. “A boy for my husband?”

“We’ll try for a boy,” I said. “What kind of boy?”

Mrs. Pearson laughed. “How many kinds are there? Just a boy. My husband is very athletic. He played football in high school—basketball, too, and track. He would be good for a boy.”

Mr. Pearson looked at me. “I know you can’t tell exactly,” he said, “but can you give us any idea how soon? We’ve waited so long.”

I hesitated. There is always this question.

“Next summer maybe,” said Mrs. Pearson. “We could take him to the beach.”

“That long?” Mr. Pearson said. “Don’t you have anyone at all? There must be a little boy somewhere.”

“Of course,” he went on after a pause, “we can’t give him as much as other people. We haven’t a lot of money saved up.”

“We’ve got a lot of love,” his wife said. “We’ve saved up a lot of that.”

“Well,” I said cautiously, “there is a little boy. He is 13 months old.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Pearson said, “just a beautiful age.”

“I have a picture of him,” I said, reaching for my purse. I handed them Freddie’s picture.

“He’s a wonderful little boy,” I said. “But he was born without arms.”

They studied the picture in silence. He looked at her. “What do you think, Fran?”

“Kickball,” Mrs. Pearson said, “You could teach him kickball.”

“Athletics are not so important,” Mr. Pearson said. “He can learn to use his head. Arms he can do without. A head, never. He can go to college. We’ll save for it.”

“A boy is a boy,” Mrs. Pearson insisted. “He needs to play. You can teach him.”

“I’ll teach him. Arms aren’t everything. Maybe we can get him some.”

They had forgotten me. But maybe Mr. Pearson was right, I thought. Maybe sometime Freddie could be fitted with artificial arms. He did have nubs where arms should be.

“Then you might like to see him?”

They looked up. “When could we have him?”

“You think you might want him?”

Mrs. Pearson looked at me. “Might?” she said. “Might?”

“We want him,” her husband said.

Mrs. Pearson went back to the picture. “You’ve been waiting for us,” she said. “Haven’t you?”

“His name is Freddie,” I said, “but you can change it.”

“No,” said Mr. Pearson. “Frederick Pearson—it’s good together.”

And that was it.

There were formalities, of course, and by the time we set the day Christmas lights were strung across city streets and wreaths were hung everywhere.

I met the Pearsons in the waiting room. There was a little snow on both of them.

“Your son’s here already,” I told them. “Let’s go upstairs and I’ll bring him to you.”

“I’ve got butterflies,” Mrs. Pearson announced. “Suppose he doesn’t like us?”

I put my hand on her arm. “I’ll get him,” I said.

Freddie’s foster mother had dressed him in a new white suit, with a sprig of green holly and red berries embroidered on the collar. His hair shone, a mop of dark curls.

“Going home,” Freddie said to me, smiling, as his foster mother put him in my arms.

“I told him that,” she said. “I told him he was going to his new home.”

She kissed him, and her eyes were wet.

“Goodbye, dear. Be a good boy.”

“Good boy,” said Freddie cheerfully. “Going home.”

I carried him to the little room where the Pearsons were waiting. When I got there, I put him on his feet and opened the door.

“Merry Christmas,” I said.

Freddie stood uncertainly, rocking a little, gazing intently at the two people before him. They drank him in.

Mr. Pearson knelt on one knee. “Freddie,” he said, “come here. Come to Daddy.”

Freddie looked back at me for a moment. Then, turning, he walked slowly toward them. They reached out their arms and gathered him in.

We all want to be loved, to have our place, to find open arms greeting us. One of the great difficulties, of course, is that so much depends on our desirability. If we look good, if we do what we’re supposed to do, if we meet someone’s expectations, if, if, if, then maybe they’ll love us.

But there is a unique kind of love. There is an “as is” kind of love that says we don’t have to look good. We don’t have to say the right things. We don’t have to be in the right places. We don’t have to have the right money or power. Rather, we can be loved for just being ourselves.



Abbie Blair’s story is courtesy of Reader’s Digest.
Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net