Melissa Fay Greene: "I Found 12 Million Kids I Couldn't Leave Behind"
Written By Lexi Walters
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It's clear from your Wondertime article that the relationships among your adopted children and those born to you are ever-evolving ones. How has Helen embraced — or not embraced — her new siblings?
Our oldest three children are all out of the house now: Molly's in San Francisco, working for ForestEthics.com; Seth is a senior at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music; Lee is on the Young Judaea Year Course in Israel and will start Oberlin College next fall.At home we have Lily, 14, Fisseha, 12 (from Ethiopia), Jesse, 11 (from Bulgaria), and Helen, 10.
It's endlessly true that I am not more or less surprised by the adopted children than by the birth children. Each child is unique. Helen is the most like Molly and Seth, in being a driven student and musician. Lee and Fisseha share devotion to sport; Lee takes Fisseha along when scrimmaging with baseball or ultimate [Frisbee] friends. Lily loves her circle of friends, and they often include Helen in little parties. It gets noisy, and even my major rules, like No Playing Soccer in the House, No Fighting over Food, and No Roller-blading in the House, sometimes get broken.
But there's a lot of nurturing. Seth tutors Helen, by long-distance telephone, in the long Hebrew prayers she's mastering. Lee e-mails advice about high school to Lily, from Israel. Seth does math with Fisseha over the phone. Somehow it all just works.
As a journalist, you write frequently on areas of the world in crisis. Can you comment on the initial reactions you have upon reporting in areas with high concentrations of orphans?
My new book, There Is No Me Without You, attempts to reply to this question. There are scenes you see from which you never recover. My glimpses of the boisterous, joyous, resilient children of Ethiopia, who all had lost their parents, has sparked in me a sense of lifelong commitment. I hope your readers will visit the book's website: thereisnomewithoutyou.com
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