Chapter 23
We had landed in America on Valentine’s Day, forever changing why we celebrate it. I was worried about the cold. I thought it would be a problem for Timos, but he absolutely loved it. I absolutely loved showing this new world to the Mini-est Miller. Being able to go shoe shopping with no armed guards, our car not being stopped and searched for bombs, giant stores filled with nothing but BOOKS! These things delighted Timos and he wanted to explore everything.
Garen and I took Zade and Timos to New York City a few months after we’d been home. Zade had been the typical middle child during the adoption process, with us focusing on Keegan going to college and all the adoption stuff, he got overlooked. We wanted to show him how much we appreciated him and how much we loved him by taking him to NYC and staying in Times Square. We built the vacation around him.
At The New York Metropolitan Museum, we were standing in front of a Catholic exhibit. Garen, Zade and I were staring at Timos because he had come to a dead halt and was staring intently at it. For several minutes we stood in silence because we could tell something was happening. Then, slowly, Timos crossed himself and was just as quickly back to running all over and needing to be corralled.
Garen and I looked at each other because that was nothing he had seen while he’d been with us. I quickly got on the phone and messaged Timos old social worker in Uganda, who had become a friend. I asked if Timos was Catholic and was told that yes, he had been born Catholic, but he hadn’t had any access to the Catholic church since he was about two. That really impacted me a lot. I was puzzled by it but awed by it too.
A few weeks after we got back from NYC we were at a local Farmer’s Market, and we passed a man giving away rosaries. They were plastic and colorful and Timos BEGGED us to let him have one. I went up to the man and explained we weren’t Catholic, but my son wanted a rosary. The man was so delighted to watch Timos pick out a blue rosary. But Garen stood off to the side and I could tell he was becoming very angry.
When we got to the car Garen began to yell at me, practically screaming about the evils of the Catholic church and why would I want my son to have ANYTHING connected to it. Looking back Garen says his behavior was demonic. The evil one was using every weapon to stamp out the light of the Catholic Church in Timos. And in that instance the weapon was Timos’ new Daddy.
Not much scares Timos and that night he marched into our room, looked defiantly at Garen, handed me the rosary and demanded I pray it with him. I grabbed my phone and began to scour the internet for articles but could not figure it out. I had us get on our knees and we held the rosary while we prayed, but that was not okay with the Mini-est. So I gently hung that precious rosary from the mirror on his dresser so he could see it always and there it hung, untouched, for years.
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