Dear Madonna,
Thank you.
Earlier this week, after a month-long sojourn in Malawi, my family arrived home in California with our newly-adopted son, Vasco Fitzmaurice Mark David Possley.
His adoption would not have been possible without you and the bold actions you took in Malawi last year when its High Court denied you the adoption of your precious daughter, Chifundo "Mercy" James.
You didn't take no for an answer.
You didn't buy their argument that allowing your adoption of Mercy would encourage human trafficking. You didn't agree when they said Mercy would be fine at an orphanage and without a loving family from a foreign land.
When you appealed that myopic ruling and then won approval of Mercy's adoption from the Malawi court of appeals, you effectively made case law that kicked open the door for other American families to adopt some of the 1 million children orphaned by HIV, AIDS and other diseases (including a grotesque indifference to the suffering of the most vulnerable among us).
Your actions paved the way for families to be created across thousands of miles, through forests of diplomatic red tape and seemingly unbridgeable cultural chasms.
My husband and I met Vasco in October 2007 while we were traveling in Africa on holiday. A few years earlier, we had made a donation to an organization in Blantyre that works with some of the 60,000 children who live on the streets of Malawi -- the vast majority of them, as you are well aware, AIDS orphans.
We were on the ground in Malawi for about 48 hours and spent most of our first day visiting with a few dozen teenaged boys -- "street kids," in the parlance of Malawi -- at a drop-in center in Limbe.
On our way back to the motel in Blantyre, our guide asked if we would mind making one more stop to visit a street kid that, in his words, was "just kind of special."
We drove on the road to the airport to Blantyre's rural Chileka district, clambered down a muddy embankment and saw a clutch of mud-and-waddle huts. Our guide yelled something and we heard a squeaky boy's voice shout something back -- "I'm coming!" in Chichewa, his native language.
Out came this little fellow Vasco -- tiny, skinny -- maybe 35 pounds soaking wet -- with huge eyes and a smile that would split your heart in two. He was about eight years old but was the size of a five-year-old American child.
While we visited with Vasco, who had lived alone on the streets of Blantyre for months after his mother and father had died, he sat on my lap. When he pressed his bony back into my chest, his heart was beating so violently it was shaking his little body and moving mine. I took a good look at him and noticed that he was sweating and struggling to catch his breath even though he'd been sleeping when we arrived and not running or playing.
"What's wrong with him?" I asked.
"He has a hole in his heart," we were told.
With the time we had left in Malawi, my husband and I tried to get him medical attention, but there was none to be had. When we left to continue our holiday in East Africa (which we had won in a raffle -- no, really), we stopped to see Vasco one last time. We hugged him close, told him that we loved him, and then we climbed back into the van and headed to the airport.
As the plane took off and I looked down at the African city, I thought of the hundreds of times I'd taken off from American airports, and I knew that if Vasco were the poorest child in the U.S. -- even a homeless orphan -- he'd be in the hospital that night receiving the care he needed. I began to cry and then I began to wail, making a scene on the flight all the way back to Kenya.
My tears were fueled by righteous anger knowing that Vasco probably would die a sinfully early death because he was poor and African. That is the worst kind of injustice.
I felt impotent, helpless. Then I remembered something our family friend Bono had told me a few years earlier: "We can't do everything, Cathleen, but what we can do we must do."
I couldn't fix his heart myself, but I could tell his story.
When we returned to Chicago, where we lived at the time, I told Vasco's story in the pages of the Chicago Sun-Times, where I was a columnist. The piece ran on a Friday morning. By Saturday afternoon, three hospitals had offered to fix Vasco's heart for free if we could just get him to Chicago.
It took 18 months to get him to there, but on April 29, 2009, Vasco arrived in Chicago. Two weeks later, while we were in church on Mother's Day (because God has a sense of occasion, apparently) he spiked a fever. The next day, doctors determined that he was suffering from malaria.
The infection, we learned, has a two-week incubation period. Vasco had had malaria twice before in Malawi and it nearly killed him. If he had spiked the fever before he left Blantyre, he would not have been able to travel and we doubt he'd be alive today.
As Vasco recuperated from malaria and a host of other parasites he'd brought with him from Malawi, surgery was pushed back for more than a month. He was staying with us in our home outside Chicago and during that time, we got to know Vasco better. We saw the amazing person that he is -- incredibly bright and curious about the world, deeply intuitive and compassionate, soulful, grounded and so very funny.
We also learned more about what his life would be like once he returned to Malawi with his repaired heart.
That had always been the plan. Get him to Chicago, fix his heart, and send him home. It didn't matter that we had fallen in love with him, or that he could really use a family, parents, consistent love and security. International adoption, we were told, was all but impossible.
We prayed for an answer, an alternative, an escape plan and we waited, filled with equal parts hope and terror.
Vasco underwent successful open-heart surgery on June 10, 2009 at Hope Children's Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, just outside Chicago.
Two days later, as he was about to be moved out of intensive care and into a regular hospital room, we heard the news that the Malawi High Court of Appeal had overturned the lower court decision and approved your adoption of Mercy.
Legal precedent! Case law! A miracle!
A door swung open and a way had been made for us to become a legal family. It was a mitzvah created by many human (and divine) hands, including yours.
Shortly after Vasco was released from the hospital, we moved to Laguna Beach, California and began the process of adopting him. First we became his legal guardians in Malawi, then came months of bureaucratic paperwork on both sides of the world. We had a home study done, got fingerprinted by the FBI, collected recommendations from friends, family, our pastor, our rabbi. You know the drill.
Meanwhile, Vasco absolutely flourished. He's grown more than six inches and put on more than 30 pounds. He enrolled in school for the first time and excelled beyond anyone's expectations, learning English and how to read in record time, playing soccer on the town's championship team, learning to swim and ride a bike, to snow board, skate board and even to surf.
By early spring, everything was in place. We were just waiting for a court date in Malawi to make it legal.
Late last month, the three of us -- Vasco, my husband and I -- returned to Malawi for our adoption hearing. We prayed to God for favor and mercy and tried to not to panic.
Hearts in our throats, on June 1 we walked into the chambers of Judge John Chirwa at the High Court in Blantyre. The judge began reading his ruling and about half way through I began to cry tears of joy when Chirwa announced that he was legally bound by decision in the "Mercy James case" in making his ruling and, therefore, he approved our adoption.
Because of Mercy.
Because of you.
Vasco now has a forever family. I have a beautiful, healthy, happy son -- my first and only child. We are blessed and grateful beyond words. To God and to you.
The blessing you helped create will not stop with us. We tell Vasco's story to anyone who will listen, and we are creating a road map to guide other American families on their sacred journeys to adopt Malawian children who need them desperately.
From the bottom of this new mother's heart, thank you.
For your generosity of heart and spirit, as well as your perseverance, bravery and chutzpah -- just like the biblical Queen Esther whose name you've aptly taken as one of your own -- thank you.
You have been a mighty vessel of chisomo -- grace -- in our lives. And in my heart, you will always be Vasco's fairy godmother.
God bless you, Madonna.
Zikomo kwambiri, amai.
Follow Cathleen Falsani on Twitter: www.twitter.com/godgrrl
Please tell "Bono" his comm. for ‘The Lazarus Effect’ with the 40c a day for AIDS meds is extremely powerful.I saw it last night for the 1st time and I hope it is aired frequently. It's a sobering reminder of how AIDS is still causing tragic suffering to countless, mainly faceless, people. It drives home the point as to how easily we each could make such a tremendous difference.
Since last night I have been thinking about labeling a jar for my family to use to put 40c in each time we want to buy something trivial, and use it instead for this endeavor.
I myself have been deeply affected by AIDS on a personal level. I know how AIDS can ravish a soul, a family. I'vedone much to fight AIDS in the US. I know it is still a chronic & once again growing problem here,but It seems less of a problem, because people are living longer, better. Because the 'fire' seems to have turned to 'ash' here it is easy to dismiss that it is still tearing through most of the world. As touched as I have been by AIDS, even I didn't think about how little it would take for me to make difference Globally- especially w/ so little!
Cathleen,
I would like to get back to you and your inspiring story. Bono is right,' we can't do it all,but we must do what we can". That is how the world evolves and grows in love,care and acceptance.
Mercy's life, Vasco's life and countless others there have had there lives change because of what Madonna has worked for, and used her fame for. She is doing what she is meant to do, I see that in my heart because she has change so many lives including mine. Her celebrity has just allowed her to do this on a much grander scale than the average Joe.
She is using her stardom to change a life, a nation , a world for the better. Most of us know that her image is just that, an image. And that her message is always to question and grow, and I have always seen in her, an intense love of life and God. Her art is an expression, and causes introspection,& causes growth and change.
okay
you-
you and your husband have an amazing family and Vasco is a beautiful and vibrant boy. You all have much to contribute to this world, and your journey has already touched many. It is always nice to acknowledge those who have forged the path before you, especially when the path traversed a mtn!
I think u r TERRIFIC!
peace, love, granola!
Steph
take a deep breath.
your anger is showing.
i'm the mom in the above piece and i would not have been able to
adopt my son were it not for the case law that was made when ms. ciccone
challenged an unjust court ruling in malawi.
and i thank her for that. she was a blessing to my family.
apparently not to yours. and that's ok.
no need to run her down. she's not a saint. nor am i. and neither are you.
chill the heck out, mama. this whole faith thing isn't a contest.
god loves us. full stop.
whether we do the right thing or the wrong thing or even acknowledge that god exists.
god loves us. all of us. god is huge and can use anyone and anything for good.
even madonna.
even me.
even you.
grace,
cf
"Christian" is my name and I am not "your mama", lol. The faith has nothing to do with being JUST. Everyone has faith in something, does not make it justifiable. Madonna "had faith" to make it where she is/was. You're right, faith it's not a contest. There is a whole lot of things between saint and a sinner. God is love, so if people loved God back they would not do and promote *ungodly* things to others while playing on "God is love" card. Bringing a child in the most sin-infested country is just another "deed" you will deal with and be responsible for. If we all followed "God is love", Jesus would not die for our sins done due to not following that. Everything good comes from God and is a "blessing". It's one thing to be a "private" sinner and mind your own business, and another to promote sin to millions and be called "good" and "blessed by". So, you stay "blessed" by Madonna, "God Girl". Or maybe "Madonna Girl" would be better name for you:-).
Its quite ironic that you say God is Love and then persecute Madonna and all sinners of the world for doing, in your minds eye "ungodly things".
Perhaps you should actually live a life filled with "love" and you will realize that with Love coexists forgiveness,learning, hardship, empathy, understanding, consciousness and awareness.
All things that we and including Madonna are doing more in our daily lives.
Madonna is not perfect, I am not perfect, You are not perfect....nobody is.
Do not try to put yourself on a pedistal.
Im so tired of unconscious religious hypocrites like you, that jump at the chance at pointing their fingers at other peoples shortcomings or wrong doings.
Here is a mother, saving a child living in poverty and potential close to dying,
whos lives has been touched in such a profound and loving way
with the help of Madonna and you take advantage of this "love" and use it as a catalyst to be self righteous and hateful. Shame on you!
Cathleen is undeniable right.
Your hate and your anger blantantly shows and I will pray that God can actually one day
speak through you, beyond your hateful hypocritical tongue but through love and understanding, empathy and Joy.
Until then, its obvious you have alot of soul searching to do and real LOVE to find in your own life.
Christian
Hope you are happy in your world, where it seems you think we should all be images of you, rather than who we are each supposed to become,"God created us all. God is love and sprituality. Religion- the map to get u there- if you are not living as God would - with love of life and love of others, you need a different map!
And much kudos to my girl, Madonna.
Madonna may make her mistakes here and there in terms of what she does in her career, but her involvement in the 80's regarding the AIDS awarness and assistance movements, and her recent work for children's welfare in Africa (Malawi specifically) is admirable.
She has all the riches in the world, and I'm glad she has been putting it to such good use with Malawi. Good for her.