Dear IF readers,

My brother-in-law and nephew were here for a week. I am still digging my way out of the laundry and restocking the fridge. It was a lovely week. This is my husband’s older brother and they went bowling and fishing and re-connected while bonding their own sons together as loyal male cousins that would play together, sleep in the same room, and yes even fight a bit. We had wonderful talks, bike rides, beach time. And we had a loving talk that we hoped they would all make sure to know where each of them was on the holidays forever and ever. They said “ok”, and I am hoping all though it was all said so fast and fun, that someday they will remember and call one another, even when we oldies are not around.

I wanted to get back to my notes on my multi-cultural family, part 2. So I have explained that I was adopted and we were as a family of origin quite the European potpourri. Well after I was old enough to go on and make my own friends and grow my extended family, I always was attracted to friends of the more Latin persuasion. I think I loved the contrast of my formal European upbringing, with the variations of everything warm and colorful - the music, the food, the hugs and kisses, even the passionate fights and making up. So I befriended many Italian and Spanish cultural friends.

But let me not go to fast. First there was my best friend Kathleen Piero. I mentioned her in Part I. I loved her family. They were always together in one house. Of course they each had their own home to go to at the end of the night, but Kathleen’s house was Piero Centrale. I would sit on my chair, Pops called me “pig out” because I loved their food and would eat till I was stuffed and then some. But I, “pig out”, would sit in my footie pajamas on my Saturday night sleepover watching everyone and everything like it was the greatest show in Earth, and I had front row seats. The table was poured with food, the people all talked and laughed so loud, there was music, and so many hugs and head tossles.

In the last few years, my brother was divorced and dating again. I decided that my brother’s “picker” was broken. So, a wonderful and beautiful passionate friend from Bogota, Colombia was single as well. I thought to myself, Michael needs a little passion in his life again. And this time, someone whose passion is not just for the courtship but for a lifetime, and that was my friend Jenny, Jenny Medina. So I sent them off one night during a Christmas holiday to help me with the boys at the Times Square ESPN while I took my niece to the American Girl shop. Well, well, well. I am happy to say that I had a new nickname after that, “La Blanca Bruja”. The White Witch. Jenny says I cast a love dust spell on them and they fell in love. Jenny Wayland is my new sister and I am the luckiest sister in law in the world. Gracias mi Dios.

Now that my family was rounding out into the Latin world, I was looking for a little girl to help and call my own after having 2 boys. So when I contacted SOS orphan sponsorship, I asked them to help me look in Colombia and that is how I found my SOS daughter Lucy. Now I am so lucky to have an SOS daughter that I will meet someday in Colombia. I would love for her to come to the U.S. for her college years, but we will see what she wants to do for herself. But I will make sure besides helping her, that we will know one another for a lifetime. And so my dear readers, that is My Multi-Cultural Family Part II. If you have a story to share, please write to me at cat@internationalfamilymag.com

Warmly, Cat

Dear IF readers,

My IF mag blog has been a bit of a neglected child as of late and I apologize.  I don’t know if you do as I, but I have to put a list together and go after the top three a day.  Lately, that has been Brody, my three year old, Jax, my five year old, and my 10 year marriage. It is summer here in Hilton Head Island, and I find myself the great family coordinator.  And Brody who turns four in September is too young for many independent activities so we are quite the pair. Using my computer is not on his list of my priorities. I have tried to take him to the library to sit and read next to their wireless connections for my laptop but he has now made that our special reading time.  So, again to you my readers and my dear blog child, I am so sorry.

I want to reflect on the multi-cultural family as I know it from my experience.  I have spoken of this before, but my family of origin is quite multi-cultural.  We were five non-biologically related people coming together to be a family under the same roof.  My mother and father had Irish backgrounds.  When they went to Catholic Social Services to adopt children, this cultural profile was presented.  My brother Michael is what is called “Black Irish” and is Irish with dark features.  His biological mother found him years later as she had been a teenager when she had him and never wanted to give him up and it was not her choice.  I will have to discuss with him further what he knows of his biological, cultural background.

My sister Pamela is almost fully Swedish.  She has that gold hair and skin and even golden eyes. She went to Sweden when she was a teenager as she was fascinated with this cultural origin of hers.  Pammy liked Sweden very much, fell in love with a Swede named Christiansen, and we have all shared the stories for years of her cultural journey and the tales of modern folklore in her native country.

Of my cultural background, I don’t know much at all. I know my mother let me look at some non-identifying information once when I was a teenager but I never paid much attention to the cultural characteristics listed.  I was fascinated more that it was written that my grandmother had been a business woman and my uncle had been a professor of ancient history.  I always tease and say I am a friendly mutt, a real mix.  When I travel abroad people will ask me if I am American, or Irish so there must be those features.  I am dark-haired and green eyes with very pale skin in the winter and golden in the summer.

 But the state of my family being a cultural mix has always been relevant to my life and experiences.  I did not have such certitude as my best friend Kathleen whose family was second generation Italian and last name was Piero and her grandfather still had an accent and was the patriarch and I feared him and loved him and when it was appropriate for me to address him, I called him “Pops”. 

Sometimes that lack of certainty made me feel lost and wayward.  And sometimes it became my greatest asset to seek the world and name myself first an international citizen.

I will continue these thoughts soon, I promise, good reading, Cat Wayland