Frances Photography

Travel

Allan Cammick: Our New Son!

Matt and I just returned from three weeks in Fiji. This time, it was for a very different reason! We have adopted a 12 year old boy from Taveuni, Matt’s home town island. This was not something we ever consciously planned on doing, but sometimes life has a funny way of working things out…

A lot of people have been asking us about it, and now that is is “official” (on paper anyway; there is still a ‘little’ more red tape to deal with before he will be able to come live with us), I thought the best way to share the story with everyone would be to post it here. So here goes…

Allan is a beautiful, sweet, and intelligent young man that happened to cross our paths at just the right time in just the right place last December. While we were in Fiji over Christmas visiting our family, all the children were all on school holidays. Allan had pretty much been living at Matt’s brother and sister-in-laws place, as he is best friends with their two little boys, Jake and Darcy. As a result, I got to spend a lot of time with Allan in those two weeks and I will admit, as I look back now, I had a strange, almost magnetic attraction to him like I have never experienced with any child before in my life. There are always a lot of children around in Fiji when I hang with my little nephews, but somehow, from day one, Allan was “different.” After we came to understand that Allan was constantly over at Doug and Lorna’s, we started asking questions about why??? that was. Matt has know Allan’s family since he was born and actually used to play a lot with Allan’s birth mother, Mary, when they were kids. He knew Allan’s grandparents too, Emma and David, and David even had a special nickname for Matt as a little rug-rat: “the little dogaroo!”

To make a VERY long story short and manageable I will (try to) cut to the chase. Mary (Allan’s mother), was the youngest of nine children who has had nine children of her own. Allan’s father passed away in 2001 when Allan was 5 and since that time, Emma and David (the grandparents) have been raising him as well as Mary’s younger children. One of Allan’s uncles has since taken over two of the children (Francine:10 and Jim boy:11) and Mary now lives on another island where she is remarried and looks after her two youngest boys, ages 1 and 4. Unfortunately, two of her babies died, so out of the seven remaining, David and Emma have been responsible for at least three of them: Allan: 12, Mayble: 10, and Joesel:5. Emma and David are both in their late 70’s, retired (or trying to be), but struggling to support the children and send them all to school. It is an extremely difficult situation for them both, and after meeting Allan and coming to understand the circumstances, we decided that Allan, as the oldest grandson, needed somebody’s (our) help.

We had absolutely NO IDEA how hard it would actually be when we embarked on this journey. But regardless of the time, money, frustration, heartache and the emotional roller coaster we have all been on for the past four months now, the important thing is that Allan is finally part of our family and is going to have an opportunity to come to America, get a great education, and choose his own destiny. We have already totally fallen in love with him and I am so proud to be his MOM. It broke my heart to have to leave him behind after everything we went through together in the last few weeks. But, never mind, things happen for a reason and we are determined to find a way around all the stupid government crap. With our latest “plan,” we should have him here in about 5 or 6 weeks! YAY!

To be totally fair, Emma and David have loved Allan very much and done the absolute best job they possibly could, so it’s not like he hasn’t known love-he certainly has. They both have hearts of gold. But, they are both old now and struggling financially with the children they are responsible for. This adoption is a big help to them and I couldn’t imagine a more deserving family. If you would have asked me 6 months ago, “Would you ever adopt a 12 year old boy?” My answer certainly would have been “Are you insane?? No Way!” But, now that life has taken me down this twisted path, I can’t imagine our life without him in it.

I’ve left out all the craziest parts of this story, so if you want to know the juicy details, you’ll either have to take me to lunch so I can tell you in person OR you’ll just have to wait for the book/movie to come out. I’m not kidding!