A tribute to mothers
By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer
They are women who have known conflict as well as the comfort of a voice calling them "Mom."
They are the ones who have known heartbreak and hardship but who have also persevered.
They are women with uplifting stories of courage.
They are your sisters and neighbors.
They are women for whom Mother's Day is a true celebration.
They are moms, and today we honor them with five mothers' stories.
Amy Bruhl was standing in line at Jamba Juice at 8 on a Saturday morning in January, buying smoothies before her daughter's soccer game, when her cell phone rang.
• • •
Norsala Schlaht, a 31-year-old woman from Kansas was calling. The name meant nothing to Bruhl. But the next sentence stuck in her head:
Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser
"I think I'm your birth sister," the voice on the other end said.
Dyann Hill, right, has just just reunited with Amy Bruhl, the daughter she gave up for adoption 38 years ago.
Bruhl's knees buckled. Her husband hoisted her up. The rest of the day was a buzz.
Amy Bruhl, born on Valentine's Day of 1964 in San Francisco and given up for adoption by an unprepared 19-year-old mom, had been found.
Dyann Hill had been keeping her a secret for nearly 38 years. That lonely teenager had gone on to marry Bruhl's birth father and have three more children. She just never told the other children about the one she gave up — until one of her daughters decided to adopt a baby herself.
"I saw the other side of adoption, that it wasn't a deep, dark secret," said Hill, who confessed to her kids and began the search for Bruhl. "It was a happy event. It was a good event. I was ready for that empty spot to be filled, or to honor that empty spot."
Bruhl thought of herself as whole already. She'd had a loving adoptive family growing up in northern California. Her adoptive mother died when she was 17. Bruhl married her college sweetheart and ended up in Hawai'i. She had four children herself, but her first daughter died of a rare disease. She knew what an empty space felt like.
It took Bruhl's birth sister six weeks to find her through records and the Internet. At first, Bruhl felt that her privacy had been invaded that Saturday morning in the smoothie shop. Eventually, however, after she met members of her birth family, she felt connections she couldn't ignore.
She saw herself in their mannerisms. She learned she had named her daughter who had died the same middle name as her birth mother, who lives in Ottawa, Kan. And her birth mother, who coincidentally raised her other children on Kaua'i and still considers that island her home, returned to Hawai'i last week and invited Bruhl to call her "mom."
The two are thinking about writing a book about their experience and say they want others to see the positive side of adoption. They invite readers to e-mail them at kailuabruhls@hawaii.rr.com or dyvitsol@yahoo.com.
"I would like any birth mother in my position not to be afraid to look for their child," said Hill, who for years didn't think she had that right.
Now she can't imagine what her life would be like without knowing Bruhl.
"I'm a complete mother," she said.
• • •
Carolyn Carley, 49, says she is one of those women who took her fertility for granted for too many years, always thinking it would be there when she was ready.
She and her husband didn't start trying to conceive until she was 39. After miscarriages, surgery and attempts at in-vitro fertilization, she and her husband, Lee Windeler, opted for adoption. It was something they had discussed even before they got married, but they always thought it would be in addition to having biological children.
• Carley-Windeler family
Carolyn Carley and Lee Windeler couldn’t be happier with their adoptive children: 5-year-old Julien, right, and 4-year-old Jordan.
The Honolulu couple spent months wading through paperwork before finally seeing a healthy baby on an adoption agency's video from a Russian orphanage in 1997. The boy was blue-eyed, just like them, and was available for adoption.
"You see this video, and you watch it over and over again," said Carley, who finally saw her son in person after having looked at his picture daily for six months.
"They put that baby in my lap, and he was just the Gerber baby," she said. He had the same big right ear she had noticed in his photograph. He was smiling and adoring, and she was in love at first sight.
They named the boy Julien Carley-Windeler. He turned 5 last week. And he has a brother, Jordan, 4, who was adopted about a year later.
Carley loves the little things most about being a mom — the first step, the first time her son called her "Mama," the first time her boys said "I love you."
Her way of giving back has been staying active in Resolve, a support group she joined when she was trying to conceive. She is an adoption advocate, and now a doting mother.
"It's not just about sitting there crying," she said of the group. "It's about resolving the dilemma. It's about how to start a family."
• • •
Emily Laidlaw was working as a financial manager 15 years ago, making substantially more money than her husband, Tom, when motherhood shifted her priorities.
"I was making all this money," she said, "and what for?"
• Laidlaw family
Emily Laidlaw quit her job to take of the kids: from left, Jamie, Matthew, Grace, Hope, Christopher, Gabriel. Husband Tom in back.
She didn't want someone else raising her children.
So she quit her job and assumed a life full of home births, nursing and homeschooling six children who range in age from 5 months to almost 18 years.
This "Mother Earth" lifestyle didn't appear to be in the cards when Laidlaw was in her 20s. "I thought I was going to be a career woman and have my 2.3 kids," she said.
She calls that her selfish mode. She replaced that mind-set with sacrifices.
Staying home to raise a family has been a financial burden. There was one year when she spent only $70 in clothing for the whole family.
In the hard times, the family has turned to God for guidance, she said.
And in the good times, Laidlaw counts her blessings.
Mother's Day at her Kailua home usually includes the kids making breakfast and the kind of homemade cards that don't get thrown away.
"I'm doing what I've been called to do," 43-year-old Laidlaw said. "There's just so much joy in watching them grow."
• • •
Lianna McMillan's family goes through 20 boxes of cereal a month.
She does three or four loads of laundry every day, even though her teens do their own wash.
• McMillan family
Lyle and Lianna McMillan try to spread their attention evenly among their 10 children: left rear, Jacob, Isaac, Amalie, Daniel; second row, Colby, Arianna, Bryce, front row, Jaren, Alyssa and Jeremy.
It's hard to find a quiet space in the Waipahu home of 10 children, nine of whom still live there.
The hardest part for 42-year-old McMillan is choosing whether to go to one's game or another's school performance.
"I guess it's trying to make them feel like I'm giving them all enough attention," McMillan said. "I can't be at everything."
She and her husband, Lyle, take turns giving rides and attending functions.
McMillan has learned to be a little more laid-back about life, the way she accepted the idea of 10 children rather than, say, four — her original plan.
Having 10 kids has meant learning to adapt.
It has meant caring for a son with Down's syndrome and accepting another son's decision not to go to college. It has meant shifting schedules and making choices about what she will have to miss. It has meant ordering pizza on days when she can't bear to cook for a crowd.
"I think I realize more and more that the parent doesn't make the child," said McMillan, 42, of Waipahu. "The children are individuals. I think for me it's been a learning experience."
• • •
Pam Gasinski had gotten a divorce and was getting on with her life as a single mom when she got terrible news last October. Her ex-husband was killed in an accident on the job on a ship in Saipan.
Gasinski was left to raise their 5-year-old daughter, Hannah, alone.
• Gasinski family
Pam Gasinski, who is raising her 5-year-old daughter, Hannah, alone, has moved in with her mother, Pat Tseu, left. After losing her ex-husband in an accident, Gasinski joined an interfaith club that connected her with a mentor.
The 36-year-old Hawai'i Kai woman, who has a busy schedule going to school full time and teaching music and dance, needed to find something to balance her emotions.
She joined a group called American Mothers Inc., an interfaith club that connected her with a mentor who had lost a spouse as well. The mentor could understand what Gasinski was going through, and Gasinski gained the strength to keep going.
What Gasinski found was that she had support of people who made her feel a little less deserted.
The organization learned something about Gasinski, too: that she was a courageous mother.
The group honored her as this year's Young Mother of the Year.
Gasinski says her most important responsibility is to her daughter rather than to being held up as an example of motherhood.
"It's not like there was a camera in my house," she said. "I don't feel pressure to look like the perfect mom."
Reach Tanya Bricking at tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8026.
Correction: The e-mail address for Dyann Hill is dyvitsol@yahoo.com. The address was incomplete in a previous version of this story.
