Twenty-One

Yesterday, my son turned 21, the youngest of my adopted children from Russia is now officially an adult!

My greatest memory of joy with him was the day we met, at an orphanage in central northern Russia (psst: Russia is a state of a "country" now know as the CIS, before the Soviet breakup it was still a state of a country known as the USSR).  It was a small town, under a mile across, with the world's largest saw mill, about 250,000 women and significantly no men.  Yeah, really high death rates for men.

I was standing in the door way of the room he was in, the girl, soon to be his sister was in front of me.  He was introduced, leapt over the girl - which threw him into a somersault and he planted both feet in my crouch.  I went down hard and tried to save the both of them from being crushed under my weight!.

His early years had been hard in Russia, damaging him psychologically for life, his early years with me were also hard but not near so.  Today, he has tremendous potential but he fears trying because he can not accept any failure in his life.  Yeah, never could get him past that one.

His girlfriend, now of almost three years, spent most of the party playing with my youngest grand daughter.  Real obvious someone's biological clock is going off.  Lord, I hope she gets married first, be a break what has become a Plattner tradition it seems!

The party was fun.  I forgot my camera, due to the previous therapy session with Gaelic Girl, so if any of the kids post a picture, I will pick a good one for here.

So, it was interesting to note that my job ended as he was leaving high school.
My relationship and friendship with Gaelic Girl  ends with him having attained adulthood.

It is sort of as if I was blessed for many years to reach out to these children and then bring them into adulthood.  Being no longer relevant,  I slowly find myself being pointed in another direction, more rapidly now it seems!  This will indeed be an interesting year.....