What I Stopped Explaining

My last husband, Joel, passed away over nine years ago. At the time of his death, our five biological children were 17, 20, 21, 25, and 27. Our youngest four adopted children were 2, 6, 7, and 9. As you might imagine, explaining our unique family dynamic was a bit humorous even before his passing, but afterward, it almost made me angry. Not angry because someone asked, but angry because I felt I was now in the awkward position of explaining why I was a solo parent of nine children/adults.

Before his death, whenever someone asked how many children we had, Joel would proudly say nine. End of story. He loved my daughter as if she were his own, and I felt the same way about his children. So, with our five biological children and the four we had recently adopted, we had nine.

Now, as someone who is extremely detail-oriented, whenever I was asked and subsequently answered that question, I had to go into greater detail to set the facts straight. My answer would go something like this: “We are a blended family with five combined biological children from our previous marriages. We recently adopted four younger children: three internationally and one through our local foster care community.”

Immediately after giving my wordy answer, I would regret that I couldn’t be as succinct as Joel and simply smile and say, “Nine.” Yes, the shocked faces would still be there, but I wouldn’t need to elaborate unless they asked.

In recent years, the question I felt the need to elaborate on looked a little different.

When getting to know someone new, a commonly asked question is, “Where do you work?”

As someone who worked from the age of fifteen until five months after Joel died, this question made me cringe. Even more so because I didn’t want to leave the last job I had — it simply became impossible to work full-time and care for my four special-needs children.

The sheer number of appointments I needed to take off for was problematic on its own. Then add in calls from the school over disciplinary issues I needed to confront right away. Or the call to come pick up the child who’d just thrown up in his classmate’s baseball hat (true story!). In those first five months of my second widowhood journey, it became evident I was going to need to resign. It simply wasn’t going to work.

Back to that familiar question — “Where do you work?” I didn’t want to say, “I don’t,” because I worked harder now than ever before. But my long-winded answer usually went something like this: “I currently don’t work outside the home, even though I’ve worked since I was fifteen. My husband recently passed away, and I was left with four young children we’d adopted, who all have varying levels of special needs. As a result, I can’t work full-time, and even part-time is a challenge right now.”

I could almost see their head spinning. They must have thought, all I did was ask her where she worked.

Oh — but there’s more.

This one is perhaps the most embarrassing. But why stop now?

The question that undoes me more than any other: when I’m out with my children — of which I’m typically the only adult in the group — I often get asked, “Are these your children?” I politely answer, “Yes, they are.” And then I go on to explain further. (You might already be shouting, “Why, Leah? Why the explanation?” And you’d be right to.)

I would say, “Yes, these are the four children my late husband and I adopted a little over a year before his sudden death, all with varying levels of special needs.”

Do you see what I did there? In one sentence — one breath, most of the time — I established that these children, who were likely misbehaving at the moment, had a behavioral or mental diagnosis that caused them to act that way. I established that I was a widow, and hadn’t simply gotten divorced or had children with various men. I established that my husband died suddenly, not long after we’d adopted them.

What was the point in all that? Was I trying to garner sympathy? Was I trying to elicit a little grace over the bad behavior they might have just been witnessing?

Many years into this widow journey, I began to discern the Lord really working on me in how I answered these questions.

Over time, and with mercy only He could offer, He showed me how much of the way I answered was to prevent judgment. Yes, I was afraid of being judged by people.

In the case of explaining the size of our large family — they probably think we should never have had this many kids.

With the work question — they’re quietly accusing me of being lazy.

And with the one asking if the children are mine — I’m guessing they’ve noticed they don’t look like me (the older three are darker-skinned), and that I clearly have trouble keeping them in line at times.

The problem the Lord showed me in how I answered these questions was really just one problem wearing two faces. I made it all about me — managing what people would think, protecting my own image. And in doing that, I was judging the very people asking, assuming the worst of their hearts before they’d said a word.

These days, I mostly just answer the question.

“Yes, they’re mine.” Period. No paragraph of context, no resume of grief offered up to soften anyone’s confusion before they’ve even asked for it.

If someone genuinely wants more — a friend introducing me to someone curious, someone who wants to hear the whole strange, redemptive shape of it — I’ll tell them. Gladly, even. I’ve learned most people are a lot less harsh than the version of them I built in my head. Mostly, they’re just amazed I’m still standing.

But I don’t lead with the explanation anymore. Nobody’s owed the footnotes before they’ve asked for the chapter.

What changed wasn’t the questions. People still ask the same things they always did. What changed is that I stopped answering the fear instead of the question. I’m no longer defending myself against a judgment that, most of the time, was never actually being implied — it was one I was quietly insinuating myself, then arguing against before anyone said a word.

He didn’t have to convince me that people were kinder than I thought. He just had to get me quiet enough to notice.

Yes, these are my children. Yes, I stayed home. Yes, it’s just me.

That’s the whole answer now. Period.