Empty nest filled with 14 adoptees - Jericho couple have a world of children
Jericho couple have a world of children
By Lisa Jones
JERICHO - When Marian DiMaria was growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, she dreamed of having lots and lots of children.
To say her dream came true would be an understatement.
After her five biological children began leaving the nest a decade ago, Marion and her husband, John, began adopting children. Now their Jericho house is home to 14 children ranging in age from 9 months to 17 years. Their native countries span the planet, from Brazil to India, from Bolivia to Siberia. All of them are girls generally easier to adopt from abroad than are boys. Two can hear, one is hearing impaired. Eleven of them are deaf.
On a recent evening, the girls not confined to high chairs ran around the sprawling house. They'd meet in little clusters, wearing long braids and pinafores. Marian and John travel to Berlin, Ohio, in the heart of Amish country once a year to buy bolts of fabric the bigger girls sew into long-sleeved, old-fashioned dresses and coats the DiMarias who are Conservative Evangelical Christians consider appropriate garb for young ladies.
The girls played in a silence broken only by their gasps and laughs. One of them darted from a group to smile and sign the obvious, that she was playing. When the girls weren't playing, they helped with the younger ones, hugging them and feeding them. At last count there were three babies two arrived a week ago from Ukraine, and one toddler came recently from Bolivia.
Olivia, 15, passed bottles to babies Anya and Elizabeth. Olivia lived in a Chinese orphanage until she was 9.
She had to take care of babies,'' John explained. ``Even babies who died. So she loves babies. She does a great job taking care of them. In fact, sometimes we have to ask her permission to pick them up.''
It all began a decade ago, when the couple adopted a 7-year-old Indian girl after a two-year process. Marion had recently retired from a 15-year career as a teacher for the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf in Philadelphia, and John would soon quit his job as a hospital mental health counselor.
We adopted her in July,'' said Marian, a serene, round-faced woman with a long braid of silver hair. The next month, while taking their new daughter, Hannah, to camp, they stayed in a hotel.
In the middle of the night she was crying,'' Marian recalled. ``She said, I want a deaf sister, 2 years old.' We said, OK, we'll pray about it and see what happens.'
Two months later, a Christian adoption agency we'd never heard of called us and asked if we wanted to adopt a 2-year-old kid from Brazil,'' John said. ``Believe it or not, two months later we were in Brazil.''
And so they had their second child, Tressah.
It's all got God's hand in it,'' John said. ``It's just not normal for things to occur like that.''
Still, it hasn't all been easy. Three of the children have suffered from attachment disorder, a syndrome characterized by an inability to bond. One of the girls who suffered from the syndrome had been adopted and rejected twice before she became part of the DiMaria household. Once she was found abandoned in someone's back yard: ``Sickly, sores everywhere,'' John said. ``In her diapers.''
The afflicted girls acted out and even became violent. John's mental health training and outside therapists helped.
It's a stretch to reconcile stories of hardship and neglect with the warmth and love in plain evidence around the DiMarias' huge oak kitchen table, where the girls from across the globe communicate in their first language sign language.
These kids love having a family,'' John said. ``They love having sisters. In the orphanages they lived in, they couldn't communicate. They didn't have friends or go to school. As soon as they get here they just blossom like flowers. For the first time in life they have a language. They love each other. They'll all help. Teach sign language. Show em the ropes. Really take care of each other.''
The DiMaria home is spacious and comfortable. It has eight bedrooms and eight bathrooms. From the outside, the 10,000-square- foot house looks more like an elegant school than anything else. There's no cash cow behind all this, Marian said.
John and I have saved,'' she said. ``We cut a lot of corners. We make our own clothes. We don't have any help at all.''
Those girls who are old enough attend the Austine School for the Deaf. The quality of the school housed in Williston Central School drew the DiMarias to Vermont from Kentucky a little more than a year ago.
We went to Wisconsin, Maine, Minnesota and Vermont,'' said John, whose Brooklyn roots are evident in his accent. ``Vermont was the best. The school is excellent. The teachers here are the best. They're not only skillful and dedicated, they have big hearts. When we fly away to get another kid they ask to be able to come and take care of them.''
Marian has had a soft spot for deaf children since her youth.
I think a lot of people misunderstand deaf people and so they don't get the opportunities they really deserve. Also, deaf people are very straightforward. They have no inhibitions at all. We do because we hear them and we learn them. They don't. If you walk in after three months and you've gained 30 pounds, they'll say, Hi! You're fat!' But there'll be no judgment there.
When I worked at the (Pennsylvania School for the Deaf) I saw lots and lots of kids whose parents weren't involved in their lives, who didn't learn how to sign. These kids were really missing out and it really touched my heart.''
She adds, ``This is the greatest life. I can't imagine doing anything else with our lives. John said, We'll be 70 years old when our youngest is graduating high school.'
And I said, Think how wonderful that will be.'''