National Post (National Edition)
Love & determination
DAVID AND MICHAEL JUST WANTED CHILDREN TO CALL THEIR OWN. AFTER YEARS OF SEARCHING AND FADING HOPE ... THEY BECAME PARENTS, THE FIRST GAY COUPLE IN CANADA TO LEGALLY CO-ADOPT. STORY BY EVIE RUDDY
It’s August long weekend on the shore of Sandy Lake.
Michael, my sweet, beautiful husband, is here. And our sons are home from university for the summer. We joke about girls. I wish they’d find the perfect ones to marry.
I used to dream of days like this. Of belonging. Of having a family. It’s been one hell of a fight. Even at five or six, I wanted to be a father. It was the 1950s in Peterborough, Ont., and I longed to be normal. I didn’t have a word for it, but I knew I was gay.
One afternoon, I overheard my father say, “They should kill those fucking homos.” I could never be “one of those” and incur my dad’s wrath.
In university, I threw rotten tomatoes at faggots. I had good aim and every time I hit one, I was throwing the scent off myself. But I was lying to everyone around me. To the woman I’d asked to marry me. To my friends. Later, to the adoption agencies I approached to help me become a dad.
The biggest lies, though, were to myself. Then I fell in love with Nick, a Jesuit priest who wanted kids. He was also living with HIV at a time when people were dying from AIDS.
Nick shared my desire to adopt, but our fate rested with bigots. On three separate occasions, social workers asked us: “Who’s top and who’s bottom? How many men a year do you have sex with?” I was mortified. How was that relevant to raising a child? Did they ask this of heterosexual couples?
Nick and I were together for eight beautiful years. We opened a lakeside bed and breakfast in the woods north of Peterborough. He named it Woodhaven. A haven for those who couldn’t afford to pay. AIDS care workers could stay for free on weekdays. So could the terminally ill, people suffering from chronic illnesses, and female survivors of violence.
We were blessed for it. In our happiest moments, we’d gaze out across the lake and wonder: “What more could we ask for?” Our answer was always the same. “Kids.” Nick didn’t live long enough to become a dad. He passed away on Feb. 2, 1995.
Hours before he died, we got a call. A pregnant woman wanted to give us her baby. Over the next three weeks, I buried my grief with thoughts of having a little Nicole or Nicholas. I decorated a nursery. Then there was a car accident and the baby didn’t survive. That’s when the pain of Nick’s absence hit me. I continued to run the B&B, but I kept to myself. I was devastated.
Nearly two years later, I met Michael. He showed up at our first date with a homemade apple crisp and we went crosscountry skiing. I fell in love with his kindness. And those eyelashes. More importantly, he wanted kids.
Within months, I received word that the federal government was finally willing to champion my cause. As a test case to see if a gay man could adopt internationally, we sent applications to 13 countries — and got 13 rejection letters.
I felt sabotaged. With my sexuality now front and centre, I would never become a father. I demanded Immigration Canada change my application. The updated version made no mention of my sexuality and described me as a grieving widower who’d been married to “Nicky.”
It worked. In 1998, Indian officials authorized me to adopt and I booked a flight.
Once in New Delhi, I was turned away by 17 orphanages. Approaching the 18th, I thought: “Why even bother?” But everything changed when I entered and met Mohini. She was like an angel and told me: “I’ve looked into your eyes, and I know you will be a good father. Now go home and wait for my call.”
Three months later, Mohini called with news of a boy she found in an alley clutching his mother’s dead body. He was five or six and dark skinned. Mohini said no one would want him because of that.
“Yes, I’ll take him,” I said. I would’ve flown to the orphanage that day to pick him up. Mohini changed the name on his file to Nicholas McKinstry. I named him after Nick.
The next nine months were excruciating. I received many distressed calls and faxes from Mohini. Immigration Canada hadn’t forwarded the documentation she needed. I blamed it on homophobic bureaucrats. Summer and then Christmas came and went. Still no Nicholas.
Why did I have to fight for this? To give a loving home to an orphan who dreamed of a better life.
My resolve strengthened with the arrival of another angel.
I received a call that Susan and her four-year-old son were stranded at the airport. They were on their way to Disneyland for one last family vacation, but Susan was denied boarding because she was dying of AIDS.
We had room at Woodhaven. “Send her up,” I said.
Remarkably, the morning after her arrival, Susan asked Michael and me to adopt her son, Kolwyn. She couldn’t die in peace until she found a home for him. I was in disbelief. I’d spent 20 years and $100,000 fighting for a child. And now this woman was offering me hers.
Kolwyn had always wanted a dad and now he would have two. Initially, we took him on weekends, then for longer stays, until Susan asked us to take him for good. In her shoes, I would’ve collapsed. But she’d been building to this. Each time we visited her, I noticed one less picture of Kolwyn on her wall. She was letting go and we were there to catch him.
After Susan died, her two oldest children fought us for custody. The judge rejected their claim that “two fags” had taken advantage of their dying mother, insisting: “There will be no gay offence in my courtroom.” And we got to keep Kolwyn.
For the first time, I felt like someone was on our side.
Then, seven months after Kolwyn joined our family, I got the go-ahead to bring Nicholas home and I flew to India.
When I arrived at the orphanage, I was terrified Nicholas wouldn’t like me. Shy at first, he soon spoke the words my heart had longed to hear. “Hello, Poppa.” The night we left India, though, he was inconsolable. I was overcome with panic, then relief as the toy airplane I bought at the airport calmed him. On the flight home, I watched his little chest rise and fall as he slept beside me. What peace.
Kolwyn and Nicholas connected quickly and invented their own secret language — a mix of English, Hindi and hand signals. Each morning, I’d walk them up our laneway, their tiny hands in mine. Our evenings were packed with activities. Downhill skiing. T-ball. Swimming lessons. Watching them jump into the water off our dock brought back memories of when I was a child.
Every Sunday was church. I loved dressing them in matching outfits and reading to them at night from the same picture Bible my parents had read from. They shared a bunk bed, and would often fall asleep in the same bunk, their arms wrapped around each other.
I was Dad, and Michael was Daddy. But he lacked legal authority as a parent, so he couldn’t take the boys out of school or sign for an emergency operation. By law, kids could only have one father.
I’d never expected or even wanted to be a crusader. But I was adamant that Michael be granted legal guardianship of Nicholas and Kolwyn. We took it to court and won — the first gay couple in Canada to co-adopt a child. But I didn’t do it for the precedent. I did it for me. For us. Our family. Our boys. My husband. My mother. She’s 101 now.
Not everyone sees us as a family. Some parents refused to send their kids to our home because of us. The boys endured ridicule in the schoolyard for having two dads. Despite our legal victory, we remained a family that didn’t belong. But really, we’re just a family like any other.
When Nicholas and Kolwyn turned 16, I gave them each a McKinstry ring engraved with two ravens and a lion — the same ring my father gave to me and his father gave him. The rings remind us that no matter what we face in life, good will always triumph. Love always wins.