Daughter’s journey
Aliyah finds love and security on her long journey to adoption
Heartache fades as girl picks a new family.
The Agnews felt like everything Aliyah Randle wanted in a family. When she learned a judge had terminated her biological mother’s parental rights, Aliyah asked the Agnews to adopt her. But far-away relatives’ requests would slow the process. The final decision rested with a judge. This is the final part in a six-part series.
March 28, 2018
Lorraine Agnew slid a tiny, sparkly tiara into Aliyah’s hair, nestling it against a bun of perfect finger curls.
“You should see her dress,” Lorraine said. “She’s been asking me all morning, ‘Can I get
dressed now?’ ”
“It’s beautiful,” Aliyah said. She handed Lorraine a bobby pin from the container she was holding on her lap.
This was the day she had been waiting for. In a few hours, a judge would make official what Aliyah already felt: She was an Agnew. She would become a part of a new family. Two and a half years of heartache and uncertainty would fade into her past.
She wasn’t sure it would happen. Twice, far-away relatives she barely knew filed papers to adopt her. Twice a judge had denied their requests. She had heard nothing from her biological mother, Laurell Florence, for months.
Finally, the Agnews’ attorney asked the court to proceed with the adoption without waiting to see if other relatives would intervene.
The judge approved the motion. Aliyah’s adoption was rescheduled for March 28, 2018.
Now she could get baptized and get her ears pierced. When you’re a foster child, you can’t do those things, or even get a haircut, without the biological parents’ permission.
“I can be a part of this family,” she said. “They love me, and I love them.”
James came in from the garage; he was home from work early to change his clothes.
He glanced at the perfect part in Aliyah’s hair and said, “That’s as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.” Lorraine chased him away with the hairbrush.
The other children were at school. Aliyah had Lorraine and James to herself.
“Today it’s over. Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” Lorraine told Aliyah, who was 10. No more caseworkers. No more court hearings. No more waiting.
“Never again will you have to worry about them coming to take you away,” she said. Aliyah leaned her head back against Lorraine.
“Never again,” Aliyah repeated.
• • •
Her dress was pale pink, two layers of skirt from the bodice and thin shoulder straps. She twirled like a ballerina, in shoes with a little wedge.
Lorraine fastened a necklace around her neck, a small silver heart.
“Guess what you are to me,” Lorraine said.
“Your heart?”
“Yes, you are.”
She turned Aliyah around to face her, her hands on her shoulders.
“You want to be my daughter forever and ever and ever?” she asked. “Because I want to be your mother forever and ever and ever.”
Aliyah nodded and hugged her. “I love you.”
“I love you more.”
James had changed into dark trousers and a white dress shirt.
“You look very, very nice, honey. You look like a princess,” James said. And then, “We’re still not adopting you.” Aliyah hugged him, too.
“Nothing can stop it now,” James told her.
• • •
On the way to the courthouse, they stopped at the Things Remembered store at Chandler Fashion Center, where Aliyah would pick out a silver trinket box and have it engraved with the date and her name. It was a tradition on adoption day in the Agnew family.
Aliyah picked out one shaped like a treasure chest.
“What’s the name?” the woman behind the counter asked.
“Booger nose,” James said. “James,” Lorraine said, nudging him aside. “You pay the lady.”
Aliyah would start her new life with a new name. One she chose herself.
She carefully spelled it and then watched as it was engraved on the lid of the box.
“Oh my gosh,” she said, “it’s really happening.”
It had felt like this day would never come.
Aliyah had been in foster care since she was 7, not because she was abused but because of the choices her mother made.
•••
In the courtroom, Judge Karen
O’Connor noticed Aliyah’s tiara and smiled.
“Are you a princess today?” she asked.
“Every day,” James said.
After all that waiting, it took 10 minutes for the three of them to stand, Aliyah between James and Lorraine; raise their right hands and be sworn in together; for the attorney to review the case; and for the state caseworker to weigh in, saying the adoption was in Aliyah’s best interest.
The judge announced Aliyah’s new name: Rihanna (like the name of her favorite singer) Lorraine (like her new mom) Agnew.
Lorraine turned to Rihanna. “You’re my daughter,” she said. Rihanna threw herself into her mom’s arms and turned to hug her dad.
“Thank you for adopting me,” she said.
In the next moment, before they lined up to take pictures with the judge, Rihanna buried her face in the front of her mother’s dress.
“I’m not going to see her again, am I?” she whispered tearfully.
Rihanna meant Laurell Florence, her biological mother.
You will, Lorraine said. “If she ever gets it together, I promise you will see her again.”
If she makes the right choices.
•••
Rihanna was promised a steak dinner with her parents, just the three of them.
In the car, Soriah called Lorraine to find out when they would be home. The girls had a surprise for Rihanna.
They pulled up in front of the house where the girls were waiting. They had written on the driveway with chalk, “Welcome home, Rihanna Agnew.”
“Welcome back, Rihanna Agnew,” Angel said, hugging her sister. Rihanna spun around to show off her outfit.
“By the way, you are so related to me,” Soriah said, pointing at Rihanna. “That outfit is tight.” Rihanna hugged her.
Her sisters crowded around her to see her silver box.
“Can they come?” Rihanna asked her mom.
“But it’s our date,” Lorraine said. The girls froze. They looked at Lorraine.
“Go get dressed,” Lorraine said. “I hope you get the bill,” James muttered.
Rihanna wanted her whole family. Together.
Epilogue
On July 12, 16 months after Rihanna’s adoption, the Agnews went to court again, this time to adopt Domonique.
She was 9, the youngest of the Agnews’ children. She wore a dress with a tulle skirt, her long hair held back from her face with rhinestone barrettes.
They were all dressed up, James and Lorraine, Soriah, Serinity, Jacky and Rihanna, who was 11 by then.
Rihanna took Domonique’s hand on the way to the courtroom.
Judge Kristin Culbertson reviewed Domonique’s case, confirming that she had been with the Agnews since November 2016 and that the adoption was in her best interest. James choked up.
“I might cry,” Culbertson said. New to family court, it was her first day doing adoptions.
The judge announced the new name Domonique had chosen, Deandra-Jane (after Lorraine’s mother) Monique (after her biological mother) Agnew.
•••
There are 18 leaves on the tree at the top of the stairs of the Agnews’ house.
Through the doorway to the left, in the bedroom Rihanna and Deandra share, the girls were helping James paint the walls pink.
After seven years as foster parents, 18 foster children and five adoptions, the Agnews thought they were ready to close their license.
They often took on the kids no one else wanted. Bigger kids come with bigger issues, and in the last few years, they didn’t feel like they were receiving the support they needed from their licensing agency.
There’s a lot that goes into being foster parents, dealing with caseworkers, paperwork, appointments and navigating the system.
Their family felt complete. Lorraine is 57 and James, 63. They had done enough.
But they decided there was room for more, in the house and in their hearts. In September, they took in an 11-year-old girl they had fostered once before, in 2015. She’s been in and out of foster care since she was 2.
They won’t give up, not when there are so many children they could help.
“We have to keep beating it into their heads that they are worth something,” James said.
Because it’s hard on a child when the people who are supposed to take care of them and keep them safe don’t. It’s difficult to trust anyone else after that.
Lorraine and James don’t make any promises they can’t keep. These girls don’t need anyone else to let them down. They have had enough of that.
Nobody from Rihanna’s biological family — not her mother, Laurell Florence, not Rihanna’s grandmother, not the uncle who had expressed interest in adopting her — had called Lorraine to talk to Rihanna, though they had her phone number.
“Right here’s my family,” Rihanna said.
Court records show Laurell Florence was arrested April 27 on two drug charges and one charge of criminal trespassing for breaking into a house. On May 15, a bench warrant was issued for her arrest.
Lorraine asked Rihanna what she would tell her mother if she had the chance. Rihanna thought for a moment and then she dropped her head and cried.
Lorraine told her, “She never stopped loving you. You always have to remember that she never quit loving you, even now. She never stopped loving you.”
Rihanna got glasses in fourth grade and made the honor roll in fifth grade. Her teachers raved about her.
She grew out of pigtails and now sits patiently for hours while Lorraine braids her hair. She’s taller than her mom now.
For Christmas, she made a gift for Lorraine, wrapped it and placed it beneath the tree. Inside the box was a red tissue paper rose with a stem of green beads.
“It’s beautiful,” Rihanna said, “like her.”
Rihanna made honor roll again in her first semester of sixth grade. She plans to try out for track and start gymnastics. James and Lorraine tell her she can do anything she puts her mind to.
The choice is up to her.