I wanted to take my 2.5-year-old son on an adventure in Stanley Park, Vancouver to find a big head, about the size of a person, carved out of a tree trunk. I showed a picture of it that I found online to my son. He immediately got excited. I asked him if he wanted to go on an adventure to find this “Big Head,” and he was ecstatic. This is my and my son’s first time to Vancouver. My wife’s second time but she had not been to Stanley Park.

When I showed the picture of the carved head to a staff person operating a tour service in Stanley Park and asked her where I could find this, she was shocked that she had never seen this before. That made finding it more intriguing.  I asked the woman at the information booth and she said, “Finding it will be tough, but I can point out the area it is located in.” The mystery enticed me even more to find this head, accentuating the feeling of going on an adventure with my son. She marked it off on the map for us and off we went! I showed the map to my son, told him this was our “treasure map” and pointed out the spot on the map. He would from time-to-time hold the map, walk with it, and pretend to read it. He ran on the trail, chasing me and me chasing him. We saw colorful ducks.  We saw a swan sitting in a huge nest it made for itself. We came across a turtle, held it, and took pictures with it. A very well-mannered raccoon kindly approached us, and we took pictures with it. After an hour and a half of trekking, we finally came to the area. I said to my son, “We’re here. The Big Head is in here somewhere. Let’s look for it!” That’s when we entered the unexpectedly disturbing.

The area was just off the main path. A couple of dirt paths led into the woods. The paths criss-cross and wound this way and that. So we wandered around in there, looking at the picture shown online and tried to find the tree trunk with the giant head. Inside the woods, I was reminded of Fangorn Forest in Lord of the Rings – Two Towers. There were other people in the woods as well. My first thought was that these people were also here looking for the giant head! We followed one or two of them, thinking they knew where it was, but it turned out that they would back track the way they came. In fact, there were quite a number of individuals meandering in these woods. They appeared to be walking aimlessly. Of course, I think we appeared to be walking aimlessly as we searched for this head. Some individuals that sat on logs and others wandered. I thought they were there for some solitude. There was a tent pitched in one area. And there were some that walked together in two’s. After 20 minutes of us searching with no success, an older man approached me.

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

I kind of didn’t want the reward of discovery to be taken from me, so I didn’t say I was looking for a giant, wooden head, carved in a tree trunk. “We’re just looking around,” I said with a smile.

He took a couple steps closer and said, “This area isn’t safe.”

That was weird, because I thought, Well, what are you doing here then? “Not safe from what?” I asked, thinking maybe he was referring to animals, like snakes, or the ground being too uneven and slippery. But again, what was he doing here then?

“What?”

“Not safe from what?” I repeated. “What’s not safe here?”

“This area is for men,” he stated.

Now I was puzzled.  I looked around the woods. “What do you mean it’s for men?”  Were these guys monks?

“You figure it out.”

My wife, who had been searching in another spot not far from me, approached. I said to her, “He says this area is not safe, that it’s only for men.” My wife had the same surprised, puzzled look I had.

I asked, “Why would an area for men be unsafe.” I know. I wanted to really drill in on this and get to the bottom.

“This is place is for gay men,” he clarified. “By law, you have a right to be here, but I’m letting you know that it’s not safe for your wife and your son. You should stay on the main path.”

I politely thanked him for letting us know, because we were clueless about what we walked into. I suddenly did notice that there were only men in this area.  We came across more than a dozen. I was reluctant to leave still, because we had an adventure to accomplish with our son! But nonetheless, we started to make our way out. And sure enough, as we were about to exit the area, a man who was wrapping up his tent shouted something belligerent at us. Once we were back out on to the main path, we saw one stranger walk up to another stranger, exchange a few words briefly, and walked off into the woods together.

My wife and I were disturbed by the experience. I was extremely perturbed that a group of people could capture a beautiful, public area for themselves for their diabolical purposes, adulterate it, and prevent others from being able to share this place. This was Stanley Park, one of the main attractions of Vancouver! We had more than a legal right, by law, to be there.  We had an inherent right to the beauty of the place that is part of this earth.  The man who warned me was respectful, but he made it clear to my family and me that we were not welcomed. We didn’t belong, as that was reinforced by the other man shouting at us. There was a part of me that wanted to finish our search for my son, but I didn’t know what we could’ve walked into while peeking around in the woods. So we did the prudent thing and walked away. My heart sink the most when our son asked where the big head was, and I told him that we couldn’t find it. We couldn’t complete our adventure.

Nearly three hours from the time we started on our adventure, we made our way back to our rental car and drove to our next destination – the famous Totem Poles in Stanley Park. When our son got out of the car, he saw the totem poles and said, “I found the big head!” He ran to the wooden totem poles with the many large heads carved into them, thinking that was what we had been looking for all along. My heart was lifted at seeing his joy and his sense of completing our adventure. On our drive back to the hotel, he said with reassurance, “Daddy, Daddy, we found the big head.”

I replied, “Yes, we did.”

Dear Josiah,

My little Jai Jai, adoption is something that is still not understood very well these days. Adoption is not common. So, one day when you go to school, some of your schoolmates or friends might ask you questions that could bother you. They aren’t being mean. They just don’t understand. Some of your friends may ask you, “Why don’t you look like your daddy?” They may say, “I look like my daddy. People say I have his eyes.” You might feel bothered, maybe even hurt, and wonder, “Why don’t I look like Dada?” You might say, “Dada, I don’t have your eyes. Mine are rounder and yours are narrower. Dada, I don’t have your hair. Your hair is black and straight, and mine is brown and curly. Dada, I don’t have your nose. Your nose is bigger. I don’t have your eyebrows. Yours are bushy and mine are thin. I don’t have your height. I’m going to be so much taller than you. (And you will be). I don’t have your color. You’re darker and I’m lighter. You look Chinese, and I don’t.” I know one day you will likely have these questions about your differences from me. And they are all true. Our differences may make you feel bad and that you would want to have the same traits as your Dada as other kids do with their daddies.

But I will say to you, “Jai Jai, you have Dada’s corky laugh and silly sense of humor. You might not have Dada’s mouth, but you have Dada’s cheesy smile. You don’t have my arms and legs, but you have my silly dance moves. You’re affectionate like I am. You love to love like I do. You like superheroes like I do.  You like books, comics, and cartoons, like I do (or maybe I like them like you do!).  You like art, painting, and drawing like I do. You like martial arts like I do.  You like ketchup like I do.  You have my curiosity and will explore everything. You have my imagination and will dream up anything. You have my spirit and will live life as an adventure.  You have my faith, as even now you like to learn about God.  You love your Mama like I do. You do outrageous things that drive your Mama nuts like I do.  And yes, you will grow up to be different from me in many ways, and that’s okay, because you will become your own person.  In whatever ways we are alike or not, you are my son and will always be.  But I do want you to be different from me in one way, that you would be a far greater man than me.”

Exactly a month ago, we adopted our little foster son after raising him for 2 years and 20 days! It took some time for me to process over for what the legal conclusion of adopting our son meant to us. The weightiest factor that sunk in was that we couldn’t lose him anymore. For the two-plus years that we raised him, there was the possibility looming in the back of our minds that he could leave our care. Within the fostering life, anything can happen until it is made legal – an unknown relative steps forward to fight the case, a new judge takes over the case, no attorneys get into the picture, biological parents appeal the termination sending the case to an appeals court… My wife and I had given up our first foster son after raising him for 8 months and 1 day, and, boy, did that wrench our hearts! We were proud of his biological mother for doing what was right to get her son back, but it was still hard after loving a child as your own. I still remember the look on his face on the day I delivered him over to his birth mother. Loving with a disclaimer that you may lose the one you’re loving is part of foster parenting, and it’s a risk that is assumed with full awareness. But, man, it’s hard, especially after raising a child for over two years. I think loving and losing is one of the hardest things in the world. Although, we do it all the time.

Permanency is powerful, isn’t it? It means getting married with the intention that you and the other person would never leave each other or break your commitments to each other. It means investing into a relationship with someone who becomes your best friend, and you hope to be best friends for life. It means having a parent-child relationship and not fearing that you should one day lose your child or that the child would lose you. Permanency translates to us as lasting, enduring, or unending. The permanency of relationships – permanency of love – is not only something we deeply desire. It also grounds us, giving us a kind of stable framework for our lives. I think we crave for permanency, because deep inside of us we have a desire for eternity, for good things and genuinely loving relationships to last. I pray for permanency of love in everyone’s lives. We can work hard to gain success, wealth, accolades, fun, and gadgets, but investing into loving relationships that become lasting is crucial. I’m deeply glad that God promises to never stop loving us. I love that my wife and I can’t lose our adopted son and that he can’t lose us. As a new adoptive dad, I celebrate the permanency I have with my son, whom we named Josiah.