An Answer to Prayer
For adoptive mother, Mother’s Day is a day of thanks

Patti Long was in her late thirties when she married her husband, Tony, and their early attempts to have a child were unsuccessful. However, rather than turning to fertility treatments as a solution, they chose to go the adoption route, and two years after signing with a local adoption agency, young Samuel—age three and a half weeks—became a permanent part of the Long household.

His arrival was a whirlwind process in which the Longs were informed of the boy’s availability on a Friday, met him for the first time the following Thursday and took their son home the next day.

For Patti, it was love at first sight. It didn’t matter that the boy was of a different race (African American) and had been born with piebaldism, a rare form of albinism that resulted in the boy’s otherwise dark skin displaying random patches of white.

“We held him and loved him right from the beginning,” Long recalls. “Not until you experience it can you understand that kind of unconditional love.”

A couple of years later, her son would be diagnosed with autism as well, but despite those challenges, Mother’s Day now has special significance for Long.

“I stop that day and say ‘thank you’ to God for answering one of my greatest desires,” she says. “I’m so blessed. Even with all of Samuel’s issues, I cannot imagine not having him. I never think of Samuel as being adopted. It’s like he’s part of us.”

She adds that Samuel often displays traits that are strangely similar to those of his adoptive parents.

Now in kindergarten, Samuel is accepted and loved by his classmates, and according to his mother, the boy takes his skin condition in stride.

“He tells people, ‘I have the most beautiful skin in the world, and God made me both brown and white,’” she says.

Having grown up in a tightly knit family with many siblings, Long soon found herself praying that God would bring her and Tony another child so that Samuel might enjoy that same kind of familial experience. That prayer was answered two years later when, despite having had four miscarriages, Patti gave birth to a daughter, Bonnie, now age four.

“They’re very close, typical siblings. They fight sometimes, but they love each other a lot. I couldn’t ask for anything better than that.”