tion agency.
"I wanted Marissa to have a sister,"
she explains, "because I don't."
Marissa almost didn't have a sister.
The agency phoned one evening,
but Greene had come home tired from
work and hadn't checked her messages.
The next morning, the agency phoned
again and said, "We have a 2-day-old
baby girl, and if you're interested you
need to contact us within 24 hours."
That's how Mayci, named for
Greene's late Aunt Molly and Aunt
can't be done by just one person.' But
then I think, 'So what?' So you let the
house get messy because you know
your children want to go to the park."
Ideally, Greene would prefer to write
books at home (she already has her
next 10 — at least — planned), so she
could spend most of her time with her
children.
Now, while she enjoys her job as a
social worker at the Southgate Adult
and Community Education center, she
is pained by the time she is away from
Anita Greene with Mayci and Marissa
Rose, and because "you have to smile
when you say both syllables," came to
the family.
The Challenges
Today, Marissa is 6 years old, acting
"sometimes like 5 and sometimes
like 15," Greene says. She enjoys
school and drawing and singing
and helping with her little sister.
Mayci, 2, is "feisty, happy and
smart," her Mom reports. "She
already speaks in complete sen-
tences."
Today, her life is such a gift,
Greene says, that she can't imagine
anything else. "My life is so filled with
blessings now How much more could
one person ask for?"
Still, being a single parent has its
challenges.
Since she always prefers being with
her children to anything else, Greene
almost never has time for herself.
Friends don't even bother calling to
invite her for a "night-with-the-girls"
anymore.
Day-to-day life, the ordinary stuff,
can be overwhelming.
"There are times when I say, 'This
her daughters (Marissa attends school
in Southgate, and Mayci is in day
care).
Her parents are both dead, and she
has no close family — except a cousin,
Madeleine Goldstein — to help out.
Greene has yet to resolve the ques-
tion of her children's religion, as well.
Greene's parents' approach to
Judaism was to keep quiet about it.
"Don't tell anyone you're Jewish, or no
one will like you," they told their
daughter time and again.
Today, Greene doesn't conceal the
fact that she's Jewish, but many of her
neighbors have no knowledge of her
religion ("I'm not sure how they
would- feel about me if they knew"),
and she has yet to become involved at
a synagogue.
"I would love for my children to be
active in the Jewish community," she
says; but for now they live a basically
secular life, though they celebrate both
Chanukah and Christmas.
Perhaps most challenging for Greene
has been the hurtful comments she
and her children have endured from
day one.
"Where did you get her?" people
ask. Or, 'She's adopted, isn't she?"
With such comments, Greene, who
says she is "tied to the hip" with
Marissa, was terrified of how her
daughter might come to realize she
had a different biological mother. She
wanted to tell her in just the right
way, a loving way, and so she wrote
Annie Cabannie's Star Baby, which she
helped illustrate and self-published.
She wrote the book under the pseu-
donym "Sylvestra Throckmorton," for
the strength of actor Sylvester Stallone
and because she liked the sound of a
highway she once saw in Texas.
"This is my first book," Greene
says. "One day I hope to be the
female Dr. Seuss. I envision myself in
costume, a sweet old lady with glasses,
wearing a cat-print dress, a friendly,
approachable character."
In addition, Greene plans to
become an advocate for adoptive par-
ents and adopted children. She would
love to design a program for schools,
then go in and speak with children,
teachers and administrators about
what it means to be adopted, and
what's wrong with those all-too-often-
heard inane comments to children,
like, "Where is your real mother?"
It would be nice if Star Baby is prof-
itable, Greene says, but already.the
book has brought her everything she
could want.
As soon as she had the page proofs
of her book in hand, Greene
"screamed and yelled like a crazy
woman." Then she went to Marissa's
school, patiently waiting outside the
classroom while the students finished
a math test.
Finally, she entered the room and
handed her daughter her book.
Marissa looked at Star Baby, then
hugged it tightly to her chest. Greene
stepped back, watching, keeping the
moment forever.
"If I never make a cent off this book,"
she says, "it will all have been worth it,
just to see Marissa's reaction." ❑
Soothe your
winter skin
Ahava from Israel
ALL ON SALE
for the month
of January
.
Ahava Foot Cream
Sale Price: $12.99
Nourishing Night Cream
Sale Price: $28.49
at: vniniv.Jewish-com
Call 1 866 JUDAICA
-
-
3N
1/ 7
2005
37