This
is a story of broken hearts, Titanic alcohol damage, and second
chances. It is a story I have been blessed to help unfold over the last
six years; a story that joyfully, and brilliantly, is becoming very well
known, despite its being started by epic unraveling thousands of miles
away.
A little background: an eternal optimistic opportunist, I
see 50 ways something will work where most sane folks only see downside.
Where others see a single thread, I see entire tapestries. It is a
blessing and a curse.
I needed a thread or two back in 2006 when I was working
on a 5K fundraising race/walk to raise awareness for fetal alcohol
spectrum disorders (FASDs). FASD is an umbrella term used to describe
the range of effects that can occur to an individual whose mother
consumed alcohol while pregnant. The most severe form of FASD is called
fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). FASD is not “a warm and fuzzy” cause;
people do not get all whoopty-do about it. Most would rather NEVER hear
about it, much less tell our sisters they can’t have a glass of wine for
nine months. So when I heard about a particularly enthusiastic
participant in the race, I was eager to meet her.
So I met Donnie Winokur, a wisp of a woman with intense
brown eyes and wildcat mother energy; that “I-will-fight-to-
the-death-for-my-children-and-kick-your-butt-from-the-grave” urgency
that I, as a long-time single mom, had run on for years.
Donnie’s urgency was about learning as much as she could,
and connecting with as many people as possible, to figure out what to do
for a precious little boy who was in a world of hurt, hurt that was
hurting everyone in his world.
The little boy was her son, a dream-come-true who’d been
adopted, like his sister, from an orphanage in Russia, on what was a
kind of second honeymoon for Donnie and her husband, Rabbi Harvey
Winokur. “We didn’t try to get pregnant for long, opting instead, since
we were older and this was the second marriage for both of us, to start
the adoption process not long after we got married,” she said.
To cut to the chase here, Donnie and Harvey’s son and
daughter, adopted in Russia and brought home to Roswell, GA in 1999,
made them an instant family. The daughter developed beautifully, and
today, at 14, is, physically and intellectually so much like her
adoptive mother it is as though their souls were roommates in heaven for
a million years before they were both made human.
The dream-come-true story with the little boy, however,
started crumbling about the time he turned three, when epic meltdowns,
mood swings, and rages grew in intensity as the little boy grew in size
and strength.
After many consults with many doctors, the truth unraveled
in the form of a “broken” umbilical cord. You see, the boy’s Russian
birth mother might have been an alcoholic. Or not. Or she might not have
known she was pregnant when she drank alcohol. Whatever the case, she’d
had enough to drink at some point during her pregnancy with
this precious child, that his brain had been hurt badly. Very badly. The
very cord that gave him life also delivered deathly alcohol to his
developing brain, affecting, in particular, the parts of his brain that
regulate mood, emotions, memory, and the ability to communicate,
discern, and deal with “no.”
I met a desperate Donnie Winokur a couple of years into
her sometimes frantic search to learn about her son’s FAS, and to find
anyone and everyone who might be able to help keep this family, knit
together from oceans apart, from unraveling.
She was an enthusiastic volunteer. And opportunist that I
was, I saw a face for this cause. She became, once some trust was
established, a willing accomplice. She, too, saw tapestries where others
saw threads.
I asked for an interview. She let me write her story,
using her talents as a journalist to help edit it, and her wildcat mom
energy to be sure I told it tenderly.
I asked to feature her family in a video. She had a
persuasive dialog with the reluctant rabbi, who ultimately let us film
in the synagogue. The video was a hit at our fundraiser.
I asked her to be on a fundraising committee. She did it.
I asked her to give me input on a book I was writing about
stopping the cycles of addiction and abuse, my way of using my pain to
help myself and others. She helped. We cried. We laughed. Our
friendship deepened.
I asked if I could write a fundraising letter about her
story. We made money on the letter and gathered new advocates for our
cause.
She told me she wanted to get a dog to help her son, a dog
that would be the first service dog ever to help a child with FAS by
sensing an immanent outburst and using its love to help calm the child
in ways no human can. I told her I thought it was a brilliant idea. She
told me her husband was dead-set against it. I told her, from
experience, that mothers do rabies-crazy things because we are so in
love with our children, and to listen to her mom-gut.
She and her precious father and children brought home
fur-covered love – a rescued golden retriever named “Chancer,” because
hers was his second family; his second chance at love – that helped her
son, and ultimately and became the rabbi’s best friend.
We did another video. The CDC did a video about her family
and their experience with FASD in hopes of raising awareness of the
fact there is no safe amount of alcohol, or safe time to drink, if you
are pregnant or could be pregnant.
We had awareness-building and fundraising schemes, dreams,
and roadblocks that, as we climbed over them, made us stronger. And a
little tired. After all, we’d hit our 50s together. And as we crossed
that milestone, I told her that her story was so remarkable, so
compelling, that it needed to be made into a movie. I said I was not
sure how, or when, but that somehow, some day, their story needed to be
made into a movie to help raise awareness for FASD, and awareness of the
vitally important role Chancer's fur-covered love had played in their
lives. "Imagine how much it would educate AND inspire," I kept saying.
Well, Donnie was working on three books and we were both
run ragged by children and traffic and board meetings and life and
events and she decided to put her focus into the books. I had ups and
downs with employment and life. We stayed in touch, with emails and
phone calls and rushed lunches or coffees and even a rare girls’ night
out, just two moms and Chancer, that handsome dog. I kept imagining
their story being told "on the big screen," but did little to advance
that other than imagining it. And mentioning it when Donnie and I would
catch up.
Through the years -- six years from our first meeting -- the story was been told in an incredible award-winning
book by Donnie's daughter, and in a second book, also published by Better Endings,
New Beginnings, that has garnered international awards and is the story of, and “written by,” Chancer!
Then, in an epic feature spread in the
New York Times Magazine
(2.5.12), a best-selling author wove this story and all its intricacies
and miracles together so beautifully that I firmly believe there is a
thread-for-thread matching tapestry of it hanging in heaven. And
now, with luck, we won’t have to wait too long to SEE the story being
told.
You see, Donnie connected with a group of movie producers –
Hot Flash Films – and they have seized this unique opportunity to help
Donnie do what she is so very, very good at doing: making sense of her
family’s pain by using her experience, strength, and unfailing optimism
to help others.
The update as of November, 2012, is that
Chancer’s story WILL become a movie!
It is being written by Writer/Co-Producer Karen Hall, who wrote the
script for the legendary movie “The Betty Ford Story” and has written
for some of the most well-known TV shows of the last 30 years. The movie
will be brought to the screen by Emmy Award winning director Martha
Cotton.
And so dreams are coming true. I am just wondering who’ll play ME in the movie.
For more information about Donnie Winokur, her family, and Chancer, the "wonder dog," click
here.
Read more articles by Carey Sipp here.
