Photographer: Ed Caldwell
The Cunningham Family
The Cunningham Family
Jackie was a single mother when she married Jim, and her girls were 11 and 5. They both wanted more kids, but Jackie had had her tubes tied. They thought adoption wasn't possible, that there were more waiting parents than there were kids. Boy, were they wrong!! The Cunninghams got "Sparky" soon after birth and Michael when he was a skinny big-eared 9 year old. (He's now 210 and 6' 3''!). Sparky's baseball talents came with him. He is a faithful and sincere child. Michael's talents and issues are different. Jackie shared that “Parenting an older adoptive kid has been like stripping down an old oak door. A lot of time goes into scraping off the layers, but when you start to see the gorgeous grain emerge from underneath, you are even more committed to the process. Like the door, the true beauty of each child is already there. You're not making a kid, you're setting them free of their past. We may not look like it at first but we are bound together by an incredibly strong thread called commitment and emotionally united by the container we call family.“