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Summer Miracles Creates Power of Ten
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| April 2, 2006 - Commercial Appeal, Memphis, TN
By Cindy Wolff |
Adoption Binds Two Families Frayed by Heartache; Now Rhea and Scott Haight are Building a Home on Partnership and Prayer |
Rhea Clift Haight was plucking bits of thyme from a twig when 12-year-old Sergey burst in the back door, cheeks flush from the cold wind. "Mom, come look." It was a happy summons, not a hurt or scared one. Rhea dropped her twig and grabbed her digital camera. Sergey ran back to the side of his 13-year-old sister, Lana, who stood on a pier behind the house, holding up a cane pole with a wriggling fish. It wasn't big enough to mount or eat, but Lana and Sergey danced like they'd landed a swordfish. "Hold it up. Higher, higher," Rhea said. It was another milestone for her family. Lana's first fish. Another picture to put in an album Rhea never expected to fill.
Two years ago, Rhea was a single, successful lawyer and part-time prosecutor in Bartlett. She ate frozen dinners, filled her closets with nice clothes, spent the summers floating on a raft in her backyard pool with her three dogs on rafts nearby. Now she's a wife and a mother of 10 and she has to get dinner cooked. |
While Scott Haight works on his laptop, Rhea Haight helps son Nicholas, 9, do the pouring. Daughter Julia, 11 (right), casts a critical eye on his technique while Lana, 13, helps with the dinner preparations. Photo by Mark Weber.
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| Wish for Children Unfilled
Rhea, who turns 40 in August, grew up in Germantown, was named after her father, Ray Clift, a lawyer and part-time Germantown judge. She's short with dark hair, dark eyebrows and dark eyes. She's an attentive listener who doesn't try to top your story. She worked as a prosecutor for a few years in the Shelby County District Attorney's Office handling rape cases. She got married. She tried to have children, spent four years taking fertility shots before the doctor said it just wouldn't work. Her husband wanted biological children. Their marriage ended.
Rhea quit the D.A.'s office after too many tales of rape and pain, and worked part time as a Bartlett prosecutor where the cases are easier on the soul, usually traffic violations. She kept busy shopping, hanging out with girlfriends and family, but she had a secret prayer: "Please let me have children."
Fostering Russian Kids
Rhea knew Scott and Ginny Haight from their church, St. George's Episcopal. The couple had two adorable blond children, Betsey and Drew. Rhea had known them since they toddled. The Haights also had adopted two boys from Russia in December 2000. A year later, Ginny received a diagnosis of ovarian cancer. She died in December 2002.
Scott continued to work with the Russian adoption program and agreed to foster two boys for the summer. He asked Rhea if she wanted to foster two sisters. Rhea and Scott had become friends through their book group and had quietly started dating. Rhea's house became like a summer long slumber party. Girls giggling all night, swimming all day, eating junk food. Rhea and Scott took the children to Destin for a week on the beach. It was the first time the Russian children saw the ocean, walked in sand or found sea shells.
Rhea and Scott decided to adopt the children they were fostering. And they realized they were a family. They were married in a quiet ceremony. They had to send the children back to Russia, where the adoption process took a year. "I never felt so empty as when they left," said Rhea. "They called me mommy. They were my kids and I had to let them go." Scott had added another son to his family, then they added Sergey, whose foster family didn't work out. That made 10. |
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Fostering Russian Kids
Rhea knew Scott and Ginny Haight from their church, St. George's Episcopal. The couple had two adorable blond children, Betsey and Drew. Rhea had known them since they toddled. The Haights also had adopted two boys from Russia in December 2000. A year later, Ginny received a diagnosis of ovarian cancer. She died in December 2002.
Scott continued to work with the Russian adoption program and agreed to foster two boys for the summer. He asked Rhea if she wanted to foster two sisters. Rhea and Scott had become friends through their book group and had quietly started dating. Rhea's house became like a summer long slumber party. Girls giggling all night, swimming all day, eating junk food. Rhea and Scott took the children to Destin for a week on the beach. It was the first time the Russian children saw the ocean, walked in sand or found sea shells.
Rhea and Scott decided to adopt the children they were fostering. And they realized they were a family. They were married in a quiet ceremony. They had to send the children back to Russia, where the adoption process took a year. "I never felt so empty as when they left," said Rhea. "They called me mommy. They were my kids and I had to let them go." Scott had added another son to his family, then they added Sergey, whose foster family didn't work out. That made 10. |
At the Haight dining room table, Scott and Rhea
(left) talk quietly, while English and Russian
is screamed
back and forth by children
reviewing the day's events. The Haights
have 10 children, ranging in age from
9 to 19, eight of whom were adopted from
Russia. Photo by Mark Weber.
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Drew comes home with wet hair from swim practice at Memphis University School. "When is dinner going to be ready?" "Seven," Rhea says. Drew opens the refrigerator and carves some cheese. The older children, Aleks, Vo and Vas, come and go. Friends stop by and they vanish. The smaller children play in Scott and Rhea's bedroom. Their voices loud, chattering in Russian. Lana comes in and stirs the sauce for her father.
Julia wrings the water from the manicotti shells and passes them to Rhea, who stuffs them with chicken, cheese and parsley. "Dinner!" Rhea yells. Lana runs upstairs to get Drew.
They form a circle around the four dishes of manicotti sitting on the kitchen island. They hold hands. They ask God to bless the food. The children prattle in Russian while Scott and Rhea sit at the other end and talk quietly.
Rhea's friend Suki Carson says when she and Rhea find time to walk they talk about children's snacks, schedules -- things they never used to talk about.
"I have four boys but I never talked to her about those kinds of things," says Carson. "It's like a dog whistle that someone else can't hear. Now she can. It's so great to see how quickly she nestled all of them into her heart."
Rhea believes God has a sense of humor because He answered her prayer again and again. Ten times. It took awhile but she didn't lose faith. After all, her name means "mother."
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