‘Family means everything’

THE PARENTS: Flora Williams, 61, and Mark Durchsprung, 60, of Lansdowne

THE KIDS: Rah’mir, 13; Zah’mir, 13; Kiaira, 12; Kash’ae, 11; Chase, 9; Amyah, 2, adopted Dec. 28, 2022

Flora figured her parenting days were done.

She’d raised three biological children along with the three siblings she adopted. She’d seen them march down the aisle at high school graduations. She’d watched them walk into their adult lives.

There was sorrow, too, woven into the years: In 2001, she buried her mother, who’d raised Flora and her 11 siblings after their father died. Five years later, Flora’s husband passed away.

But a year after that, she struck up a conversation with Mark, a conductor on the SEPTA train she rode to work. One day he suggested they go out. Flora held onto his phone number for a while before calling; their first date was to the Shady Maple Smorgasbord near Lancaster, and soon they were a couple.

“All my kids were grown. My weekends were my weekends. I had time,” Flora recalls.

But then came Rah’mir, born to Flora’s niece, who wasn’t ready to be a parent. The baby came to live with her at 2 weeks old, and never left. Then a string of others: Zah’mir, the son of Flora’s daughter’s best friend. Kiaira, a grandchild born when her mother was just 16. Kash’ae, who was Zah’mir’s little sister.

Soon Flora was trundling the children around the neighborhood in one of those four-seater strollers that day care centers use. And Mark was enthusiastically along for the ride.

“When Rah’mir came, I thought: OK, looks like I’m starting over again, raising kids. I opened my door, opened my heart, and bought a crib,” Flora says. For Mark, who divorced in 2001 and has two grown children from that marriage, the newly expanded household was a chance to parent differently.

“Things work out for a reason,” he says. “You just don’t know the reasons why. I changed diapers more than I changed diapers on my own kids. I realized it was a great opportunity to raise these children. You have to give everybody an equal opportunity in life. I love them as much as I love my own biological kids.”

For Flora, the household was a reprise of her own childhood; she was number nine, the third girl of her parents’ dozen children. “We got to play sports all to ourselves. We had cookouts. It was the bomb,” she remembers. “My mom always kept us together, even after my father died when I was 16.”

She was determined to do the same. After giving birth to three children and then adopting Shareef, a 9-year-old with a huge smile, Flora learned that the boy had two sisters. “I didn’t want to split up a family,” she says. “Family means everything.” So she adopted Cherise and Talleyia as well.

“When the girls came, they said, ‘We’re not a number anymore. We’re names.’ I liked taking care of them, the good days and the bad days, being there for them.”

Flora held tight to family routines: Friday night movies with blankets and popcorn; Sunday dinners after church; batches of peanut butter cookies to leave out for Santa Claus. Flora’s was the house where neighborhood children seemed to flock; she always insisted on walking them home, even if they lived just up the street.

After Kash’ae came Chase, another child of Flora’s niece. He had hearing difficulties as a toddler until he had surgery to unblock his Eustachian tubes.

“Once I adopted Chase, I kept my house open [to foster children] and said I would take babies up to 2 years old,” Flora says. Last November, Amyah arrived — a baby wearing a onesie, a snowsuit, and a single sock. “She’s been here ever since.”

Life continues to serve up joy and grief. In June 2021, when Mark was upstairs and Flora was in the living room, he texted her: “Let’s get married.” Her response: You can walk downstairs and ask me face-to-face. He did, and they set a date for a low-key ceremony at a wedding chapel.

The following month, her son Shareef was killed in a drive-by shooting. For days, a spontaneous memorial — stuffed animals, flickering candles — grew in front of Flora’s house. But the emblems of grief upset the younger children, and Flora finally told neighbors, “I don’t want this in front of my door.”

Sometimes the younger children are angry or sad. Occasionally they ask about their absent biological parents. “Zah’mir’s father died of cancer when he was 2,” Flora says. “One day, he said, ‘I don’t have a dad. Can you go to the store and buy me one?’ I said, ‘Your dad lives in your heart.’ ”

Parenting doesn’t end, Flora says, no matter where the kids come from or how old they are. “You never want to be done raising them. Even when they’re out there on their own, they still need you.”

It’s challenging, Mark says, when the children bristle with bad moods or refuse to listen. “I don’t like raising my voice.” The best times are the simplest — long walks when the kids relax and ask big questions: Who is God? Where is Jesus? What’s going to happen in the future?

Flora says parenthood has taught her patience. “I listen to them,” she says of the kids. “There’s always three sides to a story. I have love and respect for everybody, and I try to teach them that.”

And when her resolve falters, she thinks about her own mother: “In my mind, if my mom could do it, I could do it. Good or bad, we’re going to keep it going, every day.

“I look forward to waking the kids up in the morning and putting them to bed at night. One might wake up happy; another might wake up mad. They have school; I’m the first one there and the last one to leave. They get out at 3:25. Everybody wants a hug at the end of the day.”