Page 55 - WilmU Spring Summer 2013

upbringing. So James Parrish was asked to step
in and mentor the boys. He did so as a favor to
his grandmother, who felt the boys needed a
male role model in their lives, and because he
had served as a mentor to other neighborhood
and church youth.
James and Amber had a child of their own,
3-year-old CJ, and didn’t plan on having more.
The couple had never talked about adoption.
But when they looked at those boys, they
knew what they had to do.
They adopted the youngest, Michael, first.
That was finalized in 2005, and over the
next several years they adopted Terrell and
TreShawn, too, once the Parrishes discovered
how important it was for all three to stay
together.
“Those boys chose us. We didn’t choose
them,” Amber says. “They saw security in my
husband and me and chose us to be their
parents.”
Those boys are now grown men, all at a
healthy weight and height, and still living with
the Parrishes in New Jersey. Amber said their
childhood trauma put them a few years behind
academically and emotionally. At 19, TreShawn
is a junior in high school. But his entrepreneurial
ambitions are intact: He says when he finishes
school, he wants to start a nonprofit to feed
homeless people using food that restaurants
and grocery stores would otherwise throw away.
“I was like, ‘I bet all these stores end up
throwing a lot of food away. I should take that
and give it to people,’ ” TreShawn says.
It’s been 10 years since the boys came into
Amber and James’ life. In that time, they’ve
focused every ounce of energy on helping them
heal and thrive. They’ve also been inundated
with media requests, some of which Amber has
turned down in order to protect the children.
But there was one she just couldn’t turn
down.
In 2010, the entire family was flown to
Chicago to appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
James recalls si ing backstage ge ing briefed
by a producer, who told them they would not
get to meet Oprah before the show, because
“she wants it to be very real, very authentic on
stage.”
Imagine their surprise when Oprah herself
strolled in, sat down next to the family, kicked
off her shoes and said hello.
“It was amazing, totally amazing!” Amber says.
“She was so down to earth!”
“And no makeup!” James adds.
Last fall, both Amber and James enrolled
at Wilmington University a er receiving their
associate’s degrees fromCumberland County
College. She’s working on her bachelor’s
in General Studies with a concentration in
business management; he’s working toward
a Behavioral Science degree. James is a
Presidential Scholarship recipient. They both
a end classes at the Cumberland County
College site and plan to graduate together in
2014.
They say the biggest reason they wanted to
enroll at WilmU is to be an example for their
kids.
“I can’t tell them how important it is to get an
education if I don’t have the same thing going on
in my life,” Amber says. “I’ve always told them,
education is not an option, it’s a requirement.
So now they can see me and James doing it.
It’s kind of become a competition in our house,
actually. Who can finish their homework faster.”
SPRING/SUMMER