Ito-Ahlen

Yvonne Ito and Sven Ahlen are our putative daughter and son in law.  That relationship is a bit strange but I will try to explain it. 

While living in Everett our son Todd and his significant other, Michele, were heavy into the use of drugs and finally the State took Cyle, their son, from them and placed him in a foster home.  After living in a number of foster homes in one year he was placed with Sven Ahlen and Yvonne Ito.  They decided to adopt him even though by this time he was diagnosed with leukemia.  Sven and Yvonne already had adopted four other children of various racial or ethnic backgrounds.  Sven is half Swedish and half Tlingit.  Yvonne is Caucasian but had lived for many years in Japan, had a Japanese-American daughter and spoke fluent Japanese. Theirs was a truly multi-racial, multi-ethnic home.

When they adopted Cyle he was an extremely angry kid but Sven and Yvonne eventually turned him into a loving bundle of joy.  What a change!  After several years of treatment, bone marrow transplant, etc., he died peacefully in their home.  He knew that he was dying but two days before he did pass away he was insisting on going to school.  “I’m not dead yet!  I want to go to school.”

Mary Ann and I informally adopted the whole bunch.  We became “Grandma” and “Grandpa” to the kids.   Yvonne has a Ph.D. in social work and Sven has a Masters in the same field.