Living and Loving Your Life’s Purpose. A Life Story. A Love Story. An Adoption Story.

By Jackie White

​This month’s Life Story features Lori Tillock, CEO of Culinary Communications by trade and a wife, mom and friend by heart. She has been married to her husband Brad for 23 years and has 3 beautiful children Alex 17, Katie 14 and Xiang Bo 13.

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Childhood and Purpose

Many times One’s passions in life can be traced back to things you liked to do in childhood. This was the case for Lori Tillock. Lori grew up cooking alongside her mom. They made new recipes together, baked and enjoyed the process of creating delicious dishes. Lori’s mom was not only an accomplished cook and baker she was actually employed in a test kitchen working on recipe development. Lori found that she shared her mom’s passion for cooking, baking and recipe development.

When Lori went off to college at the University of Illinois at Champaign, choosing a major was easy for her. She followed her passion in cooking. She chose to major in food and business and also in dietetics. Since she was so clearly focused, she took on several  internships at large food companies such as Betty Crocker and Brachs. She even won a coveted internship with Pillsbury working on their Pillsbury Bake-Off. She found these real-life experiences very helpful because she got to know people were employed in her chosen field. These mentors were a great help as she focused in on her career path.
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She began her professional career at UW Hospitals in Madison, Wisconsin, where she was a dietetic intern. She realized that once in that role, she preferred to be back in the kitchens developing recipes. She shifted sails and found herself employed in the Oscar Mayer test kitchens. She stayed with Oscar Mayer and, eventually, Kraft Foods for over 14 years. There, she developed recipes for Oscar Mayer deli meats, bacon and Kraft cheese products. It was a job she absolutely loved! She was doing what she loved and was working with great people. Lori is happy to have chosen following her passion in life. It has made her work life very enjoyable, and she does not regret her years of doing what she has always loved.

Love & Marriage 
Here Comes Baby in the Baby Carriage

Lori married Brad in 1995 and soon thereafter was pregnant with her son Alex. He was born in 2002. He was a healthy baby, but unfortunately was diagnosed with food allergies. Lori learned quickly that parenting a child with food allergies carries a lot of stress and anxiety because a reaction could be life threatening. Lori found balancing work and having a child with special needs a tough balance to strike. There is stress, worry and proactive safety management of her son. True to Lori’s style, she immersed herself in learning about food allergy management, safe cooking methods, safe child care options and researched the best ways to manage food allergies. She became an expert. Leaving Alex with someone who wasn’t has versed in food allergies as herself was stressful, but it was necessary for Lori to return back to work.
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Although Lori and Brad loved their careers, they realized they weren’t conducive to raising a family. They wanted to relocate closer to their families. When Lori researched the city they were relocating to, she realized having a job in the food industry was not going to happen. There just were not those opportunities there. As a result, Lori pursued getting an MBA and made a career change to work in the marketing field.

The Best Made Plans

The marketing job she took didn’t last long because Lori’s mother was diagnosed in 2004 with breast cancer. Lori was unable to take the time off from her new job to care for her mother and ultimately had a choice to make. The decision was how to manage her family, her mother and her job and like many women do, Lori began reframing her career so that she could care for her mother. This was the catalyst that directed Lori to return to her passion in food and start her own company called Culinary Communications. By doing this she was able to pick and choose the jobs she would take so that she was available for her mother. She was ultimately thankful to find her way back to her first love in food.

Career Advising

Starting her own business is never easy but doing it under such stressful circumstances amplified the difficulty. As Lori looks back on how her education and career has unfolded, Lori feels that her internships were very helpful guides, but she wished someone would have mentioned that if you desire to have a family one day, think about how flexible your career could be for you to manage both a career and a family. Having tried stepping outside her passion briefly, she says she would not recommend it. Work becomes just that, work. When you are pursuing your passion you are feeling fulfilled and that’s important.

Family Expansion, a World Away

It was about this time Lori and her husband wanted to expand their family. As if Lori didn’t have enough to manage she went through a series of heartbreaking miscarriages, only to be ultimately diagnosed with secondary infertility. This news was devastating, but through every rain cloud there can be a ray of light. After a few years of waiting, Lori and Brad’s light was shining from across the world in a little girl from China. Kaitlyn Annamei joined their family in 2006. Lori’s mom was able to travel to help receive Kaitlyn when she arrived. It is a memory that Lori will cherish forever.

Even though Baby Katie was born a world away, it is clear, she was meant to be Lori and Brad’s daughter. She fulfilled a need they had in expanding their family and planted another seed of purpose.
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Upon welcoming their new baby girl into the family, Lori and Brad put in paperwork for another baby from China since the wait was seemingly getting longer. Lori said her eyes were opened through adoption to the large number of children waiting for families. She knew that her hardship of years of trying to conceive were directing her to a purpose she didn’t know she had. She felt the strong pull to adopt again from China, but it was getting more and more difficult.
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While still waiting for another child from China, Lori’s mom passed in 2011. It was already 5 years, and they were still waiting for their next child. They began to expand their search for another child, and, in 2017, they were notified they qualified to be part of a program that hosted older children from China. That’s when they met 11 year old Xiang Bo. He was the child that they had been searching for. They didn’t know he was going to show up in the form of a spunky 11 year old boy who had spent his entire life in an orphanage. Adopting an older child is not for the faint of heart, and, when they threw their hat in the ring to add this boy to their family, they didn’t do it without significant contemplation and commitment.

Xiang Bo stayed with them for 3 weeks and in that time, they began to bond with this boy. Unfortunately, the program he came to America with, required him to return to China and the orphanage until the adoption paperwork could get processed. Lori was familiar with the Chinese orphanages and to return this boy, her son, to that situation was almost too much to bear. They did the best they could to cope by Facetiming him and send him letters and gifts to let him know they didn’t forget him.

More Change Isn’t Always Good 

While they waited for paperwork to clear, they decided to sell their current home and build a new house to better accommodate the family. Building a house isn’t always the easiest way to move, especially when during the build, the contractor leading the build dies. This was terrible not only because the man lost his life, but also because building came to a crashing halt. Lori was panicked because they had to have a completed home to bring Xiang Bo home and without that, he could not be adopted. Thankfully, the build was ultimately delayed only 2 months. However, during that same time period, Brad’s sister unexpectedly passed away. It was unbelievably sad and stressful. As 2017 came to a tumultuous close, Lori’s family finally moved into their home and was given the green light to make plans to come get Xiang Bo!

Perspective and Proactivity

The stress of all the change and waiting and unexpected deaths was almost more than Lori could handle. She battled migraines and did her best to take care of herself and her family. Lori reflected on that time, “Probably the biggest motivator for me through our most difficult times of change in the last few years was this little boy, who needed us so much. We were working through everything with a goal in mind, and if getting a kid out of a Chinese orphanage isn’t motivation, I’m not sure what is. I still try to keep that perspective in the more challenging days”.
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Only those close to Lori or those who have walked in her shoes of adopting an older child from another country can possibly understand the challenges posed by this type of adoption. Xiang Bo has been physically a part of Lori’s family now for almost two years. The family is settling into their new way of life and are grateful for the opportunity to have Xiang Bo.

Lori says proactively addressing issues through therapy has been a critical tool for everyone in the family to work through the extreme change and stress they were experiencing. She and Brad also were sure to schedule time together and with friends. At the time, leaving Xiang Bo with a sitter wasn’t an option because of his challenges, so they scheduled time individually to physically take a break.
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When people ask Lori if she regrets her latest adoption journey she says no because this boy, her son, completes their family. She further explains “part of the motivation behind all of this change was seeing the change that needed to happen in the world…and I realized the number of children waiting for families in China, I knew I had to do more. We had relatively abundant resources compared to most of the world.” Lori also shares this parable to further explain:
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One day, an old man was walking along a beach that was littered with thousands of starfish that had been washed ashore by the high tide. As he walked he came upon a young boy who was eagerly throwing the starfish back into the ocean, one by one.
Puzzled, the man looked at the boy and asked what he was doing. Without looking up from his task, the boy simply replied, “I’m saving these starfish, Sir”.
The old man chuckled aloud, “Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?”
The boy picked up a starfish, gently tossed it into the water and turning to the man, said, “I made a difference to that one!”

And, so she has made a difference in many ways, but especially to her family.

​Thank you to Lori and her family for sharing their beautiful story of change, acceptance and love. Lori is a role model in life for many things including her compassion, her ability to act in the face of uncertainty, her dedication to her family and staying true to who she was always meant to be. I am lucky to call her a friend and fellow Fanilow, but that’s a story for another time.