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The Musician

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Alex’Zander Armstrong was four months old the day his adoptive parents brought him home. Hurt from a previous failed adoption, Paula Armstrong wasn’t sure she wanted to set herself up for a second broken heart.

“We were supposed to adopt a baby and they backed out, so I was devastated,” begins Paula. “The following year we went to Louisiana for a wedding and that’s when I got the call from my mom telling me Catholic Family Services had called. They said they had a baby in foster care and I didn’t want to touch him with a ten-foot pole. I wasn’t going to go through that again. They said, ‘Just come in and talk to the birth mother,’ and they convinced me. The day we met her, she said she wanted us to take and raise him. The first place I saw him was in the church nursery. I knew then that this was the baby I was meant to have.”

Here they sit – a 14-year-old and a set of twins later – the musical, multi-talented Armstrong family of five. Alex always loved music, as far back as babyhood, when he’d roll up to the television in his walker to hear whatever was playing on the music channel. Even now, he needs music to fall asleep, which isn’t strange until you learn he prefers metal or Christian rock to help him drift.

“I don’t know how he does that,” laughs Paula.

Alex began nurturing his natural talent in the fourth grade when he picked up the violin and started playing in the orchestra at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School. By the fifth grade, he joined the Amarillo Youth Symphony. He took a break the following year to play football and basketball, but went back in the seventh grade to play violin in the philharmonic. Alex continued in the philharmonic during his last year at St. Andrew’s and just started ninth grade at Tascosa High School, which happens to be his mother’s alma mater.

“Music means a lot to me. I play it all the time,” says Alex, putting away his violin after playing “Days of Elijah” in the Temple of Praise sanctuary. This is where we’ve come to chat. “When people ask me to do stuff, it’s always music. I’m in the Opera now, too, so I’ve done three Opera productions. Occasionally I play the violin at church, but I’m going to start playing lead guitar. But the thing I want to do the most is food. I want to be a Food Critic.”

“Oh, yeah?” I ask, pausing to see where this conversation will take us.

“Yeah, my dad cooks all the time and I love to eat. Here’s what I’m gonna do,” says the ambitious ball of talent, taking a breath. “When I graduate from high school, I’m going to get a music scholarship to go to Texas Tech to study hotel and restaurant management. When I graduate, I’m going to own my own restaurant and then my own wine bar. After that, I’m going to move to Paris to become a food critic, and once I get enough money and become wealthy, then I’ll come back here, but probably not to Amarillo. I’ll probably move to Los Angeles. Somewhere big.”

“Okay, well, as long as you have a plan,” I reply.

“Yeah, well I thought I wanted to do music growing up, but I’ll have it to fall back on,” he reassures me. He’s confident, and I find no reason to disagree.

Alex doesn’t lack a support system. In addition to his parents and siblings, A’Drein and A’Dreonna, he has church, school, the Amarillo Symphony, and his birth family, which he has gotten to know over the past few years.

“We’ve always told them from little bitty that they were adopted. We never kept it from them,” says Paula. “Alfonso’s dad died when Alex was nine, so we had to go to Michigan for the funeral. We left the kids with my mother. When we got back, Alex told us he was ready to meet his birth mother. I always told him we’d arrange it when he was ready.”

Soon after Alex turned 10, Paula and Alfonso arranged for their son to meet his birth mother and two brothers at Mr. Gatti’s, a place they could all feel comfortable and the kids could play if it got awkward. Fortunately, the boys hit it off and Alex finally met the woman who placed him in the Armstrong family.

“He definitely connected with his brothers,” says Paula, who has seen how having an open adoption has benefited her son. “As time went on, he’d invite her to programs and concerts. Sometimes they’d go six months without talking, so I’d tell him to call her. Their relationship has really grown.”

When I ask him what he thinks about being adopted, he gives me the ultimate teenager response: “Sometimes, I’m like, ‘Why?’ and then sometimes, I’m like, ‘Cool!’”

He goes on to say, “If I didn’t get adopted, I probably wouldn’t have gone to St. Andrew’s, I wouldn’t have met my mom and I wouldn’t be here.”

Despite their hesitation over the first adoption gone wrong, Paula and Alfonso were foster parents for years, which is how they adopted the twins. Over the years, they’ve cared for more than a dozen children.

“I was really content because I didn’t think I’d ever have kids, and then I got Alex, which I knew was a true blessing. Having been on both ends, I knew the position I had been in, and I knew I could do it,” says Paula. “Most of the time we got newborns and I’d only keep them long enough to do paperwork.”

While the season of fostering has ended, it’s for a worthy cause. The three Armstrong kids keep Paula busy with all of their activities, which include the symphony, sports, church and school.

Even at his age, Alex understands he has been given opportunities many kids his age haven’t. In addition to school trips to Washington DC, Catalina Island, and Boston, Alex went to Orlando, Florida, and more recently, Rome, Italy, with the Boy’s Concert Choir. Just when he starts to complain about the reading-an-hour-a-day rule, Paula is quick to remind him about the importance of school and that his hard work will pay off.

“I don’t think he realizes where music has taken him. Even his teachers tell me that he doesn’t realize the talent he has,” she says. “I try to teach him not to take it for granted. I would tell anybody – the symphony, the opera, the choir – it’s just been so good for Alex. Music is his thing. I think God gives everyone a talent or a gift, and I truly believe music is his gift.”

It’s a good thing, too. He has a music scholarship to earn.

Next: The Singer, DonTreka Matthews

by Jennie Treadway-Miller

Jennie was a columnist for the Chattanooga Times Free Press for eight years prior to moving to Amarillo in 2008. She is an avid reader, runner and writer.

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