Saying Goodbye
Staying home from work this year has made the topic of fostering come up more in conversation with people than I ever imagined. Here is a typical conversation:
Me: My husband and I are foster parents.
Basically any stranger: OMG! That is so amazing! That is so great you are doing that for those kids.
Me: Thank you. We are just doing what God has called us to do.
Stranger: Oh, but it must be so sad when they leave!
Me: Yeah, it is pretty sad. We are still upset about Mark, and he has been gone for a while.
Stranger: Yeah, I could never do it because of that reason. I couldn't say goodbye once I loved that little kid. Nope. Just can't do it.
I get it. It is so hard. When Kyle and I were looking into foster care initially, we hoped that we would never have to say goodbye. However, we did.
Today is the one year anniversary of Mark leaving us.
One year ago Kyle packed his clothes and toys (because I just couldn't) and we loaded Mark in our car for the last time. We took him to the CPS office where he would have visits, and said goodbye to the sweetest boy in the whole world.
He was the little boy who first called me "Momma" and who made my husband a daddy. He was the one who could always make us laugh, and surprised us daily with his growing vocabulary. One time he was looking at a wedding picture of ours and, without prompting, said "Momma so pretty". He melted my heart daily.
I was watching a movie where a character lost someone. They asked another character if it ever gets easier. The other character said something along the lines of "it doesn't get easier, but you stop thinking about it so much." Lies. All lies. I think about him everyday. The other day I was in the bathroom and saw a gecko on the other side of the window. My very first thought was "Mark would love to see this." I cried because I missed him this past Wednesday. It is still hard.
Recently I was thinking about how I would have handled the whole year we had Mark if I would have known from the beginning that it would end the way it did. Would I have fallen so in love with him? Would I have chosen to be more stand-offish with my emotions? Would I have separated myself from him? And the only thing I can think of is that I would not have done anything differently. Maybe I would have snuggled him more, or risked waking him up for that one last kiss, but other than that- nothing.
After Mark left I was wondering if I had the heart to do this again. Like, could my heart break again? I came across the blog of a woman who fostered medically fragile babies. Apparently when a newborn is terminal, parents can give up their rights if they know they will not be able to handle the medical bills. These newborns have no one. So this mom, who is also a nurse, would bring them home. She would treat them for their condition in her home and treat them as a part of her family. Every now and then one would get better and be adopted, but the majority of them passed away in her living room. After about the 8th baby who died at her house, her ten-ish year old son asked when they would get a new baby. She told him she didn't know if they were going to get a new one. It was too hard on her and she just couldn't handle it. Her son replied with something like "so, we aren't going to help any more babies because it is too hard on you?"
Talk about a wake-up call.
So yeah, we are fostering again. And yeah, it will be hard. But how selfish would it be if we didn't help these children because it would be too hard on us? These children are going to be moved from home to home and say goodbye to foster parents whether or not we are fostering. They don't get a choice in the matter, but we do. These babies deserve to be loved despite the fact they might not live in my house forever. What about them?
So we will do it again, even if we have to say goodbye. And you should do hard things too, because they just could turn out to be the most rewarding thing you ever do.
Me: My husband and I are foster parents.
Basically any stranger: OMG! That is so amazing! That is so great you are doing that for those kids.
Me: Thank you. We are just doing what God has called us to do.
Stranger: Oh, but it must be so sad when they leave!
Me: Yeah, it is pretty sad. We are still upset about Mark, and he has been gone for a while.
Stranger: Yeah, I could never do it because of that reason. I couldn't say goodbye once I loved that little kid. Nope. Just can't do it.
I get it. It is so hard. When Kyle and I were looking into foster care initially, we hoped that we would never have to say goodbye. However, we did.
Today is the one year anniversary of Mark leaving us.
One year ago Kyle packed his clothes and toys (because I just couldn't) and we loaded Mark in our car for the last time. We took him to the CPS office where he would have visits, and said goodbye to the sweetest boy in the whole world.
He was the little boy who first called me "Momma" and who made my husband a daddy. He was the one who could always make us laugh, and surprised us daily with his growing vocabulary. One time he was looking at a wedding picture of ours and, without prompting, said "Momma so pretty". He melted my heart daily.
I was watching a movie where a character lost someone. They asked another character if it ever gets easier. The other character said something along the lines of "it doesn't get easier, but you stop thinking about it so much." Lies. All lies. I think about him everyday. The other day I was in the bathroom and saw a gecko on the other side of the window. My very first thought was "Mark would love to see this." I cried because I missed him this past Wednesday. It is still hard.
Recently I was thinking about how I would have handled the whole year we had Mark if I would have known from the beginning that it would end the way it did. Would I have fallen so in love with him? Would I have chosen to be more stand-offish with my emotions? Would I have separated myself from him? And the only thing I can think of is that I would not have done anything differently. Maybe I would have snuggled him more, or risked waking him up for that one last kiss, but other than that- nothing.
After Mark left I was wondering if I had the heart to do this again. Like, could my heart break again? I came across the blog of a woman who fostered medically fragile babies. Apparently when a newborn is terminal, parents can give up their rights if they know they will not be able to handle the medical bills. These newborns have no one. So this mom, who is also a nurse, would bring them home. She would treat them for their condition in her home and treat them as a part of her family. Every now and then one would get better and be adopted, but the majority of them passed away in her living room. After about the 8th baby who died at her house, her ten-ish year old son asked when they would get a new baby. She told him she didn't know if they were going to get a new one. It was too hard on her and she just couldn't handle it. Her son replied with something like "so, we aren't going to help any more babies because it is too hard on you?"
Talk about a wake-up call.
So yeah, we are fostering again. And yeah, it will be hard. But how selfish would it be if we didn't help these children because it would be too hard on us? These children are going to be moved from home to home and say goodbye to foster parents whether or not we are fostering. They don't get a choice in the matter, but we do. These babies deserve to be loved despite the fact they might not live in my house forever. What about them?
So we will do it again, even if we have to say goodbye. And you should do hard things too, because they just could turn out to be the most rewarding thing you ever do.
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