I was scrolling through my Pinterest boards and came across all the ideas I pinned for his room. It stung. Goodbyes are always hard, but this one especially so. I felt that heat start to rise up in my gut, the grief. Then the guilt that immediately follows. Reminding myself that he was never “mine” and that aching for him isn’t justified. Then also reminding myself that it’s ok to miss him and it’s ok to be desperately sad even if I’m also so very thankful that he gets to grow up with his sister and his aunt and so many others who share his DNA. He won’t have questions that I can’t answer about where he came from and who his family is.
I’m so happy and thankful that he gets to be part of the family he was born into, that’s the whole goal of foster care. It’s literally “what I signed up for”. But I’m also pretty sad that I don’t have a Link themed bedroom in my house full of swords and shields and rubies. I’m sad he never got to move up to the next Mother’s Day Out class, and I won’t see him wearing that cute pair of shoes I bought in the next size up. All those little bitty “planning ahead” steps you take as a parent all of a sudden sting. It’s been 3 years, and it still stings. I’m still sad that Jett never got to “teach him how to ride a bike and some math so he’ll be smarter”. It still kills me each time one of the kids cry about how much they miss him. It never goes away, and no one asks about him because no one really even remembers him. There have been so many kids who have come and gone, it’s hard for most people to keep count. Someone mentioned the other day about how they remembered the day they met Jeremiah. I just smiled and nodded as they described the day, but I knew the child they met that day was actually L. I just didn’t have the emotional energy to correct their memory.
There are so many times people tell me they can’t be foster parents because they would “get too attached”. I assure you that we all “get too attached”. It hurts, and the emotions are confusing. I feel like I’ve lost my own child, but this child was not “my own” to lose. I was supposed to love him and accept him as part of my family. That wasn’t hard at all. But then I had to let him go because he wasn’t my child and I never had any rights to him. My emotions betray me because I know saying goodbye meant success, but it hurts not to have him here.
Everyone loves a happy ending, but what constitutes a “happy ending” in foster care? This isn’t a tale with a clearly defined story line. His story didn’t start with our family, and doesn’t end with our family. His story started long before he was born and will continue long after he has left this earth. As a foster family, our job isn’t to ensure a happy ending. Our job is to take as many steps towards healing and hope as we can. Sometimes that means he’ll find his way back to the family he was born into, and sometimes that means a lifetime of coming to terms with the reality that adoption is born out of deep loss.
Pat
I was caught off guard by the emotions this post brought out in me, especially the notion that “saying goodbye meant success.” Although L’s story didn’t start and end with your family, the Murrays were an integral and permanent piece of his life story. Just as loving him changed you forever, it changed him forever, too. It’s part of who he is and who he will become.