Don’t tell me you wouldn’t be able to give them back……
(I wrote this in 2007. But, I could have written it today because someone just said this to me yesterday.)
The most common response I get to being a foster mom is….
…..”I wouldn’t be able to give them back”
….I smile and I am curious if the comment is in admiration or disgust of my character. What kind of response can I give to that common wonder? So I say nothing. Just smile.
What I want to say is ….
that I am not able to give them back. I struggle with it every second of every day of every year and some moments I do not know if I will make it to the next. I suffer painfully and suffer in quiet. I have nothing. I have no possessions left behind for they usually came with little. I have no scars on my person because I did not carry them in me for 9 months. I am helpless in easing my own mourning because even though they have left my home they have in absolutely every way remained in my heart. I think of them often. They are alive. They are where they need to be. I shouldn’t be crying. I should be happy? My heart is confused.
I pray for them daily. I repetitively give them to God, my worries extinguished but just for a moment. A moment till I run into a memory like an innocent lamb on a race course. It’s awful. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But I still subject myself to it over and over again because then I remember why foster moms are foster moms in the first place.
Every child is worth all the love I have to give and even more.