I'm a big holiday tradition sort of gal. The period of time between Halloween and New Year's passes as an action packed blur from the annual Bring Your Own Pumpkin carving party to the ceremonial decorating of the tree to the party-time nonsense of New Year's. Throw in my birthday and our son's birthday along the way and it's almost more fun than one family can stand.
At times, there is a shadow behind the festivity for me now. Our foster daughter, who came to us at five months, full of the crack her breast-feeding mom used, and who left us at twenty months to go live with a great-aunt who had never met her, is in my thoughts.
This year, while I was laughing at my son's antics in his vampire costume, I remembered the little duck costume from her one and only Halloween with us.
When it's time to get Christmas outfits, I see a continuous supply of adorable dresses that I will never buy for her. When I set up the babysitting arrangements for my birthday and for New Year's there will be that moment when I consider who is best at putting her to sleep, before I remember that she's gone, not our daughter, won't ever be with us again.
I tell myself fifty times a week that she's fine, she's happy, she's with her siblings and she won't even remember us anyway. It doesn't really help.
We were the ones who got up with her every three hours, night after night until she learned to sleep through the night at fourteen months, the restless drug-baby night terrors finally subsiding. She walked to her "Daddy" for the first time, tottering along beside the Christmas tree. She loved her brother and her dogs and her nightly dinosaur book. No one gives hugs like she does; she relished family snuggle, all of us in one big hugging lump in the middle of mom and dad's bed, heads under the covers. The Christmas she was with us, our son was still small enough that he could wait to go out to the Christmas tree and the bounty of Santa until after we had all piled in to snuggle with our Christmas pajamas and our Christmas smiles.
This Halloween we went house-to-house trick or treating for the first time - our son, one of his best buds since infancy and her little sister. Sissy would have been right up in front with the big kids, showing off her costume, dancing and laughing and hoarding her candy. As we trooped through the neighborhood, I said a little prayer that somewhere my baby girl is enjoying the holidays safely and surrounded by love. And that somehow she knows that when she was too little to remember, she was desperately loved.
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Leonde Delmare
Melissa Miles McCarter
Molly Langmuir
John Hummel
Beth A.
john blumenthal
Salon.com
Comments
You already know this, but what you gave her, and when you gave it to her, mattered more than anything else going forward. Doesn't fill your empty arms, but reading this it's easy to see your big heart is full.
It's so hard, the loss you feel. But know that you laid down some desperately needed nurturing that might just save her down the line.
I think she knows. I believe she won't forget, just like you won't.
I'm glad to know you have other kids, too--you have so much to give.
The world needs more people like you.
Thanks again - you are such a supportive group of wonderful people!
-Nikki-
Though she may not remember details of her life with you, your foster daughter is sure to be stronger from the love that you gave her. I hear so often that the affection we receive (or don't receive) in the very early part of our lives has a huge impact on us. Taking her in and giving her what you did was a selfless, heroic act. Maybe today she is surrounded by people who love her dearly.
JK - I hope that for her more than anything; not knowing is the worst part.
Cat - I so hope it matters. She is battling a 3 generation crack habit and teen pregnancy is every woman in her family, just about. I just hope this distant relative that took them is distant enough from all that, or all the love she gives her won't help...
Connie - thanks so much - I hope so!
Sophie - we will definitely foster again; our son is a handful for now!
CK - thanks. She so deserves all the love in the world, but then I guess all little ones do.
Mamoore - I am kind of an imposter. A selfish person pretending to be not - I wanted a second child so badly - that's probably really what motivated us to get foster parent certified...I hope it did do some good long-term.
Dem - thanks so much! Foster parents are so needed here in TX....
Overworked - thanks so much. I'm glad it didn't bum everyone out! I was weepy a lot of the day - that picture does it to me.
white and black - I have NOT mastered the letting go, obviously. I didn't want to let go - we had truly come to see her as "our" child, when she wasn't...
Stacey - I had to seek out a dictionary...and I'm still not sure I get it 100%, but thanks! (I'm a little weak on my neuropsych terminology! :)
yekdeli - Amen!
dolores - She IS absolutely precious. Even when she'd been screaming for hours, all she had to do was flash that smile...
Nikki - it is very hard. I don't know much about the great aunt - she may very well be terrific. I sure hope so.
Karin - one of the things I struggle with is how selfish I feel about it all. I want her in our lives, regardless of how much better it might be for her to be with her sibs and her own blood people...
skeletn - that was our goal - adoption - and it looked like it was going to happen. The the great-aunt showed up out of the blue; judges really ,really don't want to do a cross- racial adoption if there is willing family to take the children. And they really want to keep sibs together. (Which I can see - I just don't like it in this case!) Maybe what happened saved the situation later on - I don't know how patient I would be. Your friends are really a blessing to their daughter.
myanmeise - Thanks! I really hope so.
Julie - That is the thing - she had become my baby...thanks.
Marcelle - She had no real opinion about the duck costume - it was sort of funny. I put her in it and she just sort of looked at me, like "whatever Mom!"
Ablonde - thank you.
Joan - We have NO right to visit, to write or to even know where she is. When the state gives the child back to the "natural" family, it's up to the family whether or not to allow contact. There is often resentment there - especially in cases like ours, where they know we wanted to adopt. If she goes back into foster care, since she's now all the way across this huge state, we won't even know. The caseworkers are terribly over-loaded and turn-over is extremely high. Our daughter had 8 social workers in the year and half she was with us. It is a system that needs a lot of work - and to make it work better, it'd need money.
Her soul will feel your prayers.
My daughter is twenty now, gorgeous and happy, and has been the light of our lives forever. I am SO sorry for your loss, sweetheart.
Can you find her and fight? I would. I would try anyway, despite the odds. She's worth it.........fucking fight.
mimetalker - isn't that costume just the cutest? I love the costumes for the toddlers - they're so fun, and the kids don't have opinions yet to tell you they'd rather be a superhero or something!
Ghostwriter - I try so hard to believe that. And most days I do...
Renaissance - Thanks so much.
Ginny Rose - I so admire what you did. If we had any evidence that she was going to a dangerous environment, we would have fought. But we decided that rather than pry her away from her sibs, which she would likely resent later in life, we would defer (unhappily) to the judge's wisdom, albeit with great reservations.
I have seen much of this in my life. I have seen many families truly pull together to care for the children of a troubled family member. They love them very much and ache for them as they wait for them to be returned.