April 12th, 2024
I have heard it said and had it said to me, “Oh, fostering is so brave of you. I could never do it. I could never send kids back. It would break my heart.
I am here to tell you that I am not brave.
I’m also here to tell you…. IT SHATTERED MY HEART.
So much so, that I spent the first 48 hours sobbing, with my phone shut off, locked up in my house, unwilling to see or talk to anyone. The depth of grief I felt after only three and a half months with my first littles, rivaled the time I held my cat of 17 YEARS as he died of a heart attack in the middle of the hallway on an unsuspecting Sunday evening.
It’s been about four weeks since two chunks of my heart climbed into a rental van and rode out of town. I searched the internet for people who had shared their experiences with kiddos being reunified or moved. There are plenty of instances where placements have been disrupted, where the foster family’s situation had changed, or behaviors/needs made the home a challenge to serve a particular child. I think sometimes there can be a sense of relief in finding a better fit for a kid. Or making the difficult decision that a certain foster home is not the best combination of factors.
But that was not this. And the severing of a deep bond the girls and I had developed over the last few months cut me in all the ways it possibly could. As someone who has felt very strong ties to wander, those sweet little hearts settled me, gave me a sense of belonging to this uniquely created, yet temporary family.
WHAT I LEARNED
It’s not about me. LITERALLY. I don’t call the shots, and I don’t get to have an opinion. It sucks.
The number one priority is the kiddos. What do they need to prepare for the move? The who, what, when, and wheres. When and how to share the news, building in time to process, validating their emotions- both the good and bad. We spent a lot of time talking about how it’s possible for two opposite emotions to be true at the same time (i.e. happy to have a safe home and sad to be away from family)
The community will grieve with you. I didn’t think about how I was going to have to navigate our community’s sadness over the girls leaving. Their teachers, our church, anyone who had spent time with them, also grieved the goodbye. I had to hold my sadness, the girls’ emotions, as well as the questions of everyone else.
Boundaries are important. I had to be very clear about my own boundaries. I didn’t have answers to questions and I didn’t have energy to continually reflect on the inner workings of the court system and case workers that I barely understand myself. It’s incredibly difficult to tell someone that you can’t discuss it.
Support is everything. Find a support group. The fostering journey can feel lonely and isolating. I like to say it runs parallel to normal parenting, but there is so much more to trauma informed care and each individual case, added to the challenge of being inserted into a child’s life with no prior background knowledge…. if there isn’t a local, in person support group, join one online. I find a lot of comfort and solidarity in some facebook groups I’ve joined.
There is no easy way to avoid the pain, you just have to go through it. Feel the feels. Cry the tears. Whatever your normal outlets for processing are….lean into them. Even as I cried my way through that first weekend, I gardened and organized my home. I took naps and wrote a song….I don’t know if anyone will ever hear it, but it was important for me to write. It is titled, “Lot to Learn”.
And maybe not every placement will feel like this. But I am more and more convinced that I would rather have my heart shattered a million times than close my home to children who need a safe place to land. It would be selfish of me to say that the protection of my own feelings is more important than these kiddos who don’t get to choose this journey. So I’ll be taking some time. Time to grieve and recalibrate. Time to settle my soul and gear up for the next round. Let’s go.