Tuesday, December 26, 2017

I’m in a dark hole.  

And I know I need to climb out.  

The Sun will come out tomorrow!  I’ve promised myself tomorrow will be the day.  I can’t be this person. Joy is missing.  Its not what my Heavenly Father wants for me.  Its not what I want for myself.  Every time a visit ends with the girls I’m sad.  But this time was different. Ever since the girls have gone home, I have been fine for the most part…doing what I know needs to be done, but my bed has been my only comfort…sleep.  I took a 5 hour nap today.  Kyle has been patient, but I know its time to focus on the here and now and rely on faith for the future.  Everyone experiences a little situational depression in their lives now and again.  Its no fun, but it is life!

I’ve been avoiding writing.  Anything.  But I have to write this story.  

A few nights before the girls went back I was praying, pleading with my Heavenly Father for answers.  For months the girls had been coming back for visits days, weeks at a time.  Each visit I prayed the visit would never end.  But it always did, and it felt like torture.  I wanted to know why.  Why I had to do this every month.  Why I had to hurt so much.  Was there a purpose?  In the middle of my prayer, as I was pleading to know what to do, what He wanted from me…I heard a crash.  I opened my eyes to darkness.  Nothing.  A few seconds later I heard a Lola wandering over to my side of the bed. She had bounded in through the door in the middle of my prayer and ended up by my side asking me for a drink of water.  

The answer was clear to me.  Keep on keeping on.  Take care of them.  Give them water, and whatever else they needed. They were Heavenly Father’s little girls and for whatever reason, He needed ME to help take care of them, to be in their lives at whatever capacity I was given.  That was all he was asking me to do.  Of course easier said than done, but how could I refuse?

A couple days later we heard from the girls father.  Mother had relapsed, he had separated from her because of her relapse and he made plans to come and get the girls.  We invited him and the girls’ grandmother to dinner.  Kyle and I knew what we had to do, and we knew it would be hard.  After a heartfelt phone conversation from the girls’ father, we knew he was trying to do what was best.  He had make many mistakes in his past, and he was trying to right his wrongs.  He thanked us for being his biggest support in his life this past year.  We were confused because all we had done was take care of his girls.  We knew he had no support system, but we didn’t realize how much he counted on us.  After our intimate conversation one thing was clear, he loved his girls, and we loved his girls.

Even though I knew he loved his girls, and that he wanted them, I would be lying if I didn’t hope something would change before Saturdays dinner.  But it did’n’t.  I packed the girls, added the huge Costco box of diapers I had hoped I would have needed, and a few more outfits to help supply their new home with their dad.  But nothing I did helped me feel any better.  I prayed for strength for what I knew needed to be said.  

I wanted to plead with him.  Tell him the girls would be better growing up away from his past, away from all that pushed him down his entire life—drugs, lies, disappointment, betrayal.  He was trying to change in the same environment that had always prevented him from having a healthy life before, why would it be any different now?  Did he really want his girls to grow up there?  Where every living relative was either an active addict or an addict in recovery and virtually half of his dead friends and relatives murdered by their own addiction?  He could still be in their lives, he can still see them, know them, and love them.  Every time I played this conversation in my head a storyline of a lifetime movie would pop into my head.  “Poor young father gives children to well off couple who manipulated him into thinking they knew best.”  I felt guilty for feeling the things I did.  After all, they were his children.  Who was I to say he wasn’t what was best for them? 

It is hard to know the ending to this story, but not be able to do anything in the middle.  I hold onto that faith.  I do know the ending, even though I can’t really explain it.  I knew the ending before it all began.  But for now, I know I need to support the middle, even though it hurts.

Saturday eventually happened. Their father came.  We ate dinner.  We sat in silence.  But when it became time for them to go, so he could make it back in time for his court ordered drug testing, Kyle and I asked if we could speak to him privately.  We expressed our love.  Both for him, and for his girls.  We told him we hoped he would succeed and that he would stay clean and sober forever.  We told him the best place for the girls were with their healthy mom and dad.  If mom wasn’t healthy, it was up to dad to take her place.  We sincerely told him that we were not rooting for him to fail.  That we loved his girls like our own, that we loved them so very very much. At this point there were no dry eyes.  It was clear we all wanted what was best for the girls, even though what was best, wasn’t always clear. 

We desperately wanted him to know that at any point he felt like he couldn’t do it, that the girls needed more than he could give, or that he succumbed back into his addictions, that we should be used as the first resort NOT the last resort.  That WE would be his plan B.  We wanted to make sure history didn’t repeat itself.  The previous year, he had hidden his girls from DCFS with his ex-con father, their grandfather, for almost a year.  DCFS had no way of getting the girls into the system because a judge in a different city (not knowing the history of the family) granted custody to their grandfather.  Eventually, his criminal lifestyle caught up to him and he was arrested and the girls were eventually placed in our home.  I didn’t want history to repeat itself, and we pleaded with him that he would always put his girls well being over his fear of losing his rights.  He agreed, and we believe him.  

Thursday, December 28th, 2017

I’m in St. George now with the family.  It was fun driving the green machine, AKA the Gus the bus here, where at every stop along the way entertaining stares fed our kids imagined fame. They felt very important and loved the attention!!  I got to drive it for the first time and enjoyed it thoroughly.  So, the sun did come out—quite literally in St. George.  I’m currently sitting in the sun by the pool watching the kids swim (nearly fight-free).

I feel better.  And I’m happy to finally feel more than just ok.  People ask quite often on an update on the girls— how they are doing, how we are doing.  Well, for now, and for the foreseeable future, they will be living with their dad, his brother (who has recently become his sister), and their great grandmother.  We will support their father with our love and encouragement and we hope he continues to do well.  We don’t know when or if they will visit.  We have faith that we have done what we were supposed to do, and we have to take comfort in that.  To know they are safe is a huge burden lifted.  To know that their father knows we love him and that he can trust us is a gift. 

The system isn’t perfect, and we have experienced it failing more than once.  If the judge had listened to the caseworker, the girls case would not have closed so soon—too soon.  Their mother had relapsed just 2 weeks before it closed, but random testing didn’t pick it up—-they do not test on the weekends and there was enough time for her to dilute her system and do whatever tricks she tried that unfortunately proved successful.  Being foster parents sometimes seems completely pointless, but I have to believe we are doing something to help, even though sometimes it doesn’t always seem like it.  But I guess that is what parenthood feels like sometimes too!!  I wouldn’t change anything though.  The lessons my kids have learned have been invaluable, things I couldn’t have taught them on my own.  And they continue to learn because of the blessings of adoption.  Recently I spoke to Simon about foster care, realizing that I had never really explained it to him, or that it had been awhile and I felt like he needed a refresher—-its been part of his entire life.  He spoke matter of factly about it and after we talked I asked him why we did foster care and he said—“we help people because we can.”  I think he is spot on.  


*I do realize I still haven't finished our adoption story...I'm still going, just got a little derailed for a bit:)