The Roller Coaster

One of my favorite movies is Parenthood. Great honest performances, thoughtful characters, super great dialogue and who doesn't love that grandmother. Agreed she is a bit two dimensional but she has arguably some of the best lines in the film. Of course her shining moment comes toward the end where she relates her "Roller Coaster" anecdote. I know, I know Babaloo Mandel and the boys kinda hit you over the head with the metaphor but it's still a great one and one that I have to remind myself of everyday as a foster parent.

I couldn't stop crying last night. Now, everyone that knows me, knows that I am a crier. I cry at movies (even ones that I probably shouldn't be crying at), certain songs and I am even one of those "sappy ass dudes" who cries at some commercials. I have always been this way and I have come to terms with it, for the most part;  Admittedly, I still exit the occasional dude filled room.

Last night was different, I wasn't crying over the ending to A Color Purple or that crazy sad scene in Whale Rider when Paikea balls her eyes out because her grandfather Pakka is acting like a dick. I wasn't listening to Jeff Buckley or Martha Wainwright and I wasn't even watching that ruthless commercial where the dad builds his daughter a tree house and she brings him a glass of lemonade. I was lying in bed with a broken heart.

Yesterday, was perfect. Sleep was restful, a cool morning breeze from our bedroom window woke me with a gentle brush across my face. My eyes opened to a beautiful woman sleeping next to me (made all the better by the fact that it was my wife), her soft skin a gift to my touch. Our boxer Brutus crashed at my feet and our sweet cat Adelaid cuddled at his side.

"So much love all around me".

All was beautiful in my universe but my heart wasn't done swooning.

The first sounds our foster child makes in the morning are usually those of him singing. Falling all around the scale his tiny voice sounds so deliberate that I would swear he's writing something. He sings and sings and then exclaims something that can only be interpreted as utter joy to the waking day. That joy floats up out of his crib and makes it's way upstairs to me and my wife and it infects me like nothing I have ever known.

My wife stirs, looks up at me and smiles. We kiss.

"Good morning my love."

With that, my wife is up (her turn, I think), and down stairs. I lie back and listen to the scene. I can hear him get excited when she enters the room, there is more singing. A fuss or two as she lays him on the changing pad but that is quickly quieted with a warm bottle. I hear a laugh, she is probably playing with the ball at the end of the chain hanging from the ceiling fan in the boys' room. I hear a thud, it's the bottle, then I hear him exclaim his disapproval at his own throwing of said bottle. More singing, a little fussing and then footsteps. I can't take my eyes off our bedroom door because I know who is about to turn their "big ol noggin" around it.

And there is that smile. It's so big, I am sure you can see it from space. I have witnessed very few things in my life that can compare with his smile.

The next several minutes are spent "wrestling" and rolling about our bed. A few books are perused, then a pull off that ever present bottle, which he talks to and loves on by the way. He pesters Adelaide until she goes down stairs and then turns his eyes to Brutus, who just takes it. More bottle and more curiosity at everything around him.

I am a very fortunate person that I know love. I know love of family, friends and wife, but this, this was a love that I didn't know existed until that moment and it vibrated in me all day.

It was a big day, and when the time came, sleep came easy for the boy, so much so that he didn't even need rocking but I did it anyway. I rocked and sang to him and felt the loving warmth of total contentment and that's when a little voice in me said:

"What are you doing?"

"He doesn't belong to you"

"His mother wants him back and that's just the way that it is and there is nothing you can do about it"

I held him closer.

Tears.

Putting him in his crib last night was harder than it has ever been and when I finally laid my own head down, I couldn't stop crying.

I guess I like the roller coaster too.

Loss

Foster Mom:
I remember reading a book my bff gave me in high school when my boyfriend & I broke up. Title? "How to Survive the Loss of a Love". She announced she would be going to prom with said ex-boyfriend soon after.  The funny thing is, I didn't feel like a glutton for punishment. Really. The book spoke to "Limbo" - the hardest part of losing a love.

Fast forward 24 years and here I am preparing to lose a love. My husband & I are foster parents. You read that correctly, we volunteered to become involved in the lives of others for short sprints of time.
Volunteered. For this. Losing a love. What were we thinking?

Better yet, while in training to become a foster parent, why isn't this addressed?

In the last 24 hours we have "gained" a newborn, and "lost" her. That was the easiest 24 hours. The complications arise from knowing that her big brother will be leaving us "soon", whatever / whenever "soon" is. This is so that he may be placed with his sibling, in their aunts home. The same aunt who may or may not have wanted him when he was placed in our home a couple of months ago.

Here's the thing.... I am not a "sharer" but I have never been so compelled to look at a system so new to me.

Let's look at goals:

• Family reunification. Agreed - good if the family meets the criteria.
• Stability for the children placed in foster care.   

Let's stop and think about the 2nd bullet point. Stability vs. Reunification from the extended family who declined care a few months ago. UGHHHH....

We knew what we signed up for. Doesn't make it easy - but we knew. 

Foster Dad:

This is only our second foster child, and he has only been with us for a few months, but he is VERY much a part of our family. I feel a love that I have never felt before and having not had children of our own, I can only assume it is the same indescribable emotion that biological parents go through but I won't pretend to know that for sure. 

What I can assure you of, is that when the day comes that he has to leave us (and we have been informed that this day will more than likely be sooner than later) that day could possibly be the hardest day of my moderately young life. This thought defaults me back to the many months of training that one must go through in order to be certified to do this. If there was one thing that I most definitely took away from that time, it was that foster children experience loss on an unimaginably fast and massive level. Everything that existed in their universe is ripped away, sometimes in a matter of minutes. When our present child arrived, he did so with the clothes on his back, and nothing else. Granted a one year old has very little concept of ownership but still. Loss on a subconscious level is still loss. 

How do you prepare someone to lose someone they love? A best friend, a sibling, a mother or father? How do you prepare a parent to lose their child? The CPS agent assigned to our child recently informed us that she would give us "plenty" of time to come to terms with the fact that this beautiful and amazing one year old boy that has been a ray of sunshine in our lives is going to be taken away. How many days does it take? What's the going rate on heartbreak? One day? Ten? A month? My number is zero. There are no amount of days that can make this okay. Maybe that's why they don't "train" you to deal with this in training classes, because they know deep down inside that there is nothing they can say to prepare you for this. It just sucks, and you have to suck on it. Well I for one, am going to embrace it. I'm going to be the saddest foster parent you have ever seen and some day shortly after this is all over, I will wake and all will be right in the world and I will be ready to do it all over again. In the meantime, I am going to love that boy with everything that I am.