The closing of a chapter…

In the chaos of starting school in the last month, another hugely monumental thing happened quietly in the background: we let our license expire and closed our home to foster care for now.

There was no occasion, no meeting, no exit interview. Just a simple email that wrapped up the chapter of the past six years of our lives. I’m honestly heartbroken over it. It is in no way ever in any scenario how I thought our foster journey would end. And I don’t believe at all that it is the absolute end, but for right now, in this place, it is. And that sucks.

The last year and a half has been a tortuous hell to walk through with the department. They broke every inch of trust they had built up with us, and we finally admitted that it could not be rebuilt, that we could not continue with them. I have barely even mentioned this grief and turmoil on here at all because the LAST thing I want to do is scare off someone considering becoming a foster parent. But by the same token, over the past six years I have been completely open and honest sharing this journey, and to go out while holding this in feels dishonest. Because signing on as a foster parent is accepting that pain will come your way. You will be hurt. You will grieve. But what you gain in LOVE will forever outweigh every ounce of that.

So much of this is not mine to share. That’s been one of the most important things I’ve learned as a foster parent: my sons’ stories are not mine. And it is my job to protect them until they decide how much to give the world, if any. And so while most details will stay with us, I can say the fight is ours, and it’s something I choose to share because I would fight even harder if given another chance. Because if you choose to become a foster parent, you too will have to learn to fight, and if I had realized a little sooner how necessary that was, maybe my son would not be growing up without his brother.

But he is. My son is growing up without his little brother. Not because he stayed with family, not because a relative came forward. No, my son is growing up without his brother because when he was born the department wanted to place him with another foster family, and rule one of Foster Care Fight Club: the department can do whatever it wants.

Because in the system fighting “to keep families together” is often not extended to siblings. Because departments can break laws with loopholes and make up their own rules to suit their time of need and then ignore them the next day. Because lawyers would rather go with it than stir up more work. Because foster parents don’t have a voice in court unless they’re asked a question, and if no one wants to ask, they don’t even have to be let in. Because the kids in foster care are often the lowest priority in foster care. AND THAT’S WHY YOU FIGHT.

Even when you know you’ll lose, like we did. You fight. We fought. We fought because Khalil deserved to hold his newborn baby brother. We lost. He didn’t get to. They weren’t even allowed to meet for three months. We fought bc they deserved to spend however much time they were able living together and bonding. We lost again. They were never placed together even though Tiny Bro never left care. We fought bc although we knew that blood would ALWAYS make them brothers, we had also seen first hand with the big boys how different sibling relationships formed when growing up together and apart. We lost. We can count on our hands the number of times they’ve been able to see each other.

Why did we need to fight so hard against the very department tasked with keeping families together? It was too much. As relieved as we are to have a relationship at the very least, to give them the chance to build some sort of bond throughout their lives, we are not naive enough to believe it is anything close to what they deserved.

When I watch how in love Khalil is with IJ, how he has begged to hold him every single day since he was born, how he stops and sits in front of him countless times a day just to make him smile, how he hugs and kisses and talks and teaches him…all I can think is he deserved that with Tiny Bro. And Tiny Bro deserved to be loved and doted on that way by his big brother. Of course I can’t think of it for too long or the pit of grief opens too wide and threatens to take me down all over again each time.

I don’t know that those feelings will ever subside. They haven’t lessened at all in the 18 months since this began. And neither has my utter rage at the department for inflicting all this trauma. And that’s what it boiled down to…how could we continue to trust and serve a department who stood up in court and used IJ as a reason to keep these brothers apart—because six kids was “enough”—but then asked us the very next week to start taking emergency placements again?

The injustice feels too cruel. It was too much. It is too much. It’s too much every time K asks me to see his brother, which is usually at least daily. It will be too much when he gets old enough to really understand what was taken from him. It will be too much when he asks us why Ty & Louis got to stay together but he and his brother did not. Much too much.

I pray for guidance for those times. I pray for forgiveness, for release from the anger and betrayal. I pray for healing over all of our hearts. I pray one day this door will open again. But more than anything I pray for their relationship, that it would be allowed to grow as strong as it can in spite of this separation.

I think maybe for me those have been the three pillars of what it is to be a foster parent: LOVE, FIGHT, PRAY. And every child is worth every minute of it.