Our time as kinship foster parents has come to an end. The social worker came and got the girls on Friday to take them to their new home. I am pleased that the home they have gone to is a specialized foster care home that has experience with problem children. I think that they will do well there. But I'm sad that it ended up the way it did.
We have such a mix of emotions. First, it was so sad to watch the girls get into the social workers car and leave. I walked around the house and saw their sippy cups sitting there on the counter and I wanted to cry. I found the missing Tinkerbell glove that was Barbara's. What do I do with it? I found myself whispering outside the bedroom door last night and realized that nobody was in there so there was no need to whisper. It just makes me sad.
Then there is relief. There has been an absolute quiet calm in our house since they left. Kara has calmed down as has everyone else. It is difficult to live in a screaming, chaotic world for almost five months and it not affect you. We wake up in knots and we got to bed in knots. We had a friend call on the phone and commented on how quiet it was in the background. Yes, it has definitely made a remarked difference. I heard a content sigh come from my husband as he laid his head down on his pillow in his own bed. He's been sleeping on the couch so that he could hear the girls when they woke up screaming. There's no place like home or your pillow.
There is disappointment. I am so disappointed that things didn't work out. I'm disappointed in myself and how I handled some of the many situations, I'm disappointed that my kids couldn't rise to the occasion and be all they could be. Then it occurs to me they are kids not superhero's. I'm disappointed that we had such a hard time getting help. I'm disappointed.
Then there is anger. We had a TDM with the new foster Mom, the paternal father and his wife, the Mom, the social worker and the moderator. They talked about the condition they originally found the girls in when they were removed from their home, the behavior issues of the girls, the progress they've made and the judge's move to explore the possibility of removing the Mother's rights to the girls this month. They asked the mother if she understood what that all meant and she said yes. They asked her if she had any comments and she said no. She did not have anything to say about anything that was discussed today. She didn't even express any emotion and neither did the father. I feel angry that first of all, that the girls are even in this situation to begin with. It's not their fault. I feel angry that the parents just aren't seeming to take this seriously. We are talking about the future of their little lives and nobody has anything to say. Arrggh! It just makes me angry.
And then there is frustration. In the meeting today, we found out that the social worker has in place speech therapy, play therapy, and will have the other appointments set up by the 14th for the girls. Why in one weekend can she have all this stuff arranged, when we've been fighting and fighting to get things in place here for months. We really didn't have the support we needed to help the girls like they needed. Again, arrggh!
After you go through something like that, do you ever ask yourself what that was all about? What was God's plan in all this? We both feel like we didn't do enough. That perhaps we could have handled this or that better. We are disappointed that it didn't turn out differently. And...oh, all the 'why's' I ask myself. I just wish I had some clarity on this situation. I wish He could just send me an email and tell me so I could know. It would help but instead, all I have is TRUST. What else can I do? I know that God is sovereign. I know that He knows exactly what is going on. I know that He loves those little girls like nobody's business. So I have to TRUST that He will continue to provide for their every need even when I'm no longer in the picture.
Lord, we pray that you will continue to heal their hearts and their minds.
2 comments:
I think the word for your feelings is "ambivalent."
You're all (including the girls) are in our prayers.
Sad to say but from your experience I'm realizing that kinship fostering is a totally different ball game than total fostering. It seems that the social workers are there in name only.
When we fostered we had so much help and so much support and were paid also.
I feel that you were set up to fail. I feel that the system worked against you and hung you out to dry.
I'm so sorry that you had to experience fostering in this way. I hope kinship fostering will get better in the future because obviously that part of the system is broken miserably.
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