One of Daniel's and my best friends from our time in Korea visited last week, the amazing Justin! We had a wonderful time and were sorry that it was so short and that we can't return the visit (he's living in Beijing now), at least not anytime soon.
But I had one great self-revealing moment in our conversations, in which I referred to our foster care experience as "an absurd way to live," and Justin replied with something like, "So long as you recognize it."
Yeah.
So the latest news in our absurd lives is that our current little girls will be leaving in about five weeks. It's not a shock -- we knew from the beginning that they would be moving on soon, except that the beginning was nearly five months ago. By the end of next month, they'll be our new record-breakers. No one else has stayed so long.
We've gotten to see an underweight, severely delayed baby girl catch up amazingly in every way.
We've gotten to see a screaming, uncommunicative toddler grow into a (mostly) sweet and talkative little girl.
I can't believe how much they've changed in such a short time. I will miss them, but the real struggle now is to keep consistent through their last weeks here. Daniel and I both have a tendency to pull away, reflexively trying to prepare ourselves for saying good-bye. We lose patience sometimes and other times allow behaviors we never would've allowed before -- both because once we have that end-date, time begins to feel short.
It's impossible not to feel that shadow over all our remaining days.
So what will Daniel and I do when they leave? Pretty much the same things we always do: spend time together, rest, post-kids clean up and reorganization, and when we're done with all that, call our caseworker and tell her we're ready to start all over again.
It's absurd, but it's my life.
Although not from a foster parent type of family life, divorced parents do a similar dance. As your child prepares to go visit the other parent or just returns from their visit the tendency was to sometimes let things slip that you normaly wouldn't. I'd always want those last moments before she left and the first ones after the return to be happy and cheerful and with the least amount of turmoil as possible.
ReplyDeleteThe return to routine must happen of course and so do the rules. I think the life you and Daniel have choosen is one that not many of us would do well, and you two do a wonderful job with each of your foster children.
The Lord blesses each of the children that have come into your lives and will enter your home in the future with caring, loving, Godly parents. You two were also pretty amazing Youth Ministers too, and we know that my family thinks the world of you both.