they remember

Today, my heart fluttered in my chest, and I think everyone in my home felt for just a moment some faint pang of panic over memories we share. 

This morning I texted the worker who is filling in for the investigator assigned to Clover Baby. See, last Friday they called and asked if they could send someone to get her for her first visit with bio parents, but she already had an appointment with her attorney at that time so they said they'd reschedule. This morning, about 9:00am, I texted the worker and asked her to let me know when visits would be scheduled so I could make her an appointment for her 2wk well-check that wouldn't interfere with the visits. She responded and it went like this:

CPS: Can we come this morning to get her?
Me: What time?
CPS: The visit is at 11. The worker is on the way. Is that ok?
Me: So she'll be here around 10? I just need to know when to have her ready.
CPS: That's correct. And it will be a man. His name is ______. 

Cool. I had less than an hour to get her ready, pack her a bag, make sure there were instructions written out about her feeding schedule and some other specific special care she'd need, ALL WHILE getting C ready to meet her speech therapist who would be at my house within the next 15 minutes.

I laughed it off because in my experience this isn't really that unusual. I was just grateful they were sending a transporter and not asking me to load up my whole crew and rush her to Dallas. What if I hadn't texted to ask in the first place? Haha. "Oh, heeeeey strange man here to get my baby with no notice, c'mon in!" Sometimes you just have to laugh.

BUT- the point. The point here is what I totally failed to do. CPS surprised me, failed to give me notice, and in my haste to get her ready I failed to give notice to the two other people in my house at the time who have experienced the loss of a foster child too. I didn't prepare them. And friends, when that very kind man grabbed our little Clover Baby in her seat and headed out the door my children were suddenly at my feet, at the window, running back and forth asking me hurried and worried questions—

"Where is our baby going?"
"Why did he take her?"
"Who is that man?"
"Will she be back?"
"Is she going to live with someone else?"
"Can we say goodbye?"
"What are they doing with her?!"

When Jellybean left it was SUDDEN. It was a text— "bring her and all of her belongings to the visit as new placement has been secured for her." It was heartbreaking and unexpected and not even how a typical discharge goes. It was traumatic for us all.

On a deeper level than any other foster child, we had instant relationship with Jellybean. We knew she would come into care. C's bio family still had other children in CPS custody, and we knew the situation wasn't improved. She was our child's sister. She was from the same place, the same family, born in the same hospital, assigned the same workers, the same same samesamesame. That's how it felt, so to some degree our hearts half expected the same outcome. We had prayed for her and prepared for her and planned for her. We'd left our "foster spot" empty for her knowing she was due in January. We felt all kinds of feelings for her and prayed hours of prayers for her before she was ever even born. We felt all of those feelings for the three weeks she was with us. We smiled at the thought that just maybe C would get to be with her actual biological sister for the rest of her life. What a gift that would have been to her, to them both!

When I got the text telling me to have her things gathered and to turn her over to go to another foster family I fell apart. So sudden. For no reason. No reason that made sense. No reason that many involved approved of, but rather vocally opposed. It didn't matter. She left.

We always knew our kids could experience that, and we'd told them, even specifically about Jellybean, that she may not stay forever. That we just offer kids a home who need a safe place and a mom and a dad for a while. We reminded them when it was relevant, and sometimes in the quiet of the afternoon when nothing much was happening I would call those little ducklings over to me and gently remind their tiny hearts that the little sister they loved might go be someone else's sister someday, and we were just loving her for each day that God allowed her to be ours.

They would nod their round little heads, those chubby cheeks pulling into a half smile, and let me know that they remembered. Sometimes they'd stop right there and fold their little dimpled hands together and pray a prayer asking God to let her stay. I wouldn't stop them. I prayed the same prayer, and clearly it worked with Corinne. We had hope, but we tried to stay grounded in reality.

Then she was gone.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.

It felt like a death. I've done the death thing. I've done the mourning and the loss and the grief and it's taken many shapes throughout my mere 29 years. I know that my practice with grief, my previous journeys through those valleys of loss and sadness helped me navigate this one. I felt depressed. Not clinical depression, but a reasonable depression that would follow the loss of a child. I was angry and sad and even scared for what it could mean for us in the future that she was gone. We mourned her, but we also grieved the loss of part of Corinne's story. This child who is ours, but wasn't always, who is like us, but isn't, who calls me Mama, but will learn she has another Mama somewhere… she lost so much that day and didn't even know it. There were layers to this grief just like there always are with any loss. I'd been through it, James had been through it, and we'd weathered the years after each heavy hit just trusting in Jesus that someday all of the sad things would come untrue and we'd delight fully in what we can only glimpse in part now.

But our kids hadn't journeyed. This was their first loss. Their first deep sadness. Their first journey to cling to all of the good things when everything seems sad and scary. We talked a LOT. We had midnight tears in beds. We had little ones say things like, "can you put that carseat away somewhere because it makes me think of [Jellybean] when I see it and it makes me sad." We encouraged all of the feelings to flow and the truths to be shared and the hurts to be spoken out loud. These tiny hearts learned the heaviness of grief very early, and only because we invited the danger into our home. We said yes to the risk. We knew, and we knew they would likely be hurt by it. Many a night has this Mama stared at the ceiling speaking truth to my heart over the desire to wrap them up and shield them from the hurt, to guard ourselves against the risk, and to close our doors to the dangers of love.

But, I genuinely believe my kids will be better for it.

"Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." -Romans 5.3-5

When Clover Baby went out our door this morning I hadn't stopped to explain to my kids that this was a normal visit, that she would get to be held and loved for a couple hours by her other mom and dad. She's got a mommy whose tummy she was born out of, and she wants to see her and smell her and kiss her and love her just like we get to, so she'll go there and then this nice man will drive her back home to us… was what I should have said. Instead I said, "y'all go play upstairs because I've got a lot to do this morning." Then the doorbell rang, and they came down just in time to see another baby sister loaded up, with a bag of stuff, being handed to another stranger, and of course their tiny hearts were filled with all of the fears and questions that ride on the heels of fresh grief.

I called those little ducklings to me, squatted down and looked in their big round eyes, and I said, "WOAH! I should have told you guys earlier but I forgot. Can you forgive me? This baby WILL come back. This baby is going just for a ride to see her other mom and dad, and then she's coming right back today. I PROMISE."

You know the craziest, scariest, most comforting, and unbelievable thing about it all? 

They trusted me. Completely. Instantly, and without hesitation. Their countenances calmed, their eyes got a little less wide, and those little ducklings waddled back off to play without another word about it.



Oh.
Oh, that I could trust the Father so easily when He speaks to me.