Almost four months have passed since Baby H left our family and his space in my heart is still empty. The space in our home, however, did not remain empty for long.
LS (Little Sweetheart) who joined our family in December and MD (Mister Dee) who came on board in February certainly have helped to round out the crew and bring more life to our already colorful family.
In the past few months we've needed to settle in: registering for school, initial doctors' appointments, follow-up of any recommendations from the doctors, tracking down school records, assessments and evaluations for school placement, scheduling family visits, switching out bedrooms and organizing for a family of nine. All that busy-ness has helped to alleviate some of the grief of the loss of Baby H.
The true source of relief has been God's grace. He has allowed us to move forward - knowing that Baby H and all the children we've had in our home are in His care - and open our hearts and home to other children in need. Our family has been crafted in such a way to be available and open to whoever God chooses to place here; and sometimes that means we walk through hard times, but God always walks with us.
Taking the placement of LS was not something I personally felt prepared to do; it seemed too soon - my heart still too broken, and the prospect of caring for a kindergartner did not appeal to me. Our family philosophy is: unless there is a clear reason to say, "no" to a placement, then the answer will always be, "yes." And so LS became my little girl and I am her "mommy" and would have it no other way. That's God's grace.
A few weeks into the placement, LS's mom was incarcerated which meant no visits for the length of her year-long sentence. The birth father was contacted and expressed interest in visits, and within the past two months has attended only three of these scheduled visits. Thankfully, LS has been blessed with a bubbly and optimistic personality and seems incredibly resilient - given what she has already lived through and witnessed in her six years of life - and has rolled with the haphazard visitation schedule.
Enter Grace - with a capital "G". Grace is the great-grandmother of LS, the grandmother of LS's mother; she cared for LS and her mom until LS was three years old. Upon placement, we were told that we were free contact Grace by telephone at our convenience. LS asked to call her "grand mom" and was thrilled when we were able to connect with her.
During our second phone call, Grace shared her story with me: She and her five siblings were placed into foster care when she was five years old, and she remained in the system until the age of eighteen. For most of those years, she and her siblings were able to stay together with one family who she still refers to as her parents. Grace married - and is still married to the same man - had children, grand children, and great-grand children. At the age of sixty-nine she works full-time and is raising one of her grand nephews.
Some of her first words to me were: "You are an answer to my prayers."
She had been worried about LS for the past two years, since she and her mother had moved away from Grace. Grace was concerned (and rightly so, it turns out) for LS's safety, but felt that there was nothing she could do except pray that LS be moved into a safe home. The fact that we are a Christian family was more than Grace "could have hoped for", as she told me later.
Phone calls between LS and her grand mom happen at least once a week, and Grace spends much of the time encouraging LS to be thankful and grateful, to always say "thank you", to help around the house, to be kind to her "sisters and brothers", to pay attention and do her best in school, and of course to remind LS of how much she is loved and treasured.
Grace also spends time talking with me, sometimes she calls just to talk to me. Every time she thanks us for taking care of and loving LS, she reminds me that we are an answer to prayer, that God will bless us for our obedience. When one of our boys was sick and I mentioned it, she called the next day just to see how he was doing. For Easter, she not only bought LS some Easter gifts, but also had gift bags for LS to give to "her sisters" (our girls) because she wants LS to learn that is more blessed to give.
In fourteen years of fostering, we have never been so blessed by a birth family member. We've been friendly and able to encourage birth families, we've felt positive about some of the situations in which the parents were sincere in their efforts. But we've not ever been blessed by grace.
After the difficult situation with Baby H, which in reality was made unbearable at times by his birth mother and grand mother - being accused of mistreatment and neglect, feeling interrogated each time we met at the office for a visit, ultimately being made out to be incompetent and uncaring parents - God's gift of grace and Grace have become so apparent and real.
