Sometimes I get really mad!

Sometimes I get angry at this stupid system!  I watch commercials on t.v. about the state “needing” more foster parents.  I listen to the radio announcer plug another agency wanting to certify new adoptive parents.  I hear stories of children living in other foster homes with far too many other children or not adequate love and attention.  Then, I sit back and get pissed!  (Please forgive my wording, but yea, I’m pissed!). You wanna know why?  Because for 6 months we have been waiting to serve, love, and protect another innocent life.  We have said,  “We are open.  We are willing.”  But, we get no calls.  I am perfectly happy with our family right now.  I love being a mommy to four!  Only thing is, when I was a mommy to five, things just felt “right.”  Grieving the loss of Little Man has taken months.  I think about him constantly!  I wish I could make some sense of it, but I can’t.  All I can do is believe that God has a purpose.  I thought it was that there was another child/children that needed us even more.  But, as it turns out, it’s not that at all.  We lost him because this system stinks!

That is it.  That is all.   Some days I just get really mad! 

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Don’t ask me, “are you gonna get another one?”

My jaw tightened.  I wanted to be nice, but I felt angry. Not everyone thinks like I do.  She didn’t mean it to be an insult.  She is a foster parent herself.  Why did this make me so angry?  All she did was ask, “are you gonna get another one?” 

To me there isn’t, “another one,” because Little Man wasn’t and isn’t a toy or a puppy.  He was my son!  He will forever be my son in my heart!  So, when you ask me that question every fiber of my being wants to shout at you!  I want to tell you how bad I miss him!  I want to tell you what our family went through to help him and how he changed my life!  I want to tell you that my house is too quiet and that as I hold my Baby Girl, I am sometimes filled with fear that her story will end the same way and that I will lose her too!  So, no.  We’re not going to, “get another one.”

But, if what you want to know is if I will let my heart go through this again or if we will open our home again, then yes.  The answer is yes.  

Working my worries away!

Losing Little Man after 16 months of being his mommy was a huge loss.  It was without question the biggest loss of my life thus far.  I think about him all of the time and I worry about him!  Worry is my sin.  I know it’s not right!  I know that I have to work on it, but this weekend I figured out a way to “deal” with it.  I worked!  I worked my booty off!  I raked TONS of leaves, filling the wheelbarrow over 10 times!  I did 11 loads of laundry, I washed 3 loads of dishes, I cleaned 3 toilets, vacuumed the entire house, and didn’t sit down each night until I couldn’t do anymore!  And, guess what?  It worked!  I worked my worries away!  I didn’t have time during all of that to sit and worry about my Little Man.  Occasionally, a sweet memory would pop into my head and I would think to myself, “oh, I remember when Little Man did that,” or “he would have loved helping me with this.”  It was enjoyable to think about him like that.  Not worry, but wonder at how blessed I was to have been his mommy for all of that time!  Today, I prayed he is settling into his new life comfortably.  I prayed that he is safe and happy and well taken care of.  I prayed for peace in his little heart and that he isn’t hurting.  I prayed that one day I will get to hear that he is doing okay! 

Oldest Boy becomes Only Boy

My Oldest Boy became my Only Boy when Little Man left.  He hates it!  I do not use the term “hate” lightly here.  He HATES being the only boy!  With his Daddy deployed it makes it even worse.  Grandma is here visiting too, so that makes five girls and one boy living in our house right now.  It’s pretty rough!  So, today I invited two of his best friends over for some “guy time.”  They ate spaghetti for lunch, drank tons of Gatorade, ate junk food, played video games, played card games, jumped on the trampoline, and we ordered pizza for dinner.  They were in boy heaven!  The boys stayed all the way til bedtime.  After I dropped the boys back at their home, Only Boy got into our truck and said, “I love you mom!  Can they come again next weekend?”  

It breaks my heart for my son.  He prayed every night the six months before Little Man arrived that God would give him a brother.  Unlike other kids his age, he couldn’t wait to share his room!  He didn’t mind sharing his toys.  He didn’t mind sharing attention.  He had a brother!  I keep reminding him that he ALWAYS will have a brother!  Always!  Nobody can ever take that away from him.  No matter where Little Man lives, he will always be my son’s brother.  They were/ARE great brothers!  Life is funny sometimes.  It gives us just what we have been wishing and hoping for, but then takes it away.  We don’t understand right now, but I pray someday we will.  For now, we pray for Little Man and love him from a distance.  Maybe there is another little boy who will enter foster care who desparately needs a big brother… And a mommy, a daddy, and three sisters!  Maybe…

Grieving

We are still grieving.  I am grieving.  My husband is grieving.  Our children are grieving.  We all do it in different ways.  I cry.  I also have a shorter fuse and I tend to space off at the worst times.  I have to ask people to repeat what they just said because, quite honestly, I wasn’t listening.  I was off in my own world in my mind and I wasn’t paying any attention to anything or anybody.  My oldest girl cries too.  She also avoids talking during her worst moments of grief.  She doesn’t want anyone mentioning Little Man or talking about him.  Middle Girl is the opposite.  She wants to talk about him constantly.  You can see how this is hard when they both are grieving, but in such different ways.  Oldest Boy talks and talks and talks about it.  He chews on his feelings and wants you to listen.  My husband gets angry.  He gets mad.  He wants to blame someone.  We are a mess!  All of us!  It is hard.  It is bad.  We don’t like it, but we must get through it!  Grief, is yucky, but necessary to be able to move on.