On the other hand, we lost my mother-in-law a year and a half ago and I miss her a lot. Nancy was one-of-a-kind; her spirit stays with me. And my father’s mom, the closest thing to a role model I had in this life, has been gone now seven years. Things haven't been quite right since she left us. And then there’s me. I’m not anybody's mom. Still.
I got really close the other day. I haven’t been able to write about this until now. Shawn and I got the call on a regular Thursday in early April. My students were out of control – you can’t leave them for a second – as I tried desperately to hear what our caseworker was saying on the phone. She was saying we had finally been chosen for what they call a “staffing,” which is essentially a conference call between caseworkers on which you may or may not be chosen for some actual real life KIDS. Kids that would come LIVE in our HOUSE shortly thereafter. Kids we would adopt. This was the real deal. We were being seriously considered. At last.
The first question that comes to your mind is WHO? Which kids that we submitted for was she calling about? At any given time there are up to 30 possibilities for whom we've submitted our home study. This group was a sibling set of three, Houston area, 2 girls and one baby boy, half white half Hispanic, one in elementary and the other two younger. Their caseworker was considering us for placement. We would find out in a week if we were to be the parents of three children.
I’m pretty sure my husband spent that week in shock. He didn't say much. My mind was reeling with the changes that would come if we were chosen. Car seats! Diapers! Schools! Chicken nuggets! We wrestled with whether to tell anyone. Should we get our close family and friends excited, when the potential for disappointment was so great? You see, on this staffing phone call there would be three families considered, not just us. So we had a 33% chance of getting them, and a 66% chance of nothing. My husband is the optimist. When I see a 66% chance of rain, I know it’s gonna rain.
In the end we told some people and not others, kind of weighing who could best handle the potential loss and whom we wanted to spare. Our caseworker was to be on the call one week later, so the following Thursday we waited with bated breath for the call to come through. I had to be at work – we were reviewing for the STAAR test – so I tried to maintain appearances while I watched the phone. She called around 1:00 pm. I could hear it in her voice when I answered. They chose another family.
It’s hard to know why we weren’t the best pick for the kids. We don’t get to make the case for ourselves. The staffing is caseworker-to-caseworker; each agency presents their family to the CPS worker on the phone, one at a time, and in Houston she said they usually call back an hour later with their decision. They don’t say why we weren’t selected. The only thing we know is the family that got the kids was Hispanic; maybe that was it, a culture thing. We kept picturing the new parents as gorgeous rich people with doctorates in Early Childhood Development.
I know it doesn’t really matter why. I know if you are like 90% of the population you’re thinking to yourself, everything happens for a reason, those weren’t your kids, your kids are still out there, everything in its own time, etc. And I thank you, because I know you don’t mean to sound cliché and obvious and hollow. You haven’t worked and waited and wondered and worried. You’re trying to be nice.
If you’re near your kids today, take a look and imagine if you had to fight for them like we are. If you had to be fingerprinted and evaluated and inspected and interviewed, just to get a phone call saying not yet, it’s not you, not your time. We chose this path, but it is hard and we’re in a heartbreaking phase, the part where some other couple is buying bunk beds and painting pink walls and calling family with good news. Maybe think of and pray for the foster kids out there that are lost in transition, traumatized and separated and sad and lonely because of the mothers and fathers who let them down. We got a broadcast this week for two elementary-age kids whose parents are in a cult. A cult. And it was our turn to say no, those aren’t our kids.
Once I was in a parking garage and came across a woman who was disoriented and bawling. She had clearly been drinking. I asked her what I could do. Did she need help? What she said was so surprising. “I’m a terrible mother.” And just then I knew she wasn’t. Because she was there, in a dark garage alone, crying over her children.
One of my students refuses to understand why I want kids. He says that I think it looks easy from the outside but I’m going to get more than I bargained for. And he could be right. But he doesn’t understand that’s how all of life is, how it’s going to be for him as well. Harder than you thought. I told him I want our family to grow, I want to share our love and wisdom, I want to read books at bedtime and cut up food and care that much about someone, even if I have to worry that much more, work that much harder. Even if I’m exhausted. Even if I’m not the best mom ever and I end up sobbing in a parking lot somewhere. I’ll take that chance.
Ultimately I want to say thanks, thanks to the mothers who are just out there doing their best. That’s all you can really do. Thanks to the supermoms with the crust-free sandwiches and monogrammed blankies. Thanks to my students' moms that do the unimaginable, working long hours into the night and still keeping their children fed and their clothes washed and letting them know they're loved, making something out of nothing day in and day out. And a special thanks to those who go out of their way to be mothers to the motherless. I hope someday to join you.
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