Truly touched

So Keegan has already posted that we had 4 kids for the weekend.  The caseworker called and asked if we could take 4 teens for respite care.  She said they were good kids.  I wasn't sure that her definition of "good" and mine were the same.  However, after talking with Keegan, we felt that we could handle it for the weekend.  And since I work nights on the weekends, it really left most of it to him.  I was awake and home only for about 3 or 4 hours a day.

The 2 youngest kids arrived first.  The oldest has a job and was working, and the second was on an overnight visit with bio-dad.   The boy wanted to be out with us, but the girl wanted to be in her room alone.  I don't blame her.  Here, go to this house of people you don't know and stay for 2 nights.  I'm sure she didn't figure it was worth getting to know us.  The youngest is the one we got to know the best.  The oldest got to the house late after work, and left again the next morning for most of the day.  Then the next day after the visit, the oldest boy arrived.

At dinner on Saturday night, the kids were teasing Keegan and telling me things like he didn't feed them lunch or something that was obviously not true.  We were laughing and joking.  Then we started talking about music, and I asked if they liked country, indicating with my tone of voice that I obviously did not.  All but the oldest were there.  They said they didn't, and Keegan said they listened to a particular station, and mentioned that I know 2 of the DJ's at the station.  I said that I knew there were a lot of fibs being told at the table, but that I did, in fact, know the DJ's.  The older of the boys asked if I went to school with one of them, and I said that I did.  He then asked if I knew a female, and I said I didn't.  He gave me a different last name (maiden), and I told them I did know her.  He said that was their mom.

This particular person had been my best friend when I was young.  There was only 1 house between us, and we spent a lot of time together.  I knew her parents very well, and our families were friends.  I loved her.  She was my friend.  And I looked at these 3 beautiful children and my heart ached for my friend.  Obviously my friend had made some very poor choices in her life in order for her children to be in foster care.  I ached for her and for these kids.

In our training class I was pretty judgmental about people who do things that lead to their kids being in foster care - drugs, neglect, abuse.  I still don't agree with any of those behaviors.  But my first experience with kids in the system belonged to someone who once was a good friend.  I know this is a good person who has made mistakes.  I have been hit with a huge dose of humility.  Maybe that's why these were the first kids who came to us.  Obviously I needed to learn something about this process.  Some people are evil and do evil things to kids.  But many of these parents made bad choices, lost their way, or didn't know any better.  I have a new appreciation for where these kids may have come from, and will be more open minded when thinking about bio-parents.

That said, I would take these 4 kids in a heartbeat.  They are in a kinship placement right now, and we are licensed for 2, but I would have our license changed and take all 4.  They are good kids - that's true - at least what we saw of them.  But I already love them.  They are part of someone I loved for a long time.  And it isn't something I can't ignore.

How winding the tangled web of our lives

My wife and I just finished a weekend respite care session with a group of siblings.  After all the horrific experiences I have heard, the war-stories I was expecting, all i can think is, "well, huh.  at the risk of throwing the universe out of adjustment: that was easy."
I'm not saying we had a perfect "peaches and roses" weekend.  but i really had feared a far more chaotic "adventure" than what we experienced.  i know there are a lot of kids in care, and most of them have (shall we call it) extra luggage.  but these siblings were relatively well-adjusted, respectful, and not at all like i was expecting.  i felt a little left out of the conversations, because they whispered to each other more often than they didn't.  but then again, i was only an outsider to any of it anyway.  i wasn't really expecting them to open up quickly and explain their entire life-stories to us, but i guess i just wasn't expecting what we got.  Others have it tougher, i know.  but for us, it really mostly consisted of them playing video games on their kindle tablets, having three days of glee-marathons on the netflix, and not a lot of excitement.
at least that was my experience.
at one meal, the conversation turned how it did naturally, with me mentioning that my wife was good friends with some radio personalities, and they admitted that their parent was also, and then my wife and they traded names around and found that she had been close friends with one of their parents as a youth.  it was a little surprising to learn that the parent of these kids was one of her childhood friends, that she knew the friend's parents and grandparents by name.  suddenly i began to consider how differently the lives had diverged in course from the time they were friends and mostly similar to how their lives had developed to date.  with a few different choices, my wife could be in a similar situation to her friend, our kids in foster-care, with periodic visitations only.  and i think back on the historic line, slightly modified, "There, but for the Grace of God, go my children."
I think honestly to myself that it may not take much to put my family in a similar situation.  how many choices would it take to secure my children in the foster system? how many poor decisions would i need to make before i find myself in jail, my kids in the custody of the state?  how many times have i narrowly avoided a similar situation, the whole time oblivious to how close i had come to losing my family, possibly permanently?  sometimes hindsight isn't 20/20, but blindness altogether.