pronounced [WUR-go] as in "wur go-ing crazy"
We sit around a bonfire, roasting hot dogs and s’mores as the daylight starts its slow transition to sleep. Our newest additions, a 10-year-old and her 4-year-old brother, stare longingly at the bag of marshmallows as they await their turn. They’ve been in our care less than 24 hours, and given the brief notice and Friday night arrival, our original plans for the weekend were quickly amended.
I am shopping for Christmas pajamas to outfit our crew…again. I’ve already done this once. About a month ago, I bought matching sets. They were delivered and shoved in the back of our basement until this weekend when I pulled them out and was struck by a very obvious thing – the jolly Santa faces peering back at me were white. Like super white. Like, in all my life, Santa had never looked so shockingly white. I gazed around our freshly decorated house. Alabaster Santa stared back from every corner. On cookie jars, candles, plates and mugs, from oven mitts, towels and ornaments, there was Caucasian Santa with his pink cheeks and knowing smile.
Two years ago, in early November, we pulled a crib from the basement, pieced it back together and began wondering who might come along to fill it. We made space in the corner of our room. Pictures were hung, one with the alphabet, another boasting a beloved song lyric, and though the crib beneath those pictures was empty, anticipation filled our home.
I am meant to keep secrets. This is what I’m discovering as a foster parent. I am meant to stay silent about the great big things affecting our very small foster child in order to protect his privacy and that of his biological family. I can understand this need for secrecy. But as the white... Continue Reading →
After my first child was born, a question entered my headspace that I could never quite shake. It swirled around in there, never really landing, never really taking hold. Then my second was born, and with him came months of worry over medical concerns that thankfully resolved within his first year. But that premature birth had my husband and I wondering if we should risk trying for number three. Maybe a different path would be better the next go-round.
I am standing in a minefield of spilled blueberries. My foster son gnaws at a banana in the grocery cart, smashed fruit littering his face and the gaps between the fallen berries on the floor. In my wallet sits a state issued Bridge Card waiting to be used, but the moment the flimsy carton busts... Continue Reading →
I am not a saint…and frankly, it isn’t even something I aspire to be. But this is the go-to description when people discover we are foster parents, and it occurs to me that as compliments are showered upon us, onlookers might get the impression that in order to foster, one must be extraordinary or special or saintly. We are none of these things.
Five of us sit, silent in a 10 x 10 hospital room. Our foster son is on an operating table down the hall having a minor procedure which feels major given the previous months of recurring illness and sleepless nights. We are hoping this one finally does the trick. The last procedure, six months prior, brought little improvement.
“I’m selling the shop,” he said. “With places like these, you never know what kind of offer will come when you’re finally ready, so if you get one that’s any good, you have to take it.” A week later, he walked out the door into retirement and my beloved heroine was left slumped over a laptop, deflated once again.
The naked baby bird lay nearly motionless on the ground, opening its beak every minute or so, the periods in between movements so long that more than once I was convinced it was finally dead. My youngest two boys were on either side of me, peering at the hatchlings gasping on the ground. My oldest son stood back by the swing set, hands to mouth, looking down.
