The Post That is Almost Too Hard to Write

The one-month anniversary has come and gone.

I couldn't blog about it on the day it happened.  I couldn't blog about it in the days or weeks following.  I had every intention of blogging about it on that 1-month-without her day.  I could not.

I want it documented, though.  I want it to be written down so that I don't forget the beautiful and horrible details of saying goodbye to my daughter of a year.

She was never supposed to be our daughter.  Never.  When we got the call asking us to take her, we were told that she would be sent to grandparents in Colorado.  We knew she would just be with us for that period of time when they got that whole move sorted out.  It was freeing, that knowing that we were just loving her for a little while.  No wondering.  No hoping for forever.

A couple months passed, and the Colorado thing didn't work out.  She still was not supposed to be our daughter.  They started working on an "expedited" homestudy for a grandma in Alabama.  Ooh.  This one hurt a little more.  She was starting to feel a bit like my daughter.  I couldn't imagine handing her over to a social worker who she did not know to get on a plane to take her to a grandma she didn't know who, quite frankly, raised her dad who was not a very nice man at all.  I accepted what was coming, though, because that is what you do as a foster parent.  It is all out of your hands.  You do what you are told.  She was not my daughter.

A couple more months passed with no move to Alabama, and events happened that separated her mom from her dad.   Now, for the first time, it was obvious she was going to get to go back home to her mom.  Her mom immediately started taking those parenting classes and finishing her service plan.  It was now August, and I was sure our days with her were numbered.

August came and went, and she was still with us.  Six full months with us as "not really our daughter" even though we were the ones drying her tears, watching her first steps, celebrating her first birthday, and waking up with her many, many times in the night.

September came.  Her mom let me know that she completed her entire service plan.  I just hoped she wouldn't leave us on my birthday or the birthday of one of my other kids.  I was actually very happy for her mom.  I knew from day one that she loved her daughter.  I felt like a good foster parent, caring for a baby girl while her mom got her life back together.  I would be sad when she left, but I would be happy for the job well done.  I had no worries about the environment she was returning to, which was very nice.

October came, and unsupervised visits did start.  Badly.

November came and the entire case had stalled with the social worker only able to say that she had no idea where the case would go or what to recommend.  I didn't either.  She was supposed to be home with her mom in August.  Then September.  Then by Thanksgiving.  For sure by Christmas.  I now worried about the life she would return to, but I also knew her mom loved her a lot.  Our family services worker said she was praying that the little one would stay with us.  She still was not supposed to be my daughter, but I couldn't help but feel that she should stay where all was well.

The last permanency hearing came in December, not long before Christmas.  We had finally decided that she really was going to be with us for Christmas.  We bought her a dress.  We bought her stocking stuffers and a   gifts.  We imagined this beautiful day with all six of our kids.  The permanency hearing changed all that just days before the holiday.  We were told that they had no choice but to "let the mom sink or swim" even though the little one would be the one caught in the current.  They had agreed to let the mom take her out of town on a 2-week vacation over Christmas even though overnight visits still had not begun.

On Christmas Eve, I handed her over to her mom on their way to the airport.  It was crushing.  It had all the weight of a forever goodbye.  She had not been away from me for more than a couple hours in 9 plus months.  What would she think when night came, and I wasn't there?  What would she think when day after day passed, and her siblings weren't there?  How would her siblings feel?  No, she was never supposed to be ours, but she had been with us for most of her life.  She was growing up with a house full of other kids, and none of the little ones remembered much of a time without each other.  In my mind, I knew that it could really be the forever goodbye.  If I were that mom, I would be on the phone to my lawyer every day of that vacation.  I would insist that, if it were OK for her to fly out of state for weeks, then it was OK for her to stay for good.  I would not give her back.  Merry Christmas to us.

Two weeks passed and then another day to account for a snow day and cancelled flight back.  I did get to go pick her up again.  We were reunited.  I'll never forget her reaction.  She just looked at me, at first very confused.  Then this sweet little grin spread across her face.  She asked about daddy on the whole drive home.  When we got home, all my little kids yelled her name.  They all embraced in the biggest toddler hug you ever did see.  Even the baby crawled after her all night long.  It was like a nightmare because everyone was so dang happy to be back together, and I knew that it was very temporary.

CPS is strange.  Even though they had been away for weeks, overnight visits were not yet approved.  We went back to how it once was, and the mom never pushed for more.  By the middle of January they decided to start weekend visits.  It was good because it gave us a weaning away from her, but it was bad because everyone learned that she would always be back in time.  By the end of the month, we were given the exact day that she would return to her mom for good.  It would be February 1.

She came in February 2012, and she would leave in February 2013.  A year.  An amazing, wonderful year in our family.  A year when she was never to be ours but became ours anyway.

Those few days before she left were tough.  I had to go about life without thinking or I would cry.  I had to inventory and pack everything she had acquired.  I had to try hard not to label everything as "the last time" I put her down for a nap or fed her lunch or washed her hair or cut her nails.  There's a song on Christian radio that mentions those times when we need God's strength to "just breathe".  I didn't have much strength to breathe on my own, that's for sure.

The morning she left was beautiful and horrible at the same time.  We had donuts for breakfast.  We took family pictures.  We tried to let it be as normal as possible with about a million extra hugs thrown in.  I cried. A lot.  We went as a family to hand her to her mom.  The social worker was supposed to do it for us but had to back out the night before.  I thought that was horrible, but it helped make the moment more beautiful and raw.

Jon loaded all her belongings into her mom's car.  I passed her around to all the kids for one last hug from each.  Then Jon got his last hug.  It was rough.  She was a major daddy's girl.  Then I walked her over to her mom.  Her mom was so very nice and respectful.  She let me hug her and cry.  The little one had her arms wrapped tightly around me.  She would have held on forever.  I would have held on forever.  Her mom stood there and thanked us for all we had done and the love we had given.  Her mom did not make us break away from each other, which was amazing and nice.  Her toddler wiggly-ness did not make us break away from each other, which was amazing and nice.  I had to be the one to break away, which was the hardest thing I had ever done.

She was never supposed to be my daughter, but oh, my goodness, she was.  On that morning, I handed over my daughter.

It has been a month now.  How am I doing?  I have a house full of kids to keep me really busy.  I can't lay around and mope or give up on life.  I can't cry all the time because it makes them all insecure and worried.  I have to keep it pretty far inside.  I don't want to see pictures of her.  I don't want to think of her first day at daycare or what she thought when she was never brought back to us.  My family is definitely missing a vibrant part, and we all notice it constantly.  Miss Independent remembers her each day when we talk about who to pray for.  Mr. Strut talks about her, asks about picking her up, and pretend plays like she is still here.    Basia brings her up most days, telling what she misses.  Brishen keeps it inside like his mom.  Jon tries to keep busy.

There will probably come a day when I can think of her without tearing up.  There will probably come a day when I can look at a picture of her.  I know we are all stronger than I ever knew, and our lives are so much better because of that time we had with her.

To our own Miss Personality, "I love you forever.  I like you for always.  As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be."  My mom never knew all those decades ago what the words to that often- read story book would one day mean in my life.