So Hard to Read

We received the redacted files for Soren and Tobias' case last night (when the adoption worker surprised us at 8:15pm!).  I read them last night until my eyes started drooping and again today during naptime.  We had never been told anything at all about their case before the day they arrived at our home, so I was eager to read.  The whole file is 851 pages long, and I am on page 123, so I still have a lot to learn.

Do you like TV dramas?  Books with lots of dramatic twists and turns?  Tearjerkers?

Well, I do not.  I have this philosophy that real life has enough heartache and drama that my books, TV, and movies need to be pretty upbeat.

Then I read these files.

It is such a powerful, horrible experience that I feel the need to explain but cannot do it adequately.  I am reading the story of my childrens' lives before I ever met them.  I am reading about the sad, painful, scary things they experienced.  I cannot go back.  I cannot take that past away from them.  I cannot make it disappear.

They needed me long before I could help them, and I look at the dates and try to remember what I was doing then.  I look at dates when they lived in the Child Crisis Center (can you imagine how scary that would be for a small child??) and see that they only slightly missed knowing Cassia and Edison there.  I see the dates when they lived in the rehab center and realize that Zade's mom was there at the same time, and I would bring him there for visits.  I want to will myself back to that time to try to catch a glimpse of my future sons in the halls or through the tall metal fences.  I look at dates and imagine how tiny they were when all this was happening to them.

Mostly I see pages and pages of drama that is not made for TV but very, very real.  It's not only real, but my very own sons were living through it.  I just cannot describe what that is like.

When it was time for me to close the file and pick up the kids from school, my eyes burned when I entered the sunlight of the afternoon.  It seemed surreal that the world was sunny and bright when the files were so dark and scary.  How is everything going on as before when I now know so much more?  How do you transition from reading these files to smiling and greeting people in the private school halls like nothing has changed?

Most of the saddest, scariest details of the early lives of all my kids will always remain a mystery.  (Why is Zade petrified to wake up in a car at night?  Why is Cassia so good at glossing over her eyes to check out of scary situations?  Why do Soren's eyes get huge at the mere thought of being in a room without a light?  Why does Tobias ache to be babied?  The details I know break my heart in a big way.  My heart is broken for them.  My heart is broken for their parents.  My heart is broken for the kids who still need foster parents, especially.  I am no longer separate from drugs and gangs and prostitution and extreme poverty and generational abuse and neglect and utter hopelessness.  I have read the files.  It is now a part of the story of my own family.  It is now a part of my own story.

Melancholy much?