Love.
By: Jenelle Ashmore
Tags: Foster Care, Love, Parenting, Grief And Loss, Life

We got the baby at 6 months old. He smelled like someone else’s house — spicy and foreign. It was strange to hold him in my arms, like I was doing something I had no right to be doing. I didn’t know then.

I didn’t know that we would have him for 20 months. I didn’t know that I would love him more than almost anyone. I didn’t know that being his Mama would be one of the best parts of my life. I didn’t know that in 2 days, I would be rushing him to the hospital with a 102 degree fever, or that in a few months he would require surgery. I didn’t know that I wouldn’t even mind staying up all night with him, or “sleeping” on the janky hospital couch for two nights.

He loved to dance, even at 6 months. He couldn’t sit or roll over, but if you set him down and turned on some music, he would wiggle and wiggle. He delighted in music. Later, when he could walk, we would have daily dance parties with whichever of his musical toys he saw first. If a song ended while we were driving, he would immediately say “More?” before the next song had a chance to start.

I did know that he would leave. I knew that his biological parents wanted him, loved him, showed up to every visit. I knew that eventually, the plan was for him to return to them. I knew that even though they had a long way to go, the system favors biology and I also knew that in many cases, that was the right way to go. I knew that I didn’t want to steal someone’s child if they would be able to be a safe family for him.

When we accepted the boy, we were told that it would be 1–2 months and then he would return home to his biological family. Then, 2 months later, we were told the same thing. Then, a year later, we were told that adoption was the main goal. Then, 2 months later, we were told he would be returning home within 90 days. 90 days later, here we are. Transition day. The day we’ve been preparing for, celebrating, dreading.

The day is fraught with ambivalence. We are proud to celebrate a success story. We support the transition because this family can be truly redeemed. We are overjoyed that our son gets to maintain his family culture and his bloodline. We are relieved that he will be loved and cared for.

But we are brokenhearted. We are gutted. We are destroyed. Our family is experiencing a reverse-pregnancy; preparing for a huge transition, feeling the anxiety and anticipation of being one family member fewer. Will we be able to look at his bedroom once he no longer occupies it? What will it be like to be a parent with no child? What will our marriage look like; our home?

We took in a baby who loved to dance and was light as a feather, dainty as a bird. In almost two years, he transformed and he remained exactly who he was. He never grew large and was in the bottom 50% for height and weight. He never ate very much at a time, unless it was pizza. He danced and he danced and he danced. He grew to love cars and trucks and soft blankets. He learned to play outside and get dirty. He learned how to pick the ripe blueberries instead of the ones that were still white. He learned how to say “home” when we pulled into our driveway. He called us Mama and Dadda. And we loved him.

Today, we pulled out of our driveway for the last time as a family of 3. My husband sobbed as he said to our boy “say ‘bye home!’” because that was the routine. “Say ‘bye trucks!’ ‘Bye dog!’”

The horrible anticipation hung heavy and dark all day. It was sticky and gross. I just wanted to go back to bed. But we drove to the park where we had met our son’s other family 3 times a week for the last 20 months. We got there early, got a doughnut. We played. We sat. We ate.

I could feel my stomach turn as I looked for their car. They aren’t the enemy. They have done admirably and, by all accounts, are safe to care for (all of) our son. But there is absolutely no part of me that wants to hand my child over to them. I arrived at this park a mama and I would rather eat glass than leave any other way.

But it’s not up to me.

When they do arrive, we pack their car full of our boy’s things which have littered our living room, blasting it with color, filling it with painful tripping hazards, noise, and joy. We say goodbye to our baby. We leave.

The 21 minute drive home takes four and a half years. I have time to contemplate time and all eternity. I can feel the job description of Mama being amputated from me in a mad surgical experiment, but my nervous system hasn’t caught up. There is no pain yet, only a gaping wound with ragged edges, sinking into the vacuous void where my heart used to be. I feel empty, like a rotted out fruit. The ocean of my emotions has drawn away from the shore, and I can see the tsunami in the distance, but it is completely detached from me as I examine the fish flopping on the jagged rocks.

I hear my husband gasp and sob next to me, driving us safely home despite his heart disintegrating and floating away into the wind. I am aware of him shattering and crumbling, but I can’t help. I am a wraith, a ghost, a dry leaf shuddering on the desert sand.

“He’s gone,” he says, quietly, trying to make sense of what just happened to us, trying to make it real. It doesn’t work. Our world is chaos and there is no way to make it real yet.

When someone has a baby, there is always something they discover. “It’s like I can’t remember my life before the baby was born.” I discovered that it remains that way, even when the baby is gone. What do I do now? I’ll wake up and think “Oh, I woke up before him, I have a few minutes before I need to…oh.” I have an internal alarm that goes off at 11:15 — naptime. I can always feel when it’s 6:30 because that’s bedtime. I can always hear when a baby is crying, even down the street. What do you do with all of the time you have left over, now that you’re babyless?

I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know if we will be able to heal enough to open our home to another baby. I don’t know if circumstances will allow us to see the boy we love more than anything. I don’t know if a situation will arise where we need to bring him back into our home. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know…

But here’s what I do know. I know that our boy is worth this. I will pay this price for that boy even if it means grieving for the rest of my life. Even if I never see him again. Every second I spend missing him, worrying about him, crying over him is covered by a hundred times that of joy, of memories, of fullness. I would do it again and again, even knowing the pain of loss, and I know my husband would, too. He is worth it. Love is worth it.