the rest of the story

 As I have revisited this blog and re-lived some of these memories, one post especially was emotional for me, and I realized that I never finished the story.

You can read the first parts here and here

While Jamere was at our home and in the weeks following, both my mom and I visited his mother and wrote her letters while she was in the jail. She had been arrested for assaulting another woman, and that’s what led to Jamere being placed in our home.

Our hope was to encourage her to get into recovery—she had an alcohol addiction—and be able to take the necessary steps to get her son home, even if he was no longer in our home.

After a month or so passed, she was released and we lost contact with her. We found out that Jamere was removed from the foster home he was placed in, and since we were no longer part of the case, we also lost track of him.

More than a year passed in which we had two more children pass through our home and as a result of the stress of the last child’s case, we made the decision to close our home.

However, the children never just disappear from your heart or memories.

I looked up Jamere’s mother and found out that she was arrested again for robbery of a pharmacy which meant that she likely destroyed her chances of getting her son back.

That was heartbreaking to find out. 

My mom decided to post in a local foster and adoption Facebook group to see if anyone in the group might know of the whereabouts of Jamere.

Someone responded and his foster mom reached out to us.

He had been placed in a foster home for a while and was thriving. The plan was moving towards adoption. However DHS located an uncle several states away, and although Jamere had not known him, DHS arranged for the uncle and family to adopt him.

He was being moved to the Chicago area in a matter of days. But the foster mother welcomed us to come to their home and see him again before he left.

Although it had been more than a year since we had seen him, and he had only lived with us for a week, as soon as he saw us he recognized us and came running for hugs. I cried of course because I was so happy to see him happy! He had had such a rough road and yet he was happy and safe. It was sad to think that he was being moved yet again, but we could only hope that he would adjust again to the new home and that it would be a permanent, stable, loving home for him.

He would be around ten or eleven years old now. I don’t even remember his last name, and of course since he was adopted he would have a new name. So it is unlikely that I will see him again in this life anyway. I hope he is happy now and will continue to be so in his future.

The last night before he left our home

Saying hello and goodbye one last time

Regrets

 Maybe it’s something about having a milestone birthday coming up that makes a person reflect on life and the decisions that led them to where they are today. 

For most of my life, I have never been one to dwell on the past. In my thinking, the past is the past. There is no reason to go backwards and wish that things were different.

Until recently.

Let me first say that the one thing I don’t regret, and never will regret, is my children. They are my life and what keeps me going. They challenge me and wear me out, and sometimes I get so overwhelmed with trying to meet such vastly different needs between the two of them. But in spite of difficult days, they will never be a regret. I am so, so proud of them both. And I love them.

However I find myself often battling the “what if“ thoughts. What if I had done this differently, what if I had made this choice instead of that choice… I wish…. I wish… I wish….

I try so hard to silence those thoughts because they drag me down. 

In spite of sometimes wishing I could go back and shake my twenty year old self to do things differently, I come back to two things.

First, I hope that I can teach my children from my own mistakes and that they can be more successful that me. 

And secondly, I ask myself what I can do now and into the future, so that ten years from now I won’t have regrets from these days. 

How do you deal with regrets? How do you turn them into something positive?

“And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” Rom 8:28

starting again

It’s been five years since I last posted. I have decided to revive this blog. I used to journal frequently. But life has gotten busier, and I rarely have quiet time to collect my thoughts and journal in a coherent manner, other than a few sentences here and there. 

The majority of this blog was written during my journey of foster parenting, however that chapter of my life is closed permanently, at least as far as I can tell.

I feel like I need some kind of outlet to sort my thoughts about life and reflect on where I have been and where I am going. So much has happened since I wrote my last blog post and I hope to take some time to journal it.

It was more than fifteen years ago that we began the training for foster care. After volunteering at the local shelter, I was determined that we could open our home and make a difference. I hope that in some way we did. 

Looking back I realize how naive I was and maybe a tad bit immature 🫣 If I could go back and change some things, I definitely would change some of my attitudes. But hindsight is 20/20 right?

Our home closed seven years ago. I’ve lost track of all the children that stayed with us with the exception of my adopted son. The two baby girls we had would be nine and six now. I know two girls that are almost the exact same age and I sometimes look at them and wonder how Miss B and Miss C are doing today. Who are they now? What are they like?

I now have two children that keep me busy from morning until night. Turning forty this month with a teenager and a precocious toddler is definitely challenging. I never thought I would find myself where I am at today. It’s been a series of highs and lows, mistakes and happy days. 

But here we are. I’ve got five years of life to reflect on since I last published something. Let’s see if I can keep this blog going 😊❤️