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