Anticipating and seeing that loved one walk down the hall into your arms, the joy and happiness that floods your insides,
And walking away, waving goodbye, the sorrow that fills your heart.
Last January, after we had been at the ranch about 8 weeks, a little quirky girl came into our home. She was 10 years old and WISE beyond her years. She knew too much for a 10 year old, had seen more in her young life than I have seen, and was a broken, little soul.
She caused a lot of drama her first few weeks, coming from chaos, searching for the chaos that was so familiar, and not finding it, just causing it all on her own.
I've watched her grow, literally and figuratively, this last 18 months, into a very mature, soon to be 12 year old. She's worked her way through a lot of pain, and loss and came out the other end a champion.
She left my house today.
What they don't teach you in those classes you are required to take to be a foster parent, is how to let go of a kid you have loved like your own for 18 months. They didn't teach a class on that. They didn't tell you that shards of your heart would go with them, and pieces would fall on the ground as you watch them say goodbye to all their friends, their siblings, their baby brothers, all their foster siblings that they have argued with, laughed with, cried with, shared with....... The classes don't prepare you for that.
As we drove to the airport this morning, I overloaded her with advice. She overloaded me with inane prattle of the OKC bombing. Anything to keep our minds off the imminent goodbyes we were going to have to face.
I told her that the most important and lasting thing she will take from our home, was the fact that she was now a sold out lover of Jesus. She agrees. She told me that she had never been happier or more "safe feeling" as she had with us.
I pray she finds her forever home with her grandparents, whom she has met once, and they love her with rich abandon and unconditional greatness. I pray she finds Godly friends, and that she finds the home she has dreamed of her whole life, and the childhood she so richly deserves.
I pray that she thinks back on her time at the 81-81 and knows she was deeply and joyfully loved.
I've read that without great love, there is no great sorrow of loss. It's like a railroad track, running side by side....the good, equally yoked with the bad.
I didn't realize that it would be this profound for me. The feeling of loss. This little girl made me want to pull my hair out twenty five ways of Sunday, ninety five percent of the time, but holy moly, she went and made me fall in love with her anyway.
And now she's gone.
Foster care isn't for sissies. I didn't let her see my tears. She has always counted on me to be the strong one to handle the crap for her. She needs me to be strong and tell her it's going to be ok. I've told her that about 1,233,444 times in the last 18 months. Everything is going to be ok. It's ok. It doesn't matter about that, it's ok. I don't think that's a big deal, it's ok.
You are O.K.
But today, I'm not.
And there isn't any class for that.
When you love big, you feel big loss. And I won't do it any other way.
