Gracefully

Dear J,

I have written you a million letters in the last two months but until this one they’ve all just stayed in my head and heart. I think I have to write this one down now because sometimes we need to get things out.

I’ve missed you every day since you’ve been gone. Some days are harder than others when we have a food I know you would love or when we know you’ve had a doctor’s appointment and hope you’ve gotten there. Your Bubbie and I have missed you together and separately and everyone in our village has grieved your absence from us.

We haven’t heard from you – but our friends have seen you out and about twice (we may or may not be stalking the Kmart where they saw you once). We like knowing you’re ok and had hoped we would be able to stay in touch. We’ve learned a lot of things about you physically since you left – test results that didn’t come back until you were gone. We know you have some real limitations and are hoping hard and praying hard that your family is making sure your special needs are met. For a while we thought you weren’t getting to appointment and therapies but have just in the last week learned you might be getting what you need from another route. We fought hard for you. We called everyone we knew to call. Your friends fought too. There are lots of people who were really concerned for you. We hope that concern has made a difference.

We’re so sad that you’re caught in a broken system of changing case workers and policies and regulations that mean you’ve fallen in a big ‘ol crack. In the end, I want to be able to say I did everything I could to be able to make sure you don’t stay in that crack.

I’m not writing this to say we’re done fighting. I will always want to make sure you’re ok and I will keep using my connections to try and make sure your needs are met. But I am writing this in some ways to remind myself that I am not in charge. Try as I might, I can’t ensure your safety right now. I have to trust that that is ok.

These are the hard parts of fostering….the loving entirely and completely while you’re in our home and then the still loving entirely and completely after you’re gone. You are the first kiddo who has made us feel this way. You’re not the first who has left us, but you were different. Maybe because you were with us longer…maybe because you have special needs…maybe because we didn’t feel so great about where you were going when you left us…probably a combo of all three – but something about your absence is different.

I hope next week your family gets together and celebrates Thanksgiving and I hope they are as thankful for you as we are. Just know J, that you’re going to be missed at our celebrations and that you are one of the blessings we are thankful for this year.

Love, Meggie