Real life stuff
A week ago Stephanie and I had just left the Oncologist with
great news and had just made a decision to decline the placement of a 2 and 7
year old. That one sentence describes a
few hours of last Thursday morning that were incredibly stressful and challenging. I like to describe it as "real life
stuff" was happening last Thursday morning.
Let's jump forward to Friday and reminisce the call we
received for a 2 year old that we accepted into our home for 4 days. Here is how it happened. I get a call from Steph while I am sitting at
my desk at work and she says I am on the line with the state and they have
another placement opportunity. I am
elated and I walk into a private room where I can really listen and make a
decision with Stephanie that could impact the rest of our lives. Pause right there. I was typing an email to some human resources
person at a company that doesn't want to talk to me and then I get a call where
I decide whether or not to accept a child into our life. "Real life stuff'
In addition to being incredibly exciting for Stephanie and
I, these calls absolutely suck. When you
think about what has to happen for one of these calls to happen, you start to
understand why they suck. In a normal
child's life, there is not a lot of involvement by the State of Kentucky. The state only gets involved when the child
has been neglected, abused, or abandoned.
Bad things have to happen for the State to knock on your door and tell
you that they are taking your child away from you.
When a State caseworker calls they tell you everything they
know about the child and the situation.
Sometimes it is very little, sometimes it is their life story, but the
state always knows what bad has happened to the child. So as I sit in a private room at work
listening to the state worker describe a terrible scenario where a baby was
hospitalized from abuse, a 2 year old had no family to go to, and the
environment within which they lived was so terrible that the child had to be
removed, my heart broke.
These calls, on the surface of it all, are terrible. Yeah I know it is great that they are calling
us and we could provide a much better situation for a child than what they are
currently in but it does not make these calls any easier. There is also the fact that when you get
these calls you must make a choice to accept the placement or to decline the
placement. Imagine listening to a story
about a 7 year old whose parent openly tells them that they don't care if they
are hurt while playing in a busy street.
This 7 year old also has to go to the neighbor's house to ask for food
because the parent hasn't been feeding the child. How selfish did I feel when we decided not to
accept that innocent and neglected child into our house. Imagine hanging up the phone knowing that you
could have done something to help that child but you decided not to because of
some reason that is more important to you than the well-being of an innocent
child. "Real life stuff'
We accepted a 2 year old into our house...
This little person was an angel. Well behaved, cute, playful, etc.... She arrived at our house, as Stephanie shared
in a previous post, with nothing - no jacket, no shoes... nothing. She also arrived at our house with head full
of lice and a distinct fear of men (my bushy beard didn't help I am sure). What she received when she arrived was two
happy parents with hearts full of love and patience who fell head over heels in
love with her in 4 days.
We delivered her to the Crimes Against Children Unit in Old
Louisville. She cried and screamed when
her new best friend, "TeeTee," turned the corner to leave. It took every piece of my person not to do
the same thing. "Real life stuff'
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