September, 2004-- Jacob is 9!

Jacob, my oldest, is on the second floor of his school this year. Fourth grade. 22 steps above the primary grades. Not on the same floor as the kindergarteners anymore. He’s on a different level now, both literally and figuratively. Fourth grade is the beginning of the intermediate grades. Intermediate — in the middle. Jacob and his classmates are in the middle of childhood. Nine years old, they are halfway to 18. Halfway through grade school.

            And while I understand the whole point of parenthood is to help your child grow and develop — this is what God intends — I’m still getting used to being the mom of a larger-sized kid. Jacob’s clothes aren’t cute and tiny anymore and haven’t been for some time. I could wear his t-shirts if I wanted. (Yes, if I wanted to constantly walk around with large numbers on my back and chest.) If his feet continue to grow at their current rate, I should be able to fit into his shoes in a few months. Already, I have mistaken his black dress pants for cropped pants of my own; I hung them in my closet and only realized my error when I began to put them on and they stopped suddenly at my hips.

            Jacob is still a good ten inches shorter than I am, and I easily have forty pounds on him, but my days of being the expert at everything are clearly numbered. This summer, I had to admit that he is better than I in baseball. If I were to be completely honest, I would acknowledge this might have been true as many as two years ago, and quite certainly one, but this summer was the first summer I thought about it.

            We went to a park one afternoon, and I stood on the pitcher’s mound, Jacob’s sometime-position in little league, and I pitched to him. It looked so easy when I watched him from the stands, but as I struggled to get the ball over the plate, I apologized to my son for making him wait so long for a decent pitch.

            “That’s okay, Mom,” he said. “You pitch pretty well, for a writer.”

            My child was giving me qualified encouragement that I was doing okay. I wasn’t doing as well as him, of course — who would expect that? He wore the numbers. He was the baseball player. I was the mom. And the writer.

            And though I knew Jacob’s assessment of the situation was accurate, somehow in my mind, it wasn’t possible that Jacob could be better at baseball than me — after all, I was the one who taught him how to hold a bat in the first place. I was the one who pitched the enormous white whiffle ball directly at his fat red bat when he was a toddler, willing the ball to stop in mid-air so he could make contact. I called it a hit, even when it would more accurately be called a pitch that tapped the bat. And now he is better than me. Much better.

            I told my friend Eric, who has a two-year-old, that the day is coming when his daughter will be better than him at something.

            “It’s already here,” he said. “She can dance better. She has more rhythm.”

            I look at Jacob and know baseball is just the beginning of a long list of things he will one day do better than I. If early childhood was for learning basic skills, middle childhood is for refining those skills. And while one side of my heart cheers wildly for Jacob as he conquers long division, the strike zone, and increasingly adult-looking novels, the other side of my heart wants to freeze time. For the middle of childhood — age nine — is so clearly the beginning of something big. And I have learned from babyhood on that beginnings are fleeting. I am afraid that middles may be fleeting, too.

            He’s on the second floor this year. Halfway through grade school. Halfway through childhood. A tall, skinny kid with a huge appetite, a big smile and talents neither of us knows about yet.

I’m running to keep up.

July, 2004: Foster care-- between goodbye and hello

Our foster daughter has been gone six months now. While I’ve referred to her by name in print in the past, now that she’s no longer a member of our household, I’ll just call her T. T came to us in February of 2003, age 14 months, and was given back to her birth father — who fulfilled his court-ordered conditions — this past March, 2004.

            Throughout T’s year with us, one of the comments Bill and I heard a lot was, “I could never be a foster parent. I couldn’t give them back.”

            But when you’re a foster parent, giving them back is part of the deal. In some ways, being a foster parent is like being a tornado shelter. When the storm is over, you come out of your shelter, spend a great deal of time cleaning and rebuilding, and then  resume your life. To wish a child could stay is tantamount to wishing the his or her family’s storm — be it alcohol abuse, drug addiction or one of the many other effects of poverty — will level the original family, destroy it, make it unlivable. It happens, yes, but you don’t wish for it. In Milwaukee County, three of four foster children are returned to either a rehabilitated birth parent or a willing relative. The others, whose parents’ rights are terminated, are adopted by their foster family or another family.

            Giving them back is part of the deal.

            T’s birth father chose to sever contact with us after she was returned to him and we haven’t seen her since. The most difficult part, for me, seems to be over now. I think about her in little ways; when I find a marble on the floor and remember how I was always sweeping her mouth to check for small toys. Sometimes one of her socks shows up in the wash. I never know how it gets there, but then, the where and when of socks and laundry are a great mystery to me. We have photos of her mixed in with pictures of the boys, on the wall and in albums.

            Bill and I both dream about her. Scary, searching dreams where we’re frantically looking for T, who is inexplicably lost. Somehow, in the dreams, we never remember she was returned to her father.

            I often think of her when go for my daily run through Lincoln Park. Our Glendale  neighborhood, just east of the park, is mostly white; the neighborhood just west of the park, in Milwaukee, is mostly black.

Running in Lincoln Park reminds me that too often, in Milwaukee, skin color is an “either” rather than a “both.” Either you’re white and you live and play here, or you’re black and you live and play there. Lincoln Park is a reminder that T, who is black, might not have had it easy in our white family, much as we loved her and she loved us. I know the family life she has been returned to won’t be easy either, but the large family picnics I run past are a hope for me — a hope that T’s family will heal to the extent that someday, she’ll have a family celebration of her own.

The time I remember T most, though, is during Eucharist at Mass. I never plan to see her then, but a memory nevertheless dashes in, a fast toddler with someplace to be. I see her scribbling with a fat orange crayon during the Consecration and feel her squirming weight in my arms as I walk up to Communion. Once, during the fraction rite, as the priest was pouring wine into four glasses, it reminded me of how many times the past year I poured juice for three kids, and now I pour for two. Our family fraction rite has changed. My boys are so used to seeing me cry during the Eucharist that I sometimes notice them peering over as we kneel, to see if I’ve started yet. We smile at each other in recognition of the strange, new ritual.

But from my vantage point of six months after T, I can honestly say that the joy of having had her far outweighs the hurt of having lost her. Six months after her leaving, we have been assured by her social worker that her family situation is stable enough that she is unlikely to bounce back into the foster care system. Knowing we aren’t needed for T anymore, we are once again ready to put our name on the list to accept another foster child. We don’t know who that child is, but many nights at dinner, our boys pray for that child after they pray for T. 

“Bless T and bless whoever we’re going to get next,” one of them will say.

It’s not a prayer for tornadoes, but a prayer of recognition that tornadoes exist.

We are readying our shelter. Wondering if our shelter will be a temporary haven or a permanent home. And as we get ready, we are remembering T, knowing somehow, a part of her will join us in welcoming this new child.

March, 2004: Termination of Parental Rights

            The parental rights of our foster daughter’s biological parents have been terminated. “Terminate” is a terrible word. Pregnancies are terminated. Jobs are terminated. There’s no going back from terminated. No second chance. No changing your mind.  And much as I know that Christa’s parents are in no position to care for her, it was still difficult to hear the Court terminate their rights. I was thankful they were not present to hear it, too. I was also thankful that one-year-old Christa will have no memory of this day.  She will never hear the social worker, under oath, answer “No,” to the ten questions the court posed regarding whether her biological parents ever provided the most basic of care. Jamie has been in foster care since birth, and her biological mother visited her just a few times before disappearing. It is completely appropriate that the Court terminated her mother’s rights. But appropriate doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking.

            Jamie knows nothing of this. Nothing was terminated about her day-to-day life.  She yells, “Daddy!” when Bill walks in the door. Often, her first word upon waking up from a nap is “IAMMM!” She can’t make the “L” sound for “Liam,” so she just leaves it out entirely. When Jacob comes home from school, she holds up her arms so he can pick her up. I have learned to walk rather effectively with a small body wrapped around my leg, giggling. Jamie  is so much a part of our family that it’s hard to imagine that she had her start outside of us.

            But she did have her start outside us. About six weeks into Jamie’s stay with us, when she was 15 months old, our social worker set up a meeting with five of her six biological siblings at Chuck E. Cheese. All of the children in the family are in foster care or live with their respective biological fathers, but none live with their mother. We have photos and a video of that meeting. Jamie ’s older sister gave me pictures of their biological mother and grandmother. More than anything, it is that day that I was thinking of in Court, when Jamie’s parents’ rights were terminated. The reality of day-to-day family life and complications of siblings living with so many different families, mean Jamie will never know them well as a child. The termination of Jamie’s parents’ rights, is also a de facto termination of a relationship with her biological siblings — a termination of a sisterhood with three girls who have her beautiful black curly hair and three brothers who have the same enormous brown eyes.

            When our second foster daughter, Teenasia, left us, last year at this time, I recognized in her leaving that while I could be happy that she was reunited with her birth family, I could be sad for our loss. At the time, my pain was deep and I thought that if I should ever some day be in a position to adopt a foster child, I would feel nothing but joy. As we prepare to adopt Jamie next month, I know now that is not the case. Joy I feel, definitely, joy. But also within that joy, a tinge of sadness, for a family that could have been.

             

February 2004: Giving Teenasia up for Lent

Our foster daughter Teenasia has been with us since last February, and over the course of her year with us, her birth father has fulfilled the conditions the court set for him to take custody of his daughter. The planned unification date is March 26 and between now and then, Teenasia will spend more and more time with her father, beginning with overnight visits, working up to weekends, then three- and four-day visits.

Our family is giving up Teenasia for Lent.

I’ve never loved Lent. I’ve respected it as a necessary season of the Church, and I’ve valued it as an opportunity to discover the areas of my life that I need to die to, in order to more fully live. But I’ve never looked forward to it. And this year, as I page through the calendar and anticipate saying goodbye to a little girl I’ve come to love and laugh at and wipe the nose of, Lent looms like an unwelcome desert.

I don’t know the faith of Teenasia’s father, or even if he has a faith, but I know our family’s time of loss and pain will be his family’s Resurrection. Teenasia has never lived with her father, so her going to him will be a rebirth for her. Her two full brothers, ages 3 and 4, already live with him, and they too will receive the gift that is Teenasia, a gift that we must help our own sons to give away.

The other day, Teenasia’s father called, and as we chatted, he told me he had never seen a young child run with the speed and coordination with which Teenasia runs.

“She is going to be a track star someday,” he said. “I’m going to need to train her in track and field.”

I told him I agreed, that I had seen the potential too. But I didn’t tell him that I had once been a track star myself, and up until the last court hearing, a part of me hoped maybe, just maybe, we’d keep her and I’d turn her into the fastest girl Wisconsin had ever seen.

The hardest thing about letting Teenasia go is the not knowing. I’ve never been to her father’s home; I don’t really know him; I don’t know the woman he lives with or the other children in the household. And yet I know Teenasia intimately. I know she loves to wash her doll’s hair in the tub, but screams when she needs to get her own hair washed. I know she gobbles up mashed potatoes, but doesn’t have much use for lettuce. That it’s best to let her brush her teeth by herself for a couple minutes before coming in to “check” them.

There is no way to deal with this not knowing than to simply live with it. I have read and learned too much about why children end up in foster care to naively believe everything will be perfect in her father’s home. Yet, I believe enough in Teenasia’s social worker and her guardian ad litem to accept that they would not have recommended placement with her father if it weren’t in Teenasia’s best interest.

So I enter Lent with the understanding that from where I stand, I cannot see the whole picture. That Teenasia’s year with us is a small slice of who she is, and who she will someday become. I enter Lent believing that God’s plans for Teenasia are bigger than Bill and me and our boys. Good Friday always comes before Easter Sunday. And what the disciples saw as the end turned out to be just the beginning.

January, 2004: Catholic School appreciation

It is hard to walk more than 10 feet in our sons’ school, St. Monica, without seeing a wall hanging, bulletin board, statue or class project that has to do with some aspect of God, faith or values. Some might see this as a lack of subtlety, but I like it.

            If St. Monica School chooses to barrage my children with construction-paper Gospel quotes, glossy inspirational posters, and crucifixes at every turn, I’m not going to complain. When they’re not in school, McDonald’s is doing  the same thing with ads for super-sized fries.

I like that every time third-grade Jacob comes in for recess, he sees this year’s theme — “God has chosen you,” hanging in the hall near the drinking fountain. I like that Liam needs to walk past a bulletin board with a Psalm on it on his way to his kindergarten classroom. Granted, he may only be able to read the high-frequency words in that Psalm, but still, I like it. I’m glad Saint Monica herself and her three children stand guard in a beautiful oil painting outside the office, and a statue of the child Jesus watches over the children as they go up and down the stairs.

            St. Monica is not unique among Catholic schools in its commitment to adorning hallways and classrooms with sacred words and images. I’ve taught in two Catholic schools and visited many, and while each school has its own style, they hold in common an understanding that if faith is to be part of children’s school day, expressions of that faith must be all around them.

            Ann Chrusciel, a sixth grade teacher at St. Monica, put it this way: “The spiritual component of St. Monica  is like air inside of a balloon. It’s what’s filling up the school.”  While Ann was speaking specifically of St. Monica, I believe the same can be said for any Catholic elementary school, high school or university that does its job well.

            I see the “air in the balloon” analogy so clearly when my sons have their friends over. As I drive kids home after a play date, talk invariably turns to school. Mixed in with conversations about who scored the most touchdowns at recess are off-handed remarks that I wouldn’t hear if they went to a public school. Sentences that start, “Yesterday, after church, we…” or  “For Advent, our class is…”

Before Christmas, Jacob and his friend Joe used the ride home to  practice for their upcoming Christmas concert. They were belting out I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In with an energy particular to eight-year-old boys. As they bellowed “…the Virgin Mary and Christ were there, on Christmas Day, on Christmas Day…” I glanced in the rearview mirror and couldn’t help but think that we already got our money’s worth out of our tuition payment, and the year was only half over.

            I think Catholic schools do their job so well in terms of faith formation that they raise the bar for us as parents. If St. Monica School hands our sons Christianity neatly wrapped up in religion assignments, prayer services and paintings of Saints, it’s up to us to unwrap that Christianity at home. When Christianity is unwrapped, though, it gets messy. And the closer you follow Jesus, the messier it can get. (The areas Christ chooses to trod — where people are hungry, naked, or in prison — are rarely neat and tidy.)

            My husband and I once heard a great homily that included the refrain, “Come on in, the muck is fine.” The priest was saying that being a follower of Jesus is not like diving into crystal clear water, it’s more like wading into muck. To be a follower of Jesus is to get involved in messy situations you might rather avoid.  In muck, you can’t see the bottom, and you fear you might get stuck. From the shore, muck can look scary, but once you’re in — once you’re immersed in it — you find it’s not so difficult after all, and you invite others to join you. Come on in, the muck is fine.

            If St. Monica’s job is to teach my boys about their faith, my charge is to help them live it. Our current family muck happens to be foster care. The children’s court system is murky and little is clear about our foster daughter’s future. From the boys’ point of view, Teenasia is equal parts fun little sister and a whirling tornado who can destroy a Lego tower in one swoop. And the messiest part is yet to come —  the day when Teenasia is returned to her birth family and we are left in a quieter, neater house with all Lego towers standing. And on that day, I will be so grateful to be sending our boys to a school where the spiritual component is like air in a balloon. I will be so grateful for the prayers that will surround my sons.

            This Catholic Schools Week, I give thanks for all Catholic schools, and I pray for the parents who choose those schools for their children. I pray that we may always view Catholic education as just the beginning. That we will have the courage to wade into the muck ourselves, so that we might be able to call out to our children, “Come on in, the muck is fine.”