The Things that Were Taken

It was bedtime, and our Girl wouldn't put down her toys.  She wouldn't put them away, so they were taken away, downstairs with the other toys for the night.  I rubbed the cocoa butter lotion on her skin and helped her dress in the pink and white pajamas and wrapped her hair in her purple scarf and covered her with her blankets.  But she wasn't happy about it.  "Mommy," she said, "I want the things back that were taken from me."  I know she meant the Monster toys that were downstairs, so I said, "In the morning, you can play with them again.  Now its time to sleep."  But as I walked across the hall to my own quiet room, her words echoed with me, and I heard a new meaning.  I thought about all the things that were taken from her, and I knew that the rising sun wouldn't begin to help restore those Things.

We are born into families, homes, cities that are varied and much of our early years is determined by the things we are given by our parents, what is culturally acceptable, what choices the big people around us make.  When I had my first baby, I had a job, a college degree, a loving husband, a home in a two-bedroom duplex on a quiet street in the suburbs.  I had a car and parents nearby who were excited to be grandparents for the first time.  I had a room full of gifts from friends and family, a brand-new crib, a dresser full of clothes, gender-neutral blankets, diapers and wipes that would last for five months.  All of this affected how James was raised, how he was loved and cared for and what he learned about family and his place in this world.  Even when, a few years later, we learned that he was different, that he would face challenges we had never known, it didn't change the fact that he was precious to us, that he was safe and loved. (Really it helped, because it gave us a better idea of how to love him, how to structure things to make life easier for him.)  But this Girl?  Even though she was born in the same city, she didn't have much of that.  For her, and too many other children in our country, in our world, she didn't learn from day one that she was precious.  She didn't see healthy, appropriate adult relationships.  Her development and interests were not the number one priority of her primary caregivers.  And when it was determined that she was a little different, that she would face challenges her mother had never known, it only made things harder.  She wasn't given the care she needed to thrive, and ultimately the state had to get involved.

What happened next...another Thing.  She was taken.  Sitting in a police car watching her mom yell and protest, and then someone brought her to our house.  New people, new rules, different food, different schedule.  Those first weeks with us, she asked so many questions.  She didn't understand how we related to each other.  One time, when she was in time-out for hitting one of the boys, she said, "My mom just whoops me."  Even the punishments are different here.  I don't know if she has figured it out yet, that even though she is one of four here, that her health and her safety are the number one priority.  That she is precious and loved, not because of what she does or how cute she is, but because she exists.  Because she is a child.  And I don't know how to explain that some things she will never get back.  She can never unsee those things.  She can never unfeel those hurts.  She can never get back these months that she has been apart from her Mama.  I know.  I've tried to pretend that I was someone else, someone who didn't lose her innocence too young.  But it happened, and I can't get it back.  How do I tell her that she has other things now, that life will replace those Things that were taken, that, although she is now marked by the system, that doesn't have to be a bad Thing?  That, hopefully, this experience has changed the home she came from into a safe place for her to live; that someday, when she's ready, she can talk about everything that has happened and find peace; that her heart has been shaped to break when she hears about other children just like her.  That she doesn't have to repeat the life of her mother or father, that she can find something new.

I wish I could wave my Foster Mom wand over her while she sleeps and make her understand these things when she wakes up.  But I don't have a wand, all I have is a warm bed for her tonight, hugs and kisses in the morning, and a mouth to pray for her future.  Won't you join me?