Sometimes we hug our kids, never knowing if it is going to be for the last time.
For one year, my husband and I along with our two daughters, lived on a campus community with teens in foster care. Every other week, we spent Monday to Monday in a huge cottage with several teenage girls. We were usually there when they moved in, some of them experiencing another move on top of the dozens they had before this stay.
Some teens were younger, and some were older but younger mentally and developmentally. All of them were beautiful, precious souls with whom we ate dinner, drove to doctor’s appointments, and said goodnight when the sun went down on another busy day.
Sabrina was a teenager that lived in the cottage for six months, and I was afraid she was going to leave me. I would whine in an annoying voice, “Nooo!! Don’t leave me!” and cling to her like a cat on a curtain. It was dramatic, but I had fallen in love with her spunk and couldn’t imagine her not being around anymore. She made me laugh every day, and I didn’t want to miss that.
Her caseworker called one day and told her about an aunt in Nebraska. I listened on the phone, hearing her breathe and focus and dare to imagine a different life. We both wondered if that was what came next for her because her biological parents were unable to take her in. The caseworker hung up, I hung up, and she looked at me and said in her southern accent, “Where in the world is Nebraska?”
We laughed, and pulled out a map. She was giddy and nervous and curious about her future. She craved freedom and a life outside of foster care, but we both knew it would take a mountain to move for a new life to come to her.
Sabrina was precious in a way that all children in foster care are. Everything about them is unique. From the way they walk, to the twitch in their eyes, to their strange food preferences. Sabrina would eat pickles out of the jar, grapes after school one at a time until the bag was empty, and sometimes absolutely nothing at all for a whole day.
Getting to know her was a magical experience, because she always surprised me. She told the funniest stories, (probably half of them were exaggerated,) and she always said silly teenage things like, “I am being so for real” or “I was QUITE scared.” When she got to laughing with a friend, it was like a Friday night sleepover and I relished the chance to simply sit at dinner and watch her crack up, head back, shoulders shaking and the magical sound of happiness rippling from her tiny body.
Those were my favorite moments.
There were hard moments too, and she taught me a lot about seeing the need behind the behavior. Though she was occasionally sassy and struggled to tell the truth, we worked through it and I tried to show her how honesty would serve her in the long run. Some things are going to be harder for her to let go of, and she will have battles to fight her whole life. But I believe in her.
Sadly, I knew I would have to let her go at some point, and I dreaded it. So I told her as much as I could that I loved her. That she was amazing. That I would miss her when she left me.
The day came, but it wasn’t her who left me. The aunt in Nebraska didn’t pan out, so she was staying put for a little while longer. But God had shifted my family’s plan, and soon I had to break the bad news to her.
Our supervisors asked us to transfer to a different residential placement, so we left the cottage we had been in for several months. I hugged all the teens, telling them I would never forget them. She hugged me back, tight and long. I whispered to her that she had changed my life, and I tried not to cry.
Some people are scared of becoming foster parents because we attach to kids, and then they are stripped away. We put up walls and become afraid to share our hearts with someone who we may not have the chance to love forever.
Even though Sabrina won’t be in my house forever; she will be in my memories, my heart, the DNA of me that is forever changed by caring for her. It’s impossible to separate me from the gift of who she is and the privilege it was to be in her life for even just one day.
I didn’t want to be the one to leave Sabrina like so many other people had. But she was gracious to me, and I knew she would be okay. She had a whole treacherous life ahead of her, just like the past she had somehow lived through. It would be long and brutal, but she knew I believed in her. We had shared hundreds of hugs, and her handwritten notes from me were tucked in her nightstand drawer. She knew how much I loved her.
Sabrina changed my life when she showed me how easy it can be to love someone made in the image of God. God makes it easy because the humans He creates are incredible. It was a privilege for me just to be in her orbit.
That hug was the last for now. I don’t know if I will ever see her sweet face again. But if I do, we can feast on grapes and the company of our smiles and laughs for as long as possible.