Wrecking Ball

I'm not a good writer, I am the first to admit that. So go easy on me. But here goes.

Imagine with me for a moment. A month out of college, and you are two weeks into this new thing called motherhood. Unfortunately, you are already starting at a deficit, because you haven’t known your children from the time they were growing in your belly. Life has happened to them before they came to you. A lot of the time, you weren’t there to hear their first words, or see their first steps. You weren’t there to protect them from violence, or hunger, or being cold, or drugs. No one was there. When mommy’s boyfriend hurt them, or daddy couldn’t feed them because he was passed out on the couch. When daddy hit mommy while they watched from under the bed. It didn’t happen to you. You weren’t there. No one was there. Not for them. You get them after this has all happened. After their eyes have been opened and their hearts have been closed. Are you with me up to this point? Can you begin to understand how hard it is? To form a loving connection of parent and child after the child has seen so much? When you actually, in reality, know nothing about parenting – except for what you were exposed to as a child yourself? Were you ever exposed to anything like that? No? Then how could you possibly understand what it must be like? How do you tell a five year old that you know about their fears, and what it is to be afraid, when they won’t believe you. When you don’t believe yourself.

Same Act, different Scene. A little two year old girl and her sister come into your care. You pick them up at the office, unwashed, reeking of cigarette smoke, solemn little eyes that have already seen too much bad in the world to be able to trust it anymore. Worn thin by the weight of it all. The two year old doesn’t talk. Not even to say no. You try to get her to eat, but she cries and throws it on the floor. You find toys from the toy chest that you think she’ll like, but she doesn’t know what to do with it: cue another breakdown. She’s frustrated – she has never tried to communicate with anyone. Let me rephrase that. No one has probably ever tried to communicate with her. When you put her to bed, she stares at you from between the bars in the crib – eyes never leaving you, fingers fidgeting with the blanket, until eventually exhaustion overcomes her. For the first week, she wakes up in the middle of the night screaming and crying. Every night. She’ll start screaming again if you try to leave the room before she’s back to sleep. So you sit up with her for close to three hours. Every night.  And then time passes. The frequency of her nightmares decreases. We develop a language of our own, and begin to communicate. Slowly, but surely, we begin to grow. Together.

Fast forward six months. When “Wrecking Ball” comes on the radio, she yells “It’s our song! Sing Bo!” (Bo is her version of Mo – we’re still working on pronouncing M’s). She turns three, and has a birthday party with all of her friends in the neighborhood – it’s The Little Mermaid themed, and there’s even a surprise appearance from Ariel herself. She is over the moon. When I tuck her in at night, and whisper “I love you D”, she whispers “I love you Bo” right back. She knows the routines of our household so well, she sometimes will correct me if I try to go out of order. Her favorite book is Guess How Much I Love You. Her favorite song is rock-a-bye baby, which she has some trouble saying, so it’s been renamed to baby rock. She trusts me. She trusts us. To care for her, to never hurt her, to love her unconditionally. And then one day I get a phone call from the office. They ask me if I’m sitting down. Mom has completed all of her required services, and CPS has given the go ahead for the girls to be returned to her. In a three minute phone call my world, and hers, has been turned upside down and inside out. Only she doesn’t know it yet, and won’t know until it’s actually happening. There have been too many false alarms in the past for me to tell her she’s leaving before the day is actually here. I am alone in the knowledge that our time together now has a finite end. I pack up her clothes, including the brand new outfits that we got her for Christmas and her birthday. Will mom still dress her in them, or does she have her own stuff picked out? I pack up her favorite toys, which I now know by heart. Will she get a chance to still be a kid and play with them? I write out a list of phrases unique to my little girl and interpret them for mom. Because even though I know exactly what she means every time, apparently she’s hard to understand for other people. Will mom understand? I write down her future doctor appointments, which medications she is on, how to get her to take them. Will mom keep those appointments? I put together a scrapbook of her and her sister during their time with us, having to make hard choices about which pictures – out of hundreds – to include. Will mom show it to them?

When the day comes, I sit with her in the rocking chair and sing baby rock one more time. I tell her I love her to the moon and back, and she will always be in my heart. Then I tell her that although she will always have a home with me, it is time for her to leave our house and live with mommy again, just like some of our friends in the house have done before her. I can’t be sure she understands, because all she does is look solemnly at me, touch my cheek, and say “no cry Bo”. For a minute, I am filled with intense anger. How dare they do this to us. To me. She is MINE. I have loved her, I have cared for her, I have kissed her every booboo. Me, I did that. But then it all comes back to me. Yes, during those six months, she was mine. But for the two years before, she wasn’t. And she’s not going to be my child after this day. I know her biological mom. Yes, the biological distinction is important to me. I have met with her several times, given her updates on her kids, listened as she told me about D as a baby. Watched her cry when her younger daughter didn’t recognize her, and cried and screamed for me instead. I watched her work her ass off to get her kids back, and heard lots of positive updates from her caseworkers. I know she loves them. I know they’re going back to a situation that, while not perfect, is so much better than what they were in before. I am happy for her. Objectively, I am happy for her. I am happy that she succeeded and will get her kids back, and her family can be whole again. But this is love, and it’s not objective. Her family will be whole again, but at the expense of the family I have created these last 6 months. So yes, I am so happy for the mom, but when I remember that the kids she’s getting back are the ones that I love, it’s hard to remember that. Even so. Even though it is breaking my heart. Even though I don’t know any more what a world looks like without these two little girls, I will try to at least appear positive. For their sake. I will do this one last thing. I will put them first one last time. I will put all these conflicting emotions in a tiny little box to be opened later, when I am feeling stronger. And I will smile, not sob, as they walk through that door, away from me forever.

I go back to a house that is no longer filled with their laughter and tears. I stand in their bedroom, look at their pictures on the wall, and listen to Wrecking Ball. To our song. Then another phone call comes. Two kids are on their way to fill this now empty room. They will need me, just like the two who left did. So I wipe away my tears. I collect the necessary paperwork, and start turning over the bedroom with clean sheets and new clothes. I salvage what is left of my heart and wonder if it will be enough for the new children. I wonder how much more I can give. I pray that whatever is left of this broken heart will be enough. That I will be enough. At least for now. And then a brother and sister arrive, confused and scared, and the cycle begins again.