By J-

Imagine a child, 4 or 7 years old, who has moved over a dozen times in her short life, often without any prior notice or explanation (such as once, after living in a home for 9 months, going on a “respite” visit for two weeks and, a week into the stay, having a social worker bring all your stuff in a car and tell you that you won’t be returning to “Mama’s”).  Then imagine, later that same year, moving into a home which from the first is described as a “forever family,” your last stop on the moving house train.

Six months into this, you notice that things are not going so well.  Mom & Dad are increasingly disappointed with the older girl, and seem to have relaxed some of the discipline, letting you both watch more and more television.  What would you think?  Yes, this is how it works.  The words “forever family” don’t really change the fundamental association you have with the word “family,” which is equivalent to the phrase “the place that you move from every six or so months.”  This is one of the deepest tragedies of the entire fost-adoptive circumstance, and a terrible self-fulfilling prophecy.

D- and I were as scared as we could be on the day that we were to inform the girls of their impending move (it was a Monday, and we would be taking them back to S-County the next day, Tuesday).  We arranged to go to visit the therapist (who they had both seen, T-4 for much of the time she was with us), and were also met by our agency social workers who would entertain each while we told them separately.  This turned out to be a great idea, as it all went very smoothly – even, too smoothly.

We began with T-4.  She sat between D- and me, and we explained that it had turned out that we weren’t the best home for her and her sister, that they would be moving, and (with great repetition) that it wasn’t her fault.  We told her how much we loved her and how proud we were of the decisions she has been making.  I sobbed for the first time in about twenty years.  T-4 repeated back to us what we had told her, so we knew she understood.  But she was relatively unfazed.  She asked us why we were crying, and pulled tissues from a box to dry our dripping eyes.  She also asked where she would be moving to, though we didn’t have a lot of information, only that it was a woman back in S-County. After about fifteen minutes of this, on the prompting of the therapist, we each drew a picture for the other to take.  I’m as bad a picture-drawer as I am a cryer, but managed to convey, via stick figures, that there was a place in my heart that would be hers forever.

We then switched, the agency workers bring in T-7.  We began the same way, with her seated between D- and me, but of course she couldn’t sit for a moment, beginning to climb on the couch and grab whatever was in reach.  We explained the same story.  Her first reaction when we began talking was to fall to the floor and writhe for a few moments, saying “I told you so, I told you so.”  Obviously, no big surprise for her, either.  She then wandered over to the bookshelf and began playing with various objects there, paying little if any attention to the surroundings.  She did sit on my lap briefly before getting up again.  We did the picture-drawing ritual again, and after about ten minutes the therapist had to prod her a bit to let go of the crayons.  Neither D- nor I cried; we told her how much we wanted her to be happy, and very importantly, we explained that “we couldn’t keep her safe,” referencing the running behaviors described in numerous earlier posts.

We were morbidly prepared for a very difficult evening and morning at home.  We would be completing the packing (most of which we had completed that morning while the girls were at school, but of course there was still a bit left), and had no idea how they would react to being alone with us again, especially with all of their stuff in boxes and suitcases.  D-’s brother came over for dinner to help ease any tensions, and left shortly afterwards.  And this was the most eerie part: the evening was entirely unremarkable.  The girls asked a few questions about where they would be going, but other than that, we stayed on routine and there was no special reaction from either of them.  The same was true the next morning (in the next post “Fateful Day (II),” I’ll explain the emergence of frayed edges on the trip to S-County).

Without a doubt, telling T-4 was one of the hardest, if the the single hardest, things either of us have ever done.  And conversely, telling T-7 took almost no emotional effort at all.  But every time I think of that day, and the complacency of their reactions, I am horrified by the toll that has been taken on these girls.  It turns out that D- and I were really the only people who believed for so long that this was to be a permanent placement.  Our first social worker had indeed questioned what she called our “commitment” (since we had asked mid-way through about the possibility of separating the girls), the newer agency worker joined us in what was clearly a period of crisis, and the S-County caseworker and supervisor felt that the placement had been in crisis since the very beginning.  But the reality is, we did treat it as if it were a permanent placement, which is why we did everything in our power and some things beyond to “save” it.  Yet, for the girls themselves, nothing will ever constitute a “permanent home,” perhaps not even after years of living as adopted children, whether that turns out to be together or (as we tend to think is most likely) apart.

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