Tonight before dinner, my littlest sisters were sitting on the bed “keeping me company” (wink, wink… as all older siblings know, that’s code for “I’m keeping them out of my mom’s hair for a little while!!”). I decided, for some odd reason, to read them the writings that I had posted a few days ago, that I had written about each of them. I knew that they wouldn’t completely understand what I was reading to them, but I figured it would waste a little bit of time.
“When is she gonna come back?”
“I miss her.”
“I wish we can keep her longer.”
“Maybe I think she’s gonna come back because her mom might get sick again.”
These were the reactions from the girls when we started this discussion. Let me backtrack a little… when this little girl first came to live with us last year, my mom told the girls that her mom had gotten sick, so we were going to take care of her for a little while. We never imagined that a ‘temporary’ stay with us would turn into almost a year. But that story was the easiest for my little sisters to understand, so that’s what stuck. If you also remember, when she left our house right after Thanksgiving, my mom told all of my siblings that she was going home to her mother. No one would understand the real story, and that she was going to live with another foster family. So everyone thinks that she’s been living home with her mother and happily adjusting to living at home.
Out of all of my foster siblings, this little girl is the only one who I am really angry about having taken out of the home. Maybe that’s why, simply because she didn’t go home. If she had gone home, then I would have been sad, missed her like crazy (of course), but been glad that we had done all that we could do for her and she was being reunited with her mother. Instead, at least once a day, I find myself thinking about ‘what ifs’ and ‘what could have beens’ and finding myself angry about the whole situation each time I think of her.
I guess the biggest question that I have left unanswered is: what happens if she’s eventually put up for adoption? Will the new foster family be asked about adopting her first? That’s not fair, she was our little sister. Will we get asked if we want her back? I’m pretty sure we’d all be on the same page that we’d want her back, but now we’ve missed so much time with her. She’s probably learning how to speak in more complete sentences, and maybe she knows how to use a fork and spoon pretty well now. I have no idea. The whole situation just really bugs me. I guess only time will tell what will happen…
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Thanks!
Taylor