Letting go

When I grabbed the skillet of corn bread out of the oven, I realized that the oven mitt I was lifting the pan with was not insulated enough. I could feel my skin burn, but I had two choices, I could drop the pan, risking burning my legs and the floor, or continue to lift the pan and place it on the stove top. I chose the latter. Loving and raising children who came to me from foster care has been like that. I know my hand is burning, but I can't let go. As a foster parent of these two precious girls I went to all of the required family meetings in the hopes that their birth mother would be able to care for them. My hand burned as I comforted them when they came home from visits, their (doll) babies bruised and battered and in need of band-aids. My hand burned when in therapy they each shared information to the therapist that indicated that someone had sexually assaulted them. My hand burned when at the termination of parental rights hearing, their birth mother did not even testify as to her capability to care for the girls. My hand burned when it was clear that my youngest needed special schools and by 7th grade, a wise older teacher called, with worry in her voice, that there was something seriously wrong with my oldest daughter. There were neurologists and psychologists and psychiatrists who came in and out of our lives. I hung on while we searched for answers. More meetings, hospitalizations, residential care. As teens my hands blistered when they accused me of abuse and then took it back. It's been 15 years and some months and now, because the youngest turns 18 in a few days, I have to let go. The way that I have been advocating and speaking for and holding the system accountable for these two girls comes to an end, three days into January 2017. She has told me that she will make her own decisions, threatening to leave school before graduation even though she is just a few credits from a high school diploma in June from the special school I have written about before here. I can't blame her. Her older sister is 19. After a rocky four years, and a schizophrenia diagnosis, she signed herself out of her residential facility at 18 and began living with an Iraqi war vet with a drug problem. Then she found her birth mother and ran from that relationship, taking her pregnancy with her. She has now found her birth mother and is living in Kansas City with her mother, her mother's husband and her first baby since she lost one to murder and two to the foster care system. The troubled young woman who gave birth to these children is still challenged. According to my daughter, she sleeps a lot of the time and is heavily medicated. My heart aches for her as I see her in my mind's eye, clutching this new baby and welcoming the child she grieved for all these years. How can an 18 year old who will now have the power to choose her destiny, stay in school? My youngest is in touch with her sister and has talked with her birth mother and other family members on the phone. Only a few credits away but a lifetime of ache for her birth family is pulling her away. As a foster and adoptive parent, we get 9 or so weeks of training, and if we are lucky, a lifetime of opportunities to hold on no matter how bad it burns. My 19 year old calls me regularly and I hope that she finds some comfort from my presence in her life. But everything changes, even for those who are mentally ill, at 18. I can only let go, hoping we will have many opportunities in the future, to make bread together. When they first came to me, I was going to do two things: teach them little songs that would comfort them at times of trouble and let them know that God lived in nature -- and God's love is in every sunrise, every flower, every beautiful day. I am sad and relieved and fearful for them, as any parent is for their children. But I must let go. Their next step, is their own.