Out of loss comes life

When you work in a public facility you see many different people. We are deemed a safe place so we also get a lot of caseworkers who bring their clients in, some for supervised visits. It's really sad to me, since I've been on the other side of things. My kiddo's mom's parental rights were long since terminated, so there were no visitations. I can't help but wonder if children in foster care become the lost children. Are they too damaged to succeed in family life?

We were feeling a little lost here last week with our dog dying. My husband hated seeing our other dog so listless. He looked for his brother all around the house, and he wasn't eating. We also were feeling lost.

So, what did we do? We got another dog.

What the dog saw

This is the title of a Malcom Gladwell book. It's also a reflection on the past 7 years.

Our Great Dane died about a week ago. He was an elderly dog, but still it hurts pretty badly to lose him. I sat beside him on the bed and watched his heart stop while I stroked his paw. We all feel a little lost at home now.

In the past 7 years he saw our 2 households move in together which includes another great dog. We eventually added 2 cats. One of us changed jobs. We had several cars. My mother experienced cancer twice, and was diagnosed with a chronic illness. We added a foster kid.

In the past month I have seen changes at work and changes at home, and I struggle through it to come up feeling okay. I reminded myself of something I once heard before: never make any major decisions after a traumatic experience. My mind reels with questions about what the next 5 or 10 years will look like for us.

Not quite waking

I awoke at 4 a.m. this morning to a muffled sound. I thought it was our elderly Great Dane, fallen from his futon but it was the sound of a cat entangled in some blinds. I shooed the cat away and shut the door. I still had an hour plus before my alarm went off. I managed an hour more of sleep, woke up again and launched into our normal morning routine: Lift dog off bed, walk him outside to relieve himself, return him inside to eat his specially prepared food. I also fed our other dog and the cats. We had one more round outside and then I laid down again, telling myself it was only for a little while and then I would get up and run. I slept for an hour and ten minutes more, awaking from a terrible dream where my foster son was standing in the kitchen, covered in coffee ground and muck, waving a sharp knife at me. We has dressed like someone I had seen on The People of Walmart (ie ass hanging out of some hideous pair of nylon shorts). It was definitely time to get up.

I will be processing this loss for quite some time. It even visits me in my dreams.

All these things

Quilting. Sewing. Knitting garments. Reading a book through; these are all things I would like to accomplish this year. I have a hoard of fabric, yarn, knitting needles and books waiting for me. Since the death of my Grandmother I have amassed lots MORE yarn and needles. It seems fitting to honor her by using them. I also wonder if I would feel better having completed something more purposeful than just emptying a bottle of wine.

Running back to our lives

This year I ran a 5k. I am becoming more comfortable with being a reluctant extrovert, and yet I now retreat this weekend to breathe a bit and process the end of a nearly 2 year relationship with our first (and maybe only) foster child. We were hopeful; we were naive; we thought we could make a difference but time has shown us that this is goddamn hard work, highly unsupported and bewildering. A team of professionals are there, working in an unsynchronized way to support the child; we only had each other. And the man-child has emerged as a reptilian like person who feels nothing: no empathy, no care and no boundaries. It is easy to fantasize the fantasy of being a parent, but the reality leaves us wondering.