“How do you cope when they go home?”

That’s a question we get pretty often and it’s a very, very good question. The short answer is that we cry, and we hurt, and we miss kids no matter how long they’re gone.

I still miss the first kid we sent home with whom we have no contact – Gronckle. I think about his rambunctious energy and his warm squishy hugs and the silly things he used to do and it hurts. The pain is more acute when they first leave. When Gronckle went home suddenly, I put away every single toy the day that he left so that I didn’t have to see them. I closed his bedroom door so I didn’t have to look into it. And I just plain felt a lot of pain.

And then over time the pain morphs into something more gentle like longing. It becomes more bearable, and it just becomes a part of me. There’s a whole lot of longing in my heart. I long for hugs from Gronckle, and Mouse, from PB&J. Hell, I long for hugs from Kiddo and Brother, and I see them all the time! Not having “our” kids here with us is terribly, terribly hard.

I worry about their futures – Gronckle’s in particular. He is very well loved and lives in a pack of happy rowdy cousins, which is great. But he lives in a very impoverished neighborhood, speaks only Spanish at home which will present a challenge when he reaches school age, and is not getting the services he probably needs. He’s starting off with a huge disadvantage in life in a terrible school district in a violent neighborhood. What is his future going to be like? I’m utterly helpless and can’t do anything about it. I’m just left to worry.

Seth and I both have very good therapists, which I think is crucial to being a good foster parent. Mine helps me through the grieving process each and every time we have a child leave us. She also helps me process parenting mishaps (Mommy guilt is so real), and helps me navigate the parenting process with each different kid. Honestly, she has helped me be confident in my parenting and has helped me know that I am doing my loving best with each child.

Peeps, find a therapist. I swear on a stack of Bibles that everyone could use a good one no matter what their lives have been like or what they’re going through.

We have pictures of our various beloved kids up around our house. When they first leave, what I feel when I see the pictures is a deep sharp pain. But over time, what I feel becomes just a gentle missing, and I can remember the joy of the moment that was captured in the photo. They make me smile now, even if the smile has a tinge of sadness.

I think a lot about brain development and little kids. As we are learning and growing we develop neural pathways in our brains that our brains will use throughout our lives. So even the kids who don’t remember living with us will have brains that remember a feeling of safety, of stimulation, of love. In short, Seth and I have left a mark on their brains, and it’s a healthy one. It’s something.

When we have kids with us we always manage to catch them up developmentally as much as humanly possible, and that helps give them an advantage in life as well. When kiddo came to us at age 4 she had an extremely limited vocabulary, like of 30 words maybe. She didn’t know colors, numbers, letters, animal sounds. Her little brain had been in freeze, fight, or flight mode so much of the time that it hadn’t been learning the things that most little kids learn in a healthy environment. Even her gross and fine motor skills were behind where they should be.

When she went home a year and a half later she was completely on target in every category of development. When kids experience safety, their brains get a chance to grow, and the human brain is an amazingly elastic thing. She is now performing at grade level at school, and sometimes even a little above. I like to think we had something to do with that academic performance, though now her Mom has taken over in providing her with the safe environment she needs to learn in and gets plenty of credit too.

Somehow, knowing that we made a positive mark on kids’ brains and development makes a huge difference in my grieving process. It’s not necessarily logical, but knowing that we did something positive for a child in ways that will last their whole life makes losing them just a little bit easier.