how we found him. part ii.

August 2, 2018 by thebohemianjournalist | 0 comments

October 2017. Training.

The building has all the warmth and homeyness of any abandoned church that’s been converted into a youth center. A small dark structure built in the seventies with linoleum flooring laid out over concrete. Inspirational posters on the cold grey walls. A tiny sad basketball hoop affixed to one side. An outdated kitchen tucked into a corner.

Four long plastic fold-out tables and a dozen or so uncomfortable metal folding chairs are set up to face a podium in the front.

The training is long. This is our third and final day of training required for the home study process. Once this day is complete we will have spent twenty hours in these sterile governmental environments on these horrible chairs. I spend a fair amount of time standing in the back because I don’t like to sit for long periods, while I watch the other ten people shift uncomfortably in front of me.

Most of what they teach us is little more than review for me, things about parenting and child development and child psychology and trauma. But a few things stand out.

One exercise in particular stuck with me.

We were asked to write a list of ten of the most important people in our lives and ten of the most important things in our lives.

1. My husband

2. Jadon

3. Mom

4. Dad

5. Mother-in-law

6. Father-in-law

7. Best friend

8. Brother

9. Sister-in-law

10. Nieces and nephews

1. My BMW

2. My Tempur-pedic mattress

3. My books

4. My Vita-mix blender

5. My Clothes

6. My plants

7. My Throw pillows

8. My Dogs

9. My Dyson Hardwood Vacuum Cleaner

10. My Drafting Table

Then they asked us to cross off two people and two things from each list! I was shocked at how hard this was. I agonized over this stupid hypothetical paper-and-pencil exercise as if I was personally ordering these people and things to be executed.

I couldn’t bring myself to let go of a single person or thing! I finally crossed off a relative and an in-law (I was forced! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!) And I think I let go of my plants and my throw pillows which may have been even harder.

Then they told us to cross off two more!!

I was like, no way, there is absolutely no way I can do that. I reluctantly complied but I am not confessing who went next.

After this, they had us cross off four more! It was just painful. I had to hypothetically lose some of the most dear things and people in my life and I was not happy looking at that piece of paper at all.

And then they gave the final blow. They said, now cross off whoever and whatever is left.

In the end I felt completely devastated. I had to put a huge line through my husband and son, my Vita-mix and my Tempur-pedic mattress.

And then, when she had all our eyes on her, every one of us forlorn and deflated by this hypothetical devastation of all we hold dear, she said:

This is what these kids coming into your home have had to do, but they had to do it for real. Most of them have lost every thing and everybody they love. They are coming to you stripped off it all.

I was gobsmacked. And crushed.

She said, most people have this illusion that these kids should be grateful, excited even, to be taken in, to be adopted. But the truth is that they are entering your life and your world as a last resort, after having lost everything they know and love.

My entire perspective crashed to the ground with a sudden shocked CLANK. I had done it. I was guilty. Without even realizing it, I had pictured the child I was longing for, waiting and hoping just as strongly for me. Aching for a home. I imagined him being so happy and excited to be adopted by us. They found me! They chose me! My wait is finally over!

So grateful.

But wow.

When I had to make those lists and then systematically cross off every single person and thing I loved, I saw for the first time the truth of the matter. My stomach dropped and I never viewed it the same again. No matter what, we will always be plan B. To need us will have never been their first choice.

The second memorable thing was the case file review.

They had case files of children in the system that we were supposed to read and study and discuss. They began by asking us what age range we were taking in, and then giving each couple a random case study of a child in that age range. My husband and I were the only ones looking in the age range of eleven to fifteen. Everyone else was looking at birth to five or five to ten.

She passed out the case files and we began to quietly read them. Some of the identifying details were crossed off with a marker, but most of the information was visible. After reading the first paragraph, my husband asked her, are these real? She told us they were. And then he said, these are current? Kids that are currently in the system? She told us yes they were.

The boy in our case file was fourteen but he presented as much younger, around ten or eleven. The main thing that stood out to me like a flashing light was that he was very needy. He needed lots of physical affection, lots of direction and watching as he had not yet developed the types of life skills that most kids his age had. He liked to sneak up behind people and scare them (I hate that! I startle easily!). He had attachment difficulties and struggled to follow rules and wanted lots of attention. My head was started to spin.

I looked up at my husband with wide eyes. He said I looked petrified. I told him I don’t know if I could handle this one. He said, without a moment of hesitation, I’d take him in a heartbeat. I had never heard my husband say anything like this before. I stared at him in awe. His confidence boosted mine and I suddenly knew two things:

This was going to be much harder than I ever thought it was going to be.

But we could do it together.

December 23, 2017. Once the training was over and all the paperwork was done, all the interviews and background checks and home inspection… it was two days before Christmas. All that work and waiting for the past five months and now the entire system was closing until after the holidays. We had to wait to start our matching process until January.

January 2018. A new year. A new start. A new life. We were ready and we were excited.

We got a phone call from our social worker. She said another case worker had just contacted her about us. She had read our file and practically injured herself as she lunged for her phone. She thought we would be perfect for a boy that she was trying to find an adoptive home for, a home that she was beginning to think she would NEVER find.

The boy was fourteen years old and he already went to school in Parker, at the same high school as our son. He was currently not in a foster home but in a group home where he was not thriving and she was trying to find a home for him in Parker so he could stay in his school. “He is not built for this kind of group home existence,” she said. “He needs a family.”

We knew instantly that he was the one.

She sent us his case file and also the link to a video profile of him online. We watched the video and showed it to our son. Asked him if he had ever seen this boy at school, one grade below him. He said he had not, which we weren’t surprised because the odds were against it, as there are 2,300 kids in his school.

We started to read his case file. The name struck me first, like an echo of a memory. And then as we read we both stopped and stared at one another wide-eyed.

It was the same boy. The boy we had been randomly handed during training three months earlier. We could not believe it. We had already held him right in our hands. We had already read about how he likes getting haircuts and loves cars and likes to sneak up on people. We were stunned.

We knew without any doubt that he was the one. God had been moving us, first across the country, then across the state, closer and closer toward him. God had placed us in the same town as he was, placed our son in the same school as he was, placed us in an apartment just around the corner from the building this boy went every day of the week. And then he had placed his case file in our very hands in an act of miraculous randomness only months earlier.

The next day my son texted me at eight in the morning from school.

I saw him mom! I walked into the school and he was standing right there. He looked really sad, mom. Please, make this happened as soon as you can.