• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

IN MY CASE, I FELT LIKE EVERYONE who was involved with my care was part of a bigger plan to keep me away from my family, and that hurt. It seemed that they didn't like me--otherwise, why wouldn't they let me be with the people I loved? I felt betrayed, and I had a hard time trusting people because it seemed like all of the adults, the authority figures, just did what they thought was best without ever asking me what I wanted or what felt right for me. I saw that Twin had two biological children of her own who lived with her all the time, and I didn't understand why they got to stay with their mom while I didn't. The difference between the way she looked at them and at us foster kids was tough for me to deal with. I felt like I would always be several notches below in her mind, when all I really wanted was to have an adult love me completely.

Twin did her best to make us feel welcome in her home. She would allow my mother to come over and visit with Carlos and me whenever she felt like it. (My mother went to rehab for a while, and once she got out she moved back to the same neighborhood.) Our old house was only a few blocks away, so the first afternoon we were at Velma's I ran home to my mom, but she took me right back to Velma's house. Some of my brothers were staying in foster houses nearby, too, and we'd all meet up on Velma's driveway to play basketball or just hang out. Apparently, we weren't supposed to have any contact with family members in between our supervised visits, but Velma told me she couldn't keep my brothers away, or my mother either. And she could tell by watching us when we were all together outside that we all truly loved one another, so she didn't see the harm in it, as long as she kept an eye on everyone.

I loved our family time in Velma's yard, but the real supervised visits could be a challenge for me. Twice a month, we were allowed an official visit with our mother at the DCS office building on North Main Street. I got to know that building well. All of the foster parents of my brothers and sisters would drive us over to the building, where our mother would be waiting with snacks for us. It was like a big family reunion. We had two hours to run around and play together--and with the nine kids who were there at that point, plus a baby our mother may have had around that same time, it was a pretty noisy time.

My mother did a good job of showing up to almost every visit over the couple of years that we were in state custody. Right at the beginning there were one or two that she didn't make and never gave a reason for, but I think it was probably because she was mad at Ms. Spivey for one reason or another. When our foster families couldn't take us to the meetings, the department would arrange to pick us up. It took three or four cars to transport all of us to the building and it was really a pretty huge undertaking. I know it caused Ms. Spivey a lot of headaches, and I think my mother knew that, too. After those first few absences, she was almost always there and did her best to make sure that we all had a great two hours together.

As much as I loved those visits, they were hard for me afterward. I would hang back and not say a whole lot as I watched everyone else laughing and running around. I preferred to just watch everyone and lock those images into my mind. In some ways, I think it was harder for me to have just a little bit of family time and then have it jerked away again. It felt like I was getting teased twice a month, being reminded of what had been taken away from me. Every night after one of the visitations, as I lay in bed back at Velma's, I would cry myself to sleep, trying to understand why we couldn't just be together like that all the time.

What I didn't know at the time was that across town, Ms. Spivey would be crying after each visit, too. When I asked her about what she thought of my family, all those years before when we were still kids, she told me that it just broke her heart to see how much we all loved one another