HEARTBREAK

This is a beautiful picture, isn't it?  These children are in my family.  They belong to my husbands sister, C and her husband D.  E, L and T.  T is the youngest member of their family.  He has been in their home since he was three days old.

C and D went into foster care because they felt that had a lot of love to give to another child in that child's time of need.  They do.  And they didn't realize how much until now.

T is being taken from their home, 14 months later.  To an Aunt's home whom he has never seen or who has never been around him. Taken by a tribe social worker who came into town this afternoon and was "too tired" to go to their home to start allowing T the chance to acclimate to her.  Tomorrow she is to be at their home by 9:30 and will leave at 1:30.  Four whole hours for T to transition to this social worker.  Then then plane ride to another state with him, with a long lay over, and arriving at their destination sometime around midnight.  To a home he has never been in.  And he will awake in unfamiliar surroundings with unfamiliar faces and voices.

I will pray, and hope you do to my dear friends, for my sister in law and her family.  They knew at the beginning that foster care was going to be like this.  That was before T became a part of their family.  That was before rolled over, before he cut his first tooth, before he got those chubby little cheeks, before he started to crawl, before he say mama and dada for the first time, before he started to stand.  That beginning was only supposed to be temporary.  

The love they have for T knows no boundaries, no skin color or ethnicity, or protected status.  They love this child as their own.  Please pray that my sister in law will find peace in losing this child.  She feels as if he is her own...so do those other two boys in the picture above.  To them, he is their brother.

A brother who now faces quite an uncertain and, historically speaking, difficult future.  I am quite certain based on the circumstances of this whole situation, that he will not ever feel the love that he has had in this home.  I pray that he will be as resilient as many children are and not remember this awful day.

But then again, love has no boundaries.  Maybe someday he will seek that peace and love that was a part of his life and he will come back to the only real home he ever knew.

Maybe someday.