The Sounds of Silence

Disclaimer: this blog is going to be really melodramatic. Like Telenova-level melodramatic.

The house is quiet. Deafeningly quiet.

As of an hour and 15 minutes ago our house has no children in it. Our kiddos went back to their foster parents and I was jokingly told by Amanda that I needed to write tonight so that we could have some closure. We loaded up all their stuff and dropped them off and it was a quiet ride over there. Nobody really wanted to admit it was happening, but we couldn't avoid it. We all knew it was coming.

Last night after bath time we sat them down and told them that it was going to be their last night at our house and that they would be going back to their foster parent's home. Its one thing to tell a kid that there's no more pizza left or that we have to leave the park because its night time and because we don't want to get mugged. But to tell a kid that they can't be with "you", and to see that kind of heartbreak is exactly that, heartbreak. 

They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

-Matthew 13:42

That verse, that's pretty much what we got, except the furnace was their foster home (which is in NO way a blazing furnace). There were lots of tears, lots of "but I don't want to go!", lots of "But I want to stay here!" She flailed and hyperventilated. He just looked like a sad, crying puppy dog. And we hugged them and held them and patted them on the back and told them it was going to be ok. And we did our best to hold it together and we did, but it was tough. And I'm not going to lie, thats exactly the reaction I wanted. That probably makes me a sociopath, but we've been with these kids for 3 weeks and we've had a blast, but part of me wondered if we were really making THAT much of a difference, if they would miss us. If when we told them "hey, you have to go back" that we would get "ok. bye, Felicia" in return. I wanted something to show me that we had made a difference and that we were as special to them as they were to us. And we got it. And I've never felt so sad and so validated at the same time. Like I said, that probably makes me a sick individual, but's just me being honest. It also made me think that tonight was going to be a repeat performance of last night, with the whole weeping and all that, but it wasn't like that at all, which was good because I don't know if I would have been able to deal with that one more time. They didn't barricade themselves in the car or act like we had dropped them in a pit of vipers. We didn't get a child re-enactment of the "I got nowhere else to go!" scene from and Officer and a Gentlemen.

Don't! Don't you do it!! I got nowhere else to go!!

They were happy to see their siblings and happy to see their foster parents. We hugged them bye and then we drove home. And now I'm home with my favorite person, 2 rotten dogs, 2 rotten cats, and a spare bedroom with 2 empty beds.....and this was only for 3 weeks. 

Like I said, this was going to be melodramatic, and I'm not weeping onto my keyboard right now, but this is a whole new kind of sad. I don't know how my parents dropped me off at college after 18 years and didn't drive the car into a bridge abutment. Amanda and had a conversation a few nights ago asking if we had invested "too much" into these kids, and my response was "absolutely", but thats what we were asked to do. You can't have kids live with you for a month and not become emotionally invested. Now that would make you a sociopath. I mean, the only things I spent more time with in the past 3 weeks were my wife and my MacBook and I'm sure if either one left me I would be devastated too. Time is investment and we spent as much time as we could with these kids and there was. Now, I only wish we had more.

I'm not going to be Super-Dad, but I know I'm going to be a good father. However, my wife will have books written about her abilities and at the very least a Lifetime or Hallmark Channel film based on her excellence as a mother. That whole doubt thing I talked about last week is still there, but its way less today than it was yesterday. I can honestly say that this has been one of best experiences I have ever had. I don't think either of us will follow the sage advice of Lorelai Gilmore and wallow, but this will take some time to get over. But I know that we will, as always, be ok and so will those kiddos, and in the end that is all that matters.

We got this.