“I would carry their hurt inside my own adult heart if it meant there was less in their tiny sad one.”
A mum has posted a raw, powerful post about fostering children – and her message is simple: to those who are afraid of getting attached, while it can be painful, these kids deserve it.
Rachel Hillestad wrote the piece after she was heartbroken when another child left her care. It was a little boy, and he was with her for just two and a half weeks.
“It took his left-behind toothbrush to undo me,” she wrote. “I'm sitting here in a parking lot sobbing my guts out. He was mine for two and a half weeks, but those days and nights saw him smile, sleep through the night instead of freezing awake in terror, swing for hours on the swings my kids take for granted.
“He called me Mama and I told him every time I left that if I said I would come back, I would. I prepared him for his new home as well as I could, but now it’s nap time and his new mom says he misses me. I texted her a picture to show him.”
So while Rachel was devastated when he left her, she says this pain won’t put her off taking in more children, because the way she sees it, giving these children love when they need it most trumps how she feels.
“The number one thing people say to me is, ‘I could never do foster care. I would get too attached’,” she wrote. “Guess what: I'm just like you. I ‘got attached”. I was the only one who could get him to sleep or knew exactly what kind of jam he liked on his toast.”
“They visit me in my dreams, and sometimes I wake up with a wet face. It hurts. Sometimes in those moments it hurts to breathe. You know what I know even MORE, though? I'd rather these sweet babies know my love than never know it. I would carry their hurt inside my own adult heart if it meant there was less in their tiny sad one.”
Rachel’s amazing post shows that there is no limit on a mum’s heart. There is boundless love that is just waiting to be given to a child starved of it.
“It's absolutely criminal that a two year old sit in a social worker's office for two days in dirty clothes because I'm afraid I'd get too attached,” she says. “I got attached. Getting attached has been the greatest pleasure and honour of my entire life.”
