Untitled. (For My Sister Update)

Six months ago I’d wake up every morning feeling confused about how quiet you all are, one of you are always in my bed or standing by my bedside whispering “mommy…” before my alarm goes off. I’d lie there with my eyes closed & for a split second I’d feel like it was going to be a great morning.

The mornings that I wake up first go the most smoothly. I could get up, brush my teeth, take my wedgie out & play our wake up songs on the Bluetooth speaker.

The Jones would be the first to arise with a swing in his hips, crust in his eyes & in a raspy just woke up singing voice echo the speaker like “SHUT UP AND DANCE WITH ME!” air guitaring while still in bed.

I’d draw the curtains & chant the same thing you each heard every morning of your life, “Good morning! Good morning! Hello & how are you?! I’m fine, I’m fine… & I hope that you are too!”

But then that split second would end and I’d open my eyes only for the first thing I see to be pictures of you on the wall next to my bed in the shelter. Pictures of us, some art made for me, my little reminders of why I should stay alive another day. Every morning tears would well up in my eyes as I realized my darkest truth.

My sons are in foster care.

This was darker than me giving up our home in hopes that it would have meant getting you back sooner after being told “You need to think about where else you can live with your children because your home is no longer safe, he could always come back, he shouldn’t know where you are.”

This was darker than the bruises that covered me after the last time your father lost his temper.

This was darker than anything that had ever happened in my life before.

It was at that moment every morning, just a split second after waking up, that I would begin my prayers. I would plead with God as the tears streamed down my face to please keep you boys safe, keep you boys strong.

I’m not sure how I survived those 21 days. I remember when the supervisor who interviewed my kids said to me that I would not be going home with them that day, feeling like I was hit in the chest with a cement block. I couldn’t breathe. My mother was by my side, I’d asked her to come with me when they called me and said I needed to come in.

I remember losing the feeling in my legs & pulling on my mothers sweater as I dropped to the floor and lost my mind. I was pleading with God over & over again in my mind or maybe out loud, I can’t remember if my screams were escaping me or trapped inside. “My babies, my babies,  I can’t leave my babies, you can’t take my babies! Mommy please mommy please don’t let them take my babies!” I remember locking eyes with my mother and only seeing the reflection of my own despair in hers.

Next thing I knew I was in an ambulance with oxygen tubes in my nostrils shaking and crying feeling my body go more and more numb. They took me to the psych unit of the ER & that’s when I knew I had to get it together if I wanted to come out of this situation. I managed to relax myself to some state of being I can’t even identify, what was that? It was like I was in a dream state.

I’m still in a dream state. It’s been 7 months now, since the most awful day of my life. Nothing is right. My mom has my kids now, she finally got them after 3 weeks of them being with strangers an hour away and other foster kids who were telling them they would never come back home. My babies almost lost hope in that time that they would be able to come back to family.

They looked so different during those days, they didn’t look like my kids, their spirits had been broken.

My two hour visits with them once a week in those three weeks were the most difficult, they always ended with the kids crying as they drove away in the transportation van, Jaxon screaming “No mommy don’t leave me don’t leave me!” & Kid trying to be strong for his younger brothers saying “It’s okay it’s okay,” with tears in his eyes really not knowing if it was going to be okay for sure or not.

Tears are streaming down my face as I’m writing this, living the nightmare that was my reality over again. I would sit in the car after our visit and scream at the top of my lungs and beat on the steering wheel wailing and crying for sometimes an hour before being able to drive away. On one of those days I couldn’t control my crying on my way to my moms and I crashed into the shoulder of the highway damaging the passenger side door.

But I tried to make the best of our moments, took polaroids for them to take with them to the foster home, brought art supplies to make art with them, play dough, anything to make it feel like for a moment we were back in our world and not on this alien planet.

This story doesn’t have an end yet. We are still pushing through, still visiting twice a week, still on this alien planet. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that of all mothers in this world I was deemed unfit simply for opening my door to someone that I should not have given another chance to.

Is this what it really took for us to end our relationship? One too many fights.

What the fights were about, the person they were with honestly… is neither here nor there to me. I just wish so badly that I could go back in time to talk to younger me and saved myself this trauma. More importantly saved my kids from this sad and unfortunate circumstance. They didn’t deserve to face such ugly aspects of life so early on. & That will forever be my cross to bear.

Soon boys, soon we’ll be home again.