Fix You.

Last night was rough.  The boys are missing their mother.  They don’t know how to deal with it.

They were having a lot of trouble listening and being civil with each other (i.e. not biting each other.).  Both had been in and out of ‘cool down time’.  As we were sitting down for dinner Jae was cooling off in his room for spewing his 587th smart aleck remark of the evening at Brian and I.  Things all came to a head when Zee accidentally poured half a bottle of BBQ sauce on his burger.  He just lost it.  BBQ sauce was obviously not the culprit of this emotional outcry.

We talked about him missing his mom.  I talked to him about what his favorite things are about her, what they did for fun, what his favorite memory is.  I’ve found talking through these things – being able to share – generally has helped the kids we’ve had cope with their heartache.  We talked about when they played volleyball and how he liked it when his mom let him help clean the house.  (I’d be thrilled to let him work through that with my vacuum cleaner.)  We talked about how they went camping, and how he just misses being with her.

I went up to their room and talked to Jae about his attitude.  I asked him if he thought he might be having a rough day because he is missing his mom.  He said no – he seems to have more of a wall up, he doesn’t want to discuss his mom, missing her, or even Zee missing her.

 

I left to go to book club. (Praise God!  I needed some time out.)  But these outbursts continued for Brian for the rest of the evening right into bedtime.

I got in the car and immediately Coldplay came through the speakers:

 

 

It’s just so hard.  I want to fix it.  I want to mend their broken hearts.  I want to have the answers.  I want to make it better.

I want my love to be enough.  I want my love to fix it.

But it won’t.

It can’t.

It never will be enough.

 

And that makes it so hard.

I just feel so much like I am at the very frontlines of what they are going through with my hands tied.  I can’t make it better.  As foster parents you get all of the hurt, right there, in your face.  And all you can do is stick it out with these kids and hope they learn something of love while they are with you.

So I guess that’s what we’ll do.  I guess that’s my answer.  We’ll stick it out with these boys through whatever this throws at us.  We’ll love them, and tell them about it everyday.  We’ll teach them about God’s love and how they are so precious to His heart.  And we’ll pray.