When I bought my car last summer shortly after Sarah died, trading in our wheelchair van, the young salesman was so happy and excited. It was his first sale and he’d been working at the dealership for several months. “You’re going to sell ten cars now,” I told him. I was glad to be his first sale and I left him a nice review on the dealership website. It’s good to encourage people in their early twenties; moving into the workplace from school is a very difficult time of life. And I do like my new car, my Frankie Sonata.
I think my goal right now is to be as good to myself, as encouraging to myself, and forgiving of myself, as I am to other people. To nurture myself and be my own parent, like the good parent I was to Sarah. I kept thinking yesterday about the memory that came over me as I was writing this blog in the morning (see yesterday’s “Coverage,”) of soothing Sarah at the pool when she noticed other girls having a birthday party. I’m trying to soothe myself the same way. I kept saying to myself yesterday, like a mantra, “There are no little girls at that birthday party.” And hugging myself with my arms. It seemed to make me feel better whenever a wave of sadness or self-doubt hit me.
Yesterday evening we attended a virtual informational meeting for Kennedy-Krieger’s therapeutic foster care program. It was a lot of information, possibly informational overload. There are kids with physical/medical disabilities who need respite and long-term foster homes, some need “forever” foster homes. There are kids with emotional and conduct issues, and kids with medical/physical issues. We indicated that our expertise and interest was probably with kids with medical and physical issues. They were happy and surprised because they said most potential foster families aren’t comfortable with those kids. We explained our background with Sarah. We were actually the only people attending the meeting so it was like a conversation.
There’s a ton of paperwork, background checks, and interviews to get started. They do a home study. They do a financial study and a CPS check. I’m sure we would probably pass all these things, it just sounds very daunting. The program leader suggested we try respite care first rather than long term foster care, which makes sense. With respite care, the child would stay for a weekend or a few days, sometimes to give the regular foster family a break or in an emergency situation.
My nurturing, pep-talking mom mind is telling me doing this could be good for us. That it would bring back meaning into my life. It would feel good to care for a child. The depressed part of me is saying, wouldn’t it be easier to just sit on the couch and watch TV? Don’t do this, it’s too much work. I’m just going to let it settle for a while.
The First Year Without Sarah 