I met with this incredible woman yesterday for 3 hours on her patio. I knew her through a friend and knew some things about her past. I knew she had a hard life growing up, knew she was uber involved in anything foster kid / kid related and always knew I wanted to know her more. You fight for kids? Then I need to know you! So we sat down, with a beer and breeze and she started talking.
It’s interesting because I carry in my heart stories of the kids I have worked with. I have seen things no one wants to see sometimes on a daily basis. I have seen but I honestly don’t know if I have ever heard – heard someone tell their story from beginning to end (or as much of it as you can get out in 3 hours). I have never heard so hard that it took my breath away. I have never heard so deeply that I actually had to ask the person to stop for a minute because I didn’t know if I could hear anymore.
Her memories from 20 years ago, so real, are what I still see everyday. Stories of kids and drugs and addiction; kids with parents going missing; kids raising their siblings and desperately scared for them; kids hungry like you have never experienced hunger before; kids thirsty like you have never experienced thirst before (yes, thirsty!); kids with no idea where they will sleep that night; kids with no idea who will be sleeping with them; social services going missing in their lives for years as they struggle to stay alive; foster parents being abusive and some down right terrible people*; foster kids sexually abusing other kids; kids packing all they own in big black garbage bags and having their next home saying its all trash; kids having moments of hope when they would meet people who were good to them; kids not ever remembering being loved; kids with deep hurt, deep loss, deep grief, deep anxiety, deep fear, deep feelings of having no identity. Memory after memory – she was telling everything I had saw in snippets with the kids I fought for everyday. This was her reality. Memory after memory.
I left with many things from that meeting. One being that this woman is going to somehow be a piece of the legacy of Choice Network. Hear me loud and clear … there is a spot for her here, stay tuned for that … But more I learned its time we listen. Stop seeing … start hearing.
As I look back at my notes, the one thing I wrote was “no one ever asked me what I wanted”. In all of those years she literally had no identity. She was whatever made “them” love her. She said it multiple times and I knew that was one thing I needed to hear. No one ever asked me what I wanted. I had no identity. This movement needs to hear this!
This message transcends to everyone we work with and work for. Are we asking the kids in our community – what do you want? What do you need? Who are you? Are we telling them they are worthy? They are perfect? They deserve all that is good? Now insert the women we work with into that equation … the families we work with into that equation … the partners we work with in that equation. Are we really listening? Do we care what they have to say? And when they say it – will we act?
This woman’s story rocked me. She has more to tell. And I am ready to listen. Are you?
*Please note Choice Network understands not all foster parents are abusive and terrible people. We also know there are great social services workers who have dedicated their lives to kids in need. We support loving, affirming and inclusive foster parents and workers who commit their life to raising warriors.
