When strangers ask what I do for a living and I say I work in foster care, they often respond, “I could never work with ‘those’ people.” They draw a…
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Creative Nonfiction / EssayFoster Care: I wanted to adopt from foster care. Then I became a foster parent.
Image Credit: British Library via Unsplash After the miscarriage. After the intrusive appointments. After the unexplained infertility diagnosis. After the private adoption application. After the IVF abroad in the…
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Nobody cares much about snail mail in 2021, but today my hands are shaking as I pull a priority envelope from the mailbox. I have been waiting for this for…
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Lucky Tell me it’s okay, maybe expected, when my daughter rests her pale palms against my fair skin and asks when the rest of her will turn white. She’s…
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Image Credit: Keagan Henman The Big Ask When the crumbs are swept from the table, we think it generous to let the dogs eat them. –Henry Ward Beecher, Life Thoughts…
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FeaturedInterviewPoetryFoster Care: “Foster kids go through so much, and so much of it is not spoken”
Image Credit: Taunton Lake, New Jersey by Elisabeth Through a project working with communities which recognize that many of their young people deserve better education and life outcomes, I…
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I sat in a tiny ball at my father’s feet, watching the sky, heart careening through my chest, waiting to hear the deafening crack of his rifle. I followed the…
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You sit up straight in the hard plastic chairs in the cold conference room waiting to meet your potential new foster daughter, absently rubbing your knuckles raw with your thumb.…
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On a bright Wednesday morning in March, we leave for daycare and work because that is what we do, even when we’ve spent the evening in Trauma One of Children’s…
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Image Credit: Irina Iriser For J I. when we leave you for the last time right away, we forget the look on your face, for fear of burning…
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Image Credit: Daiga Ellaby Before we met in person, we talked on the telephone, matching alto timbres warm in our ears. This was decades before you could spit in a…
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Image Credit: Emma Margraf I sat in a small and dirty conference room with a young mother and her lawyer for hours before she decided to sign away her…
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Creative Nonfiction / EssayFeaturedFoster Care: Everybody Likes a Comeback (But Not for These Kids)
Jane and I stood on the stage with the Governor at the annual ceremony for graduating foster youth going to college. There were maybe sixty of us in an auditorium…
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My friend Michele’s mother said I could stay with them for four days tops. “That’s it,” she said. Four days. She was moved by my plight, but scared of Mama.…
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