Heartbreak 101

Let me start off by saying this:  foster care breaks your heart.  

Your heart breaks for literally everyone involved.  

Your heart breaks for the kids who are dealing with so much trauma at such a young age when it isn't their fault.  

Your heart breaks for the parents who had their child taken away from them against their will (despite what mistakes they may have made -- we all make mistakes... some just have worse consequences than others!)

Your heart breaks for siblings who may not be placed together (the agencies do their best to place siblings together, but sometimes there just aren't foster homes who are open for large sibling sets).

Your heart breaks for grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins who may have wanted to take the child but didn't have the means to do so and worry about the child COUPLED with their own guilt.

Your heart breaks because you know when he or she leaves, the child will experience trauma all over again.

And yes, your heart breaks for YOU because you fall in love and having the child go home just sucks. You cannot prepare yourself for it.  People tell you, "you knew what you signed up for," and that doesn't make you feel any better because YOU KNEW IT AND IT DIDN'T MATTER.  Your heart breaks because you hope and pray that the parents are okay and are ready to take the child.  Your heart breaks because you know you did the right thing and did a service to the world, that you made that child feel loved for those days or weeks or months or years that they were with you, but it doesn't matter because now there is an emptiness where they used to be.  Your heart breaks and you tell yourself and everyone else that you are NOT doing this again, but you do, because that little soul needs you, because you have to be bigger than your heartbreak, because this isn't about you...