T was home for a visit for a long weekend. The visit was pre-arranged, and it was just going to be a fun one. But five days before he was to arrive, I got a call. He was sobbing and couldn't speak. Eventually, it emerged that his younger brother (we'll call him "E") who is disabled, and has been on probation for two years now, had gotten into a fight, and was headed back to court and had cut himself in an agony of frustration. This is the latest chapter in a gut-wrenchingly tragic childhood for E. T managed to reach his brother's case worker and arranged a visit. So that's what we did on his w ..read more

Lately, and rather suddenly, T has taken to referring to me as his mom. I truly never really cared - my role was clear enough, regardless of how he referred to me. But I did find it interesting, and wondered what was going on inside. After all, he has been living away from home, taking community college classes in another city and living with a friend of our family, for six months now. He's stretched and emphasized new aspects of his personality in that time, in magnificent ways. He is wearing new clothes, doing new things, eating new kinds of food, and thinking new thoughts. He is going thro ..read more

For awhile, recently, T was mad at me. I turned his phone off, because he was abusing the privilege of having me pay for it. I gave him a week's warning, gave him a clear way to rectify the problem, and when he did not, I shut the phone off, leaving him clear instructions about how to resume service under his own name, should he choose to pay for it. I explained why I was doing it, and that I loved him and what behavior I wanted to see. I felt okay about it, as a decision. But I did miss him, because for awhile, he was mad at me. He's over it now. I sent him an "Easter basket" of his favorite ..read more

One of the most astonishing things about T as he's become a young man recently is the depth of his compassion. He has little patience for petty complaints, suffering, as he does, from an excess of life experience and perspective. In fact, he cuts short superficial venting (except on what he has designated "Mother/Son Venting Night", which happens on Tuesdays, and has two ground rules: no advice, no criticism--also, I have to buy dinner). However, when someone's number is truly up and they are suffering one of life's deeper indignities, his compassion and empathy are unequaled. I had the occas ..read more

T and we just returned from our first real family vacation and T's first time ever leaving the country. We spend a week in Paris and it was heaven. The week prior to our trip, he really regressed. He stopped keeping in touch, wasn't going to work, wasn't coming home. He let me know by text he was depressed. He said he felt haunted by the memory of how E passed away when the three of us were all traveling (I was on a business trip, Tim was with me, and T was living and working in another state).  He kept saying "Last time we all left, something bad happened." This is what trauma looks lik ..read more

I write rarely now. T is largely living as a young adult, still at home, working in his chosen career, slowly inching toward financial independence and, emotionally speaking, steering his own ship with a steady hand. For anyone who has followed our family, it may be interesting to note that all of his childhood diagnoses seemed to amount to nothing more lingering than the general aftermath of trauma. I feel a bit foolish looking back for having dramatized or sometimes diagnosed him myself with the eye of an amateur. His behavior was alarming, even harrowing at times, but I see in retrospect t ..read more

Sometime in the past year, T developed a preoccupation with researching his family tree and mine. He often likes for us to do things like this together. Over the years, he's heard me talk about my Irish American relatives, and formed relationships with some of my uncles, and he seems to enjoy a sense of solidarity in knowing that some of my relatives endured hardships of their own.  I imagine when you're adopted from foster care, it's comforting to know that you're forging an alliance with a new family that has had it's own humiliations and struggles, to lessen the sense of standing out ..read more

 When I was younger, I remember hearing about the Buddhist concept of "right livelihood"--in essence, a commitment to earning a living in a way that is ethical and does no harm. Of course, I didn't seek to do harm, and I always pursued jobs that were somewhat idealistic. But as the main income earner in my family, I was practical. I did what I thought best to earn a salary and benefits. Since E died, I've been more....free. I lost touch with my mom and dad, after they didn't do anything to support us in the moment of E's death. At that same moment, I stopped caring about many of the exte ..read more

In a week, it will be a year since E died. He was never adopted by us - by the time his brother T had been placed with us and we'd managed to hunt down E and make a connection, he had already slipped into the nether regions of the nexus between the foster care and juvenile justice systems, which is to say that he had been tossed from a group home into juvenile detention for behavior that was not at all within his control. If you have been exposed to older youth in foster care, particularly boys, that story is sickeningly familiar. When his "sentence" came to an end, the county couldn't find an ..read more

Next week is E's birthday. He would be 20 years old. It's been ten months since he died. Perhaps fittingly, just this week I started a new job. I left a good career and a very good salary and pension to work in a large organization that does policy and advocacy for kids in foster care. My former boss thinks I'm crazy but my closest friends think the move makes perfect sense - the job requires the same skills I've built up over the decades in my career, in the service of the cause that is obviously nearest my heart. As I do my new job, I call on the struggles and confusion and pain and good hu ..read more