On Being a Parent by Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen & Amy Newmark

Author:Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen & Amy Newmark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicken Soup for the Soul
Published: 2009-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Son for a Season

If you haven’t any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.

~Bob Hope

The last Friday in September was supposed to have been Jeremy’s “Special Day” at nursery school. That’s when he would have brought a favorite toy for show-and-tell and picked the book his teacher would read to the class. His mom would have supplied snacks for all the kids.

“Special Day” came differently for Jeremy. He didn’t go to school with his toy and book and snacks. Instead, his day began at 7 A.M., when a man he didn’t know arrived in a car he didn’t recognize. Imprinted on the car were the words STATE OF NEW JERSEY. Jeremy was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes when the man carried the single bag that contained Jeremy’s entire wardrobe to the car and tossed it into the trunk. He returned for two boxes of Jeremy’s stuffed animals, miniature cars and other cherished items. Then it was Jeremy’s turn.

I will never forget the look on his face as he was taken away. We’d tried to prepare him, telling him he was going to live with his Grandma and Grandpa in Pennsylvania. But he didn’t understand. To three-year-old Jeremy, I was “Mommy.” My husband was “Daddy.” His “sister” and “brother” were our children, Catherine and Michael.

All Jeremy understood was that he was going somewhere in a strange car with a strange person. “I want Daddy,” he cried, tears stinging his soft cheeks and hazel eyes. “Where’s Catherine?” he wailed as the state worker strapped him into his car seat. “No, no, no!” he screamed. We waved goodbye as the car pulled away and disappeared from sight.

Both my husband and I had tears in our eyes. Finally I was able to comment, “That’s more than Jeremy could say when he got here,” referring to Jeremy’s departing words. And it was true. When he came to live with us, he could barely talk.

Jeremy was our foster son. He stayed with us from June 20 to September 30, 1994. We would have kept him longer — forever, if possible — but the state of New Jersey felt it was better for him if relatives, in this case grandparents in their seventies, raised him. Who are we to judge?

He came into foster care for many reasons, but I’ll just generalize and say he was neglected. When he arrived, his vocabulary numbered no more than twenty-five words. He couldn’t dress or feed himself, and he wasn’t potty-trained. At night, despite all our efforts to calm him, he screamed for hours, unable to sleep without the lights on and someone near him.

By summer’s end Jeremy was a different child. He had grown two inches and gained two pounds. We gave him vitamins and a diet of healthful foods, and sent him to nursery school and speech therapy. His vocabulary increased, and he began forming sentences. He was no longer afraid of the dark and went to bed willingly by 8:30 P.M., sometimes earlier, after learning to announce, “I’m tired.

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