05/16/2026
Loving hard makes saying goodbye so very hard. “She deserves to be wildly loved for every single day she is here, no matter what tomorrow holds.” ❤️
There is a grief in foster care that people don’t talk about enough. The grief of loving a child like your own… while knowing goodbye is right around the corner.
We are entering one of those seasons now with Bird. Home studies have been completed, and we are waiting on final steps in the process. All of the signs are pointing toward her leaving soon.
She has been with us almost her entire life. She was only three months old when she came here. This home is all she knows. We are all she knows.
And that reality has been sitting so heavy on my heart lately.
Because she doesn’t understand foster care. She doesn’t understand transitions or “next steps” or why the adults around her make the decisions they do.
She only knows who holds her when she cries. Who rocks her to sleep. Who she finds comfort in when she’s scared. Who her people are.
And if I’m honest… there’s also an enormous amount of guilt that comes with this kind of grief.
Because one day very soon, she will wake up and lose eight people she thought were hers.
Eight people woven into her everyday life.
Eight voices.
Eight faces.
Eight attachments.
And she doesn’t know we’re “temporary.”
She doesn’t know there are adults making plans and decisions about where she will go. She only knows that we are her people.
That’s the part that crushes me.
To think about her waking up one day searching for us… wondering where we went, why we left, why the people who tucked her in, held her, fed her, and loved her suddenly disappeared from her world.
She won’t just be losing a home. She’ll be losing “mama,” “dada,” her siblings, the sounds of this house, our routines, our voices… the only world she has ever really known.
People say, “She’s little, she’ll adjust.”
But attachment is not small just because a child is small.
Love matters.
Bonding matters.
Connection matters.
The body remembers.
The nervous system remembers.
The heart remembers.
Love leaves fingerprints on a child long before they can put words to it.
And if I’m honest… loving deeply while preparing yourself to grieve someone who is still physically in your arms is a kind of pain that’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived it.
But even here… we keep loving fully.
We keep showing up.
We keep holding her close.
We keep choosing attachment over self-protection.
Because she deserves that.
She deserves to be wildly loved for every single day she is here, no matter what tomorrow holds.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3
