The Shape of Our Family.

 The shape of my family isn't anything like I had expected it would be. I was expecting a tidy circle, as most families seem to be. My husband and I tried to grow our family in the natural way, but we could produce no children of our own. We longed for family, though, so we decided to open our hands to embrace those adrift in the foster system, unmoored from their own family circles.
 
It is a good thing that I have always loved strays.
 
The foster care experience has been both hard and surprisingly beautiful. There is something uniquely fulfilling about expanding the circle of your family in this way—letting go of the familiar hands of your spouse to admit a stranger and pull them into the fold, then stepping back to allow them space to join you for as long as they need.
 
In this way, the circle of our family has grown, its dimension an ever-changing variable.  
 
We have only known the experience of family under these uncertain terms.
 
Even our adoption has felt impermanent at times. The past can never be eradicated, and no matter how tight our bond with our daughter may be, I know that part of her will always wonder and long for another reality, another unbroken family circle that does not include us.

It is a sobering thought.

But it's not enough to keep my hands from squeezing tightly around hers. I want her to know she has a place in the family we have built both with and for her, even if her hands always long for the touch of the ones that held her at birth. She is ours, and sometimes we know we need to hold on loosely.
 
But we never let go.
 
Families are made by people turning towards each other. For better or for worse, our hands are bound to those we marry and birth, and within these circles we make, we focus our love and attention. We seldom look past the familiar faces across from us.
 
But foster care requires you to look beyond the circle of your own family to notice and embrace those who need a place. It is the decision to open your circle to others, to take an unfamiliar hand and hold it tightly and learn its curves and edges until it is familiar as family. It’s taking hold of that hand without knowing how long it will need yours.
 
It could be three days.
 
It could be three years.
 
It could be forever.
 
(I always hope for forever.)
 
In a way, though, I guess it always is forever, regardless of the court’s decision. The circle of our family does not shrink after their time with us is through. In my heart, they are all forever my children, and they will forever occupy space there.
 
We always leave space for them to return when they need us.

The arms in our circle are always open. Perhaps our family isn’t so much a circle as it is a parabola, its curved ends always reaching out, ready to receive whatever blessings might come.
 
 

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