Thanks to foster, adoptive families

Letter to the Editor:

I want to publicly express my appreciation and thanks to the foster and adoptive families who contribute their homes and family life to these communities “24-7” and “on-call.” This group is the Sanders, Lake and Lincoln counties’ foster families, I write this as I leave my position of family resource specialist for these three counties for the past 18 years.

Thank you to the children of Lincoln, Lake and Sanders counties’ foster parents. Thank you for accepting a definition of family that includes temporary brothers and sisters. Thank you for sharing your bikes and toys, your clothes and your parents’ laps. Thank you for understanding confidentiality and for listening when another child needs to talk.

Thank you to the parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins of those foster parents whose definition of family includes the child they met today whose birthday is tomorrow.

Thank you for finding snow boots, mittens and beds, for Christmas presents and baby-sitting. Thank you for the extra birthdays you celebrate and graduations you acknowledge and weddings you participate in. Thank you for your tolerance and acceptance and for sharing your laps and your love.

Thank you to the foster parents whose concept of family life includes chaos, crisis and social workers. Thank you for getting word to Santa about changes of address, even on Christmas Eve. Thank you for the visits you make happen and the thousands of appointments you keep, for the cookies you bake, the miles you drive and the kids you’ve started in college and on lives of their own. Thank you for loving past the letting go and for supporting and encouraging birth and adoptive parents.

Thank you to these families who made a decision to take the time and emotional energy to be there for other people’s kids. Thank you for patiently teaching trust and limits, confidence and competence— for parenting. Thank you for loving without a safety net. Your gift will be measured over the years as the children you nurture take their places in the families and communities of our future.

Thank you to Bev Miller for giving me the words to say it so eloquently. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to work with you.

— Theresa Becker, Helena