Rescue

So yesterday I was sitting at the statewide CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) Conference and a speaker looked me in the eye and said, “Well, if you’all are into rescue, well, that’s a different matter.”  And I wanted to stand up and say, “Hey, not me.  I don’t do rescues.  I am like way too advanced in my thinking to fall into the ‘let me rescue the poor underprivileged child’ trap.”  Shit.  Could she tell somehow that I was a rescue refugee?

There was a time when I thought if I had an extra bedroom – wait, an extra bed, oh, wait, space to put an extra bed – I could take in another child.  Because I once said to my husband, in a fit of some kind of Mother Theresa episode, that as long as there was another place at the table, I was willing to take another child, a statement that he has never let me forget – taunting, sometimes, even – I guess I am from the Duggar camp.  I would have adopted 19 kids if I’d had the chance.  I didn’t, thank God.

I don’t think it was even a matter of coming to my senses.  Once we adopted child #3, I was just outta gas emotionally.  And logistically.  And probably financially (although I tried never to look at that inconvenient truth).  But the rescue thing is big in the adoption world.  When we adopted our kids, friends would congratulate us on having saved our children from terrible lives in Nicaragua which was true enough in some ways but subverted the core of what we had done – which was to figure out how to have a family by bringing kids into it from a foreign country.

So within about two weeks of becoming a CASA, I looked at my CASA kid and how extraordinarily messed up her life was and how basic stuff wasn’t getting done and, worst of all for me as a mom, how she wasn’t happy, and I thought, “Hmmmmm.  I’ve got that extra bedroom.”  And within minutes, I’d figured out how I could straighten out the school problems, the health issues, how to get her feeling ok about the world, engaged in positive activities.  I could see her coming down the stairs to dinner.  And truth be told, at that point in time, it was only my husband saying, “Don’t even think it” that stopped my moving train.

But it was so right to stop it.  My CASA girl needed people — but she needed HER people.  She didn’t need another substitute – no matter how well-meaning.  She needed her own people back.  My job was to help her get back to her people.  My job was to make things work so that they people who love her and the people she loved could be her family. I guess I understand this now because I know more about how kids yearn for their people.  My adopted kids were happy and robust and healthy but their yearning for their people is always just inches away.  We’ve filled in.  We’ve done ok.  We love them.  They know it.  They still yearn. 

My CASA girl yearns.  My job is to help her find her way back.

Note:  A CASA is a Court Appointed Special Advocate whose job (volunteer) it is to advocate for the best interests of a child in foster care.