2 Ways In Which My Mother Loved Foster Children

[stextbox id=”custom”]This guest post was written by Kitty Bradford.  Kitty is a mother of three little girls, one with Autism Spectrum Disorder.  She spends time educating her children, preparing them for this world and the next.  You can read about her journey at: www.autismandliving.blogspot.com.  If you’re interested in writing an article for this blog, please review the guest post guidelines.[/stextbox]

When it comes to having children, people have a habit of forgetting the true miracle that it represents. These angels that God has gifted the world with are tossed aside and abandoned by the very ones that God chose to love them. Thankfully there are people, like my mother, that see every child as a gift and realize that every child deserves a chance at a good life. A good life that starts at birth.

My mother was a single mother most of my life. Working well over forty hours a week and sacrificing so much to give her two children the best she could. But her love didn’t stop there.  She had been taught by her mother and father that blood does not determine family, love does.  When I was fourteen she started to see all these lost children that had been thrown away and her heart broke. She knew she didn’t have much in the way of money or worldly things but she had more than enough love.  Through the next several years my mother took in close to a dozen foster kids. Kids that didn’t have homes, or whose home was harmful.

The first one I will never forget. Darryl. He had been a long-time friend of my brother having met in grade school. Unfortunately Darryl’s family lived in a very active drug and gang area of Long Beach, California, and his father had gotten into this life. Darryl simply wanted a chance to graduate High School and get out of that town.  The phone call came late one night, around 3 am or so.  A frantic call from a scared child whose father had gone on a drug binge and was becoming violent. My mother dropped everything, leaving work early (she worked graveyard since it paid more) and ran straight to Darryl. Within a few hours Darryl was safe at our home. Over the next week the paper work for temporary custody and enrollment in school were done and Darryl finally had the chance he needed to live.  He went on to graduate high school and did finally get out of the town and nightmare his childhood had been.

There was another one that I remember well. Arleta. Her mother had dropped her off at our door  saying that she no longer wanted the little brat and we could do what we wanted with her. Arleta was 12, in body anyway. Since her mother had never cared where the child was, or who she was left with, Arleta was left to her own devices and had grown quickly to walking the streets in the middle of night and eventually got into the drug scene.  My mother, already having a house of 5 children, did not hesitate to take the girl in and begin the healing process.  It took several months of hard detox and many fights but with my mother’s help and determination to not let this child die, Arleta did beat the drugs in her system and began to excel in school. After a while she left to make her own way, which for her was to go back to her mother’s house and retrieve her younger sister who had fallen victim to the same neglect. Arleta left with the mindset that she was going to save her sister the same way she was saved—and she succeeded.

There were many other kids, teenagers and toddlers that came to call my mother’s house home. Some stayed a few years, other a few months. But none of them were turned out. They all left with the foundation they needed to make a difference and better their lives.  The funniest thing was walking through the mall with 12 kids all around the same age from every race and background all calling my mother “mom.”

Watching my mother do so much for so many children gave me the lessons I was going to need later in life when my own children were born. Like when my daughter was diagnosed with Autism. My mother taught me no matter the child, no matter the circumstances, they all are a gift from God and it is our responsibility as adults to love, cherish and teach every single one, regardless of whose body they came from, for all of them, came from God.

To quote my great-grandfather – “Love the Children, they are all we have left.”  -Ivy Maxwell.