I dug through the box of clothes, looking for something for the little guy to wear to daycare. The morning was colder than it had been in some time and short-sleeved shirts and shorts weren't going to cut it. The box was full of sweaters and long pants given to us by another gay couple that we have been friends with since last summer. Their almost-three year old had grown out of them and, after two kids, they felt that maybe there wouldn't be a number three. Months ago, Juan had washed and packed the clothes up in boxes in anticipation that T would grow into them by the time summer gave way to fall and winter.
I pulled the clothes out and spread them out on the floor around me, trying to find something daycare ready - presentable enough for him to wear but not too cute that it couldn't get covered in sand, dirt, and peanut butter and jelly. T plays hard and eats with a fair amount of gusto. And I like my kid to look good - that kind of unbothered "I just pulled this out of a drawer" good which I actually rarely pull off. He usually ends up looking like something out of a Garanimals catalog. Nothing I found fit though. His stubby legs aren't long enough for 2T pants yet. The tops fit a little better but not by much.
I picked the clothes up and started stuffing them back into the box, too lazy to fold them neatly and too tired to feel guilty about it. My hand rested on top of a striped shirt that looked typical of the little one and it was then that I felt an emotion that in the past few weeks has become both familiar and somewhat unexplainable. Call it sadness or fear or maybe anxiety...or maybe some potent mixture of all three. As I closed the box, it hit me.
I'll never get to see him wear any of this.
And for a moment it felt like I was packing his clothes up - preparing him for some trip that he was going to have to take without us. I felt a sob coming but I held it back. I've done enough crying this past two months. It has become more exhausting than freeing.
The moment passed and emotion gave way to something more reasonable.
We've been packing things up for weeks now.
We've had to put a lot away since the hearing in early August. Our hopes of being T's permanent and legal dads came to an abrupt end, and visions of life with our foster son - the birthdays and the holidays, the family trips, the "I hate you! I hate you!" screams of the pissed teenager - were all disassembled, stuffed back into places we thought we would never need to use again. It has been a long process and we still aren't quite there. Maybe there doesn't exist.
In the meantime, we have resolved that all we can do is be there for our foster son and try to ensure, as much as we possibly can, that the return home to his mother and father is a safe and loving one.
--D
