The phone rang at midnight from a DHS supervisor: “There’s a three-year-old girl at the hospital. Her mom was shot and probably won’t make it. Dad’s in jail. Domestic violence. All her clothes are evidence now. Can you bring a blanket and come get her?”
“Yes.”
The call came while I was cooking dinner: “I’m at a scene with a four-year-old boy sitting in a police car. His clothes are soaked in urine from his mom—she’s not stable. He might have lice and he’s really dirty. Can we bring him to your house?”
“Yes.”
Another call came from a different county right as we were heading to bed: “We have a two-year-old asleep at the office. She came into the ER hurt. Mom was too high to even stand up straight. She’s the sweetest little thing. Can you take her just for tonight?”
“Yes.”
One more came while I was out running: “We have a ten-day-old baby boy. The current foster home isn’t working. Do you have a car seat?”
“Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
My husband and I have two little ones of our own, and on top of that we open our home to foster kids under five—who come and go as they need us. A friend who fosters too once said these calls are like those old choose-your-own-adventure books. Every “yes” sends your family down a new, unexpected path. I always wonder what story we miss when we have to say no.
We say yes because these tiny kids have nowhere safe to land right now. They need a mom to wrap them in a blanket and tuck them in. They need a dad to swing them onto his shoulders and run around the yard. They need clothes that fit, real meals, someone to tickle them, teach them, take them to the zoo. They need rules and love.
What surprises me most is how much we need them too. They’re sweet, sassy, stubborn, and hilarious. They keep us moving and teach us things we didn’t know we needed to learn.
People always say, “I could never foster. Letting them go would break my heart.”
I used to say the exact same thing. Then I realized I was only thinking about how hard it would be for me.
Don’t get me wrong—it is hard. Some days I’m empty, my patience is gone, and the meetings, appointments, and phone calls never stop. There are tough accusations and decisions that don’t feel fair. Fostering is exhausting.
But these kids? They have to do hard things every single day, and they never asked for any of it. They’ve been hurt, forgotten, pulled away from brothers and sisters, moved from house to house. They’ve already seen more pain than most of us will ever know.
So the next call will come. And we’ll say yes again. Not because we’re superheroes or the perfect foster family. We’ll say yes because these kids are already doing the hardest things alone. The least we can do is look them in the eyes and say, “Yes. I’ll do hard things with you. I’ll hold your hand, kiss your forehead, calm you down when everything feels too big. We’ll figure this out together—one day at a time.”
When goodbye comes, I’ll wash their little clothes, pack their favorite stuffed animal, cry my eyes out, and wish it didn’t have to be this way. But I will never, ever regret saying yes.
~~~~~
Emily is a foster mom in Portland, Oregon, and volunteers with Embrace Oregon.
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