Adoption Week e-Magazine Article

Lawrence P. Adams

We are the unjustly placed or abused, neglected, abandoned or relinquished at birth.

We are bounced from place to place, with memories that walk the night alone, nor is the love ours that we must embrace. We sometimes slip through the cracks and get shuffled around unnoticed and forgotten.

We are always living on the outside looking in. We think when we are little everyone is the same; only to find out we are treated different, not because of who we are but rather what we are.

We live in a world of never knowing; where we will live, who will take care of us, where we will go to school, We never know if we will ever be secure again, where home is or where we belong.

We have no friends as we are never in one place long enough to make them. We don't know what it feels like to attend the same school more than a year or so.

We are always movable once we have no home to call our own. A home is not just a place to lay our head. A home is where we can stay, where we can be comfortable, where we know we will always be safe and secure.

Once we get used to all the moving and different schools we somehow find within ourselves a space to furnish as we would our room, finding scraps of things we can embrace.

Then we can at least become comfortable knowing we are alone, knowing we are the only one who is going to look out for us. We become known as a loner. We depend on nobody but ourselves, yet this causes more problems.

We build up brick walls and don't let anyone in. Once the walls are in place it takes so much to take them down. If they start to come down and something happens we put them back up higher than they were before. Each time we get hurt the walls get higher and higher. We can lose so much time keeping those walls up high and strong.

We trust no one, build bond with no one; this makes it hard to build a relationship with anyone. If we are lucky enough to find someone who is willing to fight for us, we still can not totally depend on them, which hurts them. We see the hurt in their eyes, which in return hurts us even more. The hurt only causes more pain and starts the walls going back up or we run and keep on running, from one relationship to another.

Our childhood is almost impossible to trace.

Our losses etched upon our face and within our eyes, pain for which no penance can atone. How can we be forced to move and move from place to place, surrendering the love we must embrace?

We are enigma tangled up in a mystery. We are the lost puzzle pieces swept under the rug. We are a missing link in a chain of life. We have no roots. We are tumbleweed blown in the wind calling home where ever the breeze takes us. We are a chameleon changing colors to blend into our surroundings.

At some point we may be declared "legal orphans" waiting for special people to remove us from the merry go round our lives have been forced to continually circle.

At eighteen we are moved once again; basically thrown out on the streets as the system "washes their hands of us" whether we have gained a support system or not. Even those who get some assistance, usually get it in the form of being taught how to survive at the minimum level. There's no emphasis on breaking the cycle of poverty, getting an education, doing something with our lives.

The system let us raise ourselves; a few of us get lucky, have people that care and help us along the way. The difference between those who make it and those who don't can be as simple as one encouraging word at the right time.

Yet, somehow despite what we have been through, some of us survive with a peculiar grace, even though our hearts should turn to stone as we are moved about from place to place. Many do not!

Who are we?

We are foster children!

This is our lives!

Today over 500,000 of us reside in some form of foster care. Thousands of us have already been declared "legal orphans" but no one comes forward to have us as your son or daughter. Many of us will one day be cast into the streets to make it on our own.

Is there anyone out there to stop the merry go round?
Is there anyone out there who will give us a forever home? Is there anyone out there who will help us break down the walls surrounding us? Is there anyone out there that will love and care for us and allow us to call you "Mom and Dad?"

We are foster children waiting! We are "nobody's" children!

© 2004 Lawrence P. Adams

Postscript:

Lawrence P. Adams is a former foster child. He wrote the poignant book of life through the eyes of a throw away child entitled: "Lost Son? A Bastard Child's Journey of Hope, Search, Discovery and Healing" released in 2004.

With a growing corps of loyal readers, he shares yet another inspirational and moving book, "A Voice from the Voiceless and Forgotten." The book will be released during the summer of 2005. Mr. Adams has had numerous articles published of the need for child welfare reform and shares his inspiring message with groups around the country. He serves as an Advocacy Ambassador for International Advocates for Children.

He can be reached @ larry@larrya.us or by visiting his website http://www.larrya.us