Summer can be a hard time for our crew….this summer brought a few extra transitions that were tough as well.
While we look super happy and loving in the above picture at our camping site pool, we are also sadly grieving that in this picture there is only 4 members of Team Hoelzle Brown. Our sweet BraveGIRL decided to move back with her biological sister and legal guardian (reuniting her also with her twin sister) a few days before this camping trip. We are happy for her but ultimately, do not agree its in her best interest to move back and really wish we could still guide and influence her life for a bit longer. We poured our hearts and time and love into her and hope and pray the two years of lessons, struggles and character improvements will last her into her adulthood.
This grief is tough because it’s unresolved. There is no ending, but a lot of wondering and questions and mixed feelings that will last for a while. It’s been tough for our littles, especially WonderBOY as he misses her deeply. Seeing her empty room filled with cats instead of clothes on the floor is hard each day. And yes, we still communicate with her and will continue to be in her life as long as she lets us. We got an enthusiastic call on her first day at her new high school excited about the year ahead, so I continue to be hopeful for her. We love her and have high hopes for her future and I trust that she knows that deep down inside and will always remember that.
If nothing else, this experience is stretching and preparing our hearts to foster other little ones as they move back and forth between their biological families and ours, navigating that deep love and deep grief with each new placement.
Each summer, we dive deep and hard into the waters of our kiddos’ traumas, doubling down on therapy when we have enough time and space to process and endure the resulting emotions and behaviors afterward. In particular, we are exploring the “why” of some of WB and WG’s triggers and behaviors…..listening to them unpack their childhood is excruciating to sit and listen to. I can’t imagine enduring that they had to which leads to deep sadness. But I also become overwhelmingly angry that I couldn’t protect them….that I don’t have a time machine to go back and take away the hurts and the deep wounds that I am now accepting might never change or be healed.
For instance, Scott/Daddy/my hubs is away hunting right now. Both of our kiddos are struggling with that and do every year around this time…typical children might be worried Dad is going to get hurt or an accident will happen and just a sadness of missing him.
But instead, both of my kiddos are stuck with this automatic fear that he will not return and even stated to our therapist “What if he doesn’t want to live here anymore?”. Insert my own heart breaking. Insert imagining what it’s like to be a 2 year old waking up in the morning, searching for a parent who is not there and lashing out at his 8 year old sister who is charged with being his caretaker…..insert tears and grief and Daddy creating voicemails assuring him he loves our home and him and will be returning so he can listen to it over and over when he needs reassurance.
So with some of that, we decided to “stay home” quite a lot this summer. We watched lots of Netflix, enjoyed our new air conditioned home, and hunkered down together. I am sooooo ready for the new school year and soooooo excited for my new volleyball team, which gets me up and out of bed in the morning and makes these thorns hurt a little bit less which I am grateful for.
Thank you for your kind and supportive words through some of our “hard” this summer…..we appreciate your love and understanding and encouragement through it all over the years.
As a parent, but mostly an educator, I can tell you the discomfort when a child has to wait for something or when they are disappointed has most definitely been exaggerated and more problematic in the last 5-10 years. As technology advances (and other such human interactions have changed), our children are growing up in a land and at a pace that keeps up with their every demand. They ask (Alexa) and they shall receive (ie, they tap their magic screen and something happens, every single time).
What I will share today on her 17th birthday is how much we HAVE seen her “grow up” under our roof and in our arms in the last 5 years and what a miracle it is we are all still standing. I will not ever pretend that this journey has been easy but I will say it has stretched us all in ways that can only strengthen us. I am proud of her spirit, her joy, her being a ridiculously loyal and loving friend and sister, and her recent gains in attachment to me as her mama.
It is also helping me pinpoint some troubling timelines for my own kiddos and how their body remembers way before their brain does the traumas that live inside of them, have stolen pieces of childhood from them, and show up often during very inconvenient times if our lives.
I am a big proponent of teenagers getting outside of their state and culture to experience life with others and often being the minority culture in this setting set the stage for some powerful conversations and teaching about respect, the power of words, and the strength of diversity.
