Family is family and forever is forever

I attended a high school transitional meeting today. It was for Middle-One who will begin high school next year... but he wasn't there.

Why wasn't he there? Because his foster parent didn't go and his social worker couldn't make it and NO ONE TOLD ME that he might need me to plan to drive an hour across the county to pick him up. At least no one said anything until this morning when Middle told his teacher that he wasn't going to the meeting and his teacher emailed me right away to see if I could pick him up.

Unfortunately, by the time I read the email, I didn't have the time to go pick Middle up.

I guess in retrospect, we should have seen the need... maybe we should have been alerted when his FCP asked Mr. T yesterday if she had to attend... but we weren't. It never occurred to us that she wouldn't bring him and that he would not get to go to his own transitional meeting. I guess it didn't occur to me because I would have made sure he got there.

If someone had told us, we would have picked him up and brought him. I would have left early and driven an hour to get him and another 3o minutes to get to the meeting and then 30 minutes to return him to school and an hour to get home. Counting the meeting that is four hours of time that I would have planned for... if I had only known.

I wonder how hard it might have been for someone to have picked up the phone and called us to say that they would not be there and that therefore they would not be bringing Middle-One... so could we get him? He is OUR son after all. And we have stated again and again that we are more than willing to attend to all he needs and to PLEASE let us know.

It occurs to me that through out all of the hospital stays and residential stays with staff and therapists and teachers and psychiatrist and deputies. Who have ALL said that they care about Middle and will be there for him and will think of him and pray for him and have even told him that they are like family to him, that NO ONE remains except us.

No one sends him Christmas cards or calls him on his birthday. No one checks to see if he has made progress or regressed. No one has checked in to see if he is still working his goals. No one makes him eat veggies or go to bed at a decent time or apologize for hurting someone. No one sits with him during a meltdown and helps him to process his feelings so that he can hopefully, one day, not have meltdowns anymore... No one but us.

We have been here since before he was ours and we will be here no matter who he becomes. Others come and others go. We are his family. We are forever.