Foster Care Memories

If you are a first time visitor, you may want to start reading from June 5 to the present. This will give you the necessary background information for this post.

Most of our early childhood memories are shaped by parents telling stories of our past. "Remember when you were three, we went to the circus," kind of stuff. This may trigger the child's memory, and then they have some pleasant thoughts about elephants or think about how the clown scared them (perception). Most conscious childhood memories begin around the age of three, give or take six months. Children have memories that are subconscious, which goes back to birth or possibly earlier. (Babies Remember Birth, Dr. David Chamberlan, The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child by Nancy Verrier. (I will get more into adoption issues down the road).

My earliest childhood memories involved my father. After he died, most of my memories are of my mother being ill and my sister Terry, thirteen months older. My first memory/perception of being in foster care was being in this house where everything was white --the house, walls, beds, blankets, sheets, everything. I remember walking into this room where there were bunk beds. I had a brief conversation with a boy who was much taller than I. I can remember asking him something to the affect of "what are you in here for?" I was in prison, possibly for the death of my father, and causing my mother to be sick.

When I think about my birth mother, I mostly think of her as being sick. I can remember going into a store and she passed out. Terry and I stood by her as she sat in this big chair and a man brought her water, we then rode in a big yellow cab and went home. My only pleasant memories (conscious) of my mom is that she would often take us to Galveston Beach at night, and we would run along the beach and play in the water in the buff. I also remember finding small sea horses on the beach.

Receiving some of the records from the children's home, words recorded, about my past was like a giant stamp of validation -- I did exist -- these memories were of events that really happened!! Because of not being able to confirm my birth mother's death (for her protection), I received only a few of the pages, but what a powerful few. To summarize:

The three of us began foster care in an emergency shelter. We became residents of the ____ Faith Home and lived in two different foster homes. This all happened in an eighteen month time span. The theme of this time was of a mother trying to get her children back. Doug, my younger brother by two years, went back and forth from foster care to my mom more than Terry and I did. This all began when my mother was in psychiatric care for two months. This happened because she started telling neighbors she had killed my father and when the pastor visited, "the children were taking care of themselves." When she got out she tried to get us back, but she also started having relations with men. One of these resulted in pregnancy and a brief marriage.

My mother gathered herself enough to get us back, even though we were still under the guardianship of the state of Texas. A visit by a caseworker to our house changed everything. We were not there, but there were some other people living in our house (guests). One of the guests said we had moved to California. As a result this lead to this all points bulletin:

"If you can find these children and pick them up, we will take them under care. We are prepared to make an emergency placement and will continue on the case. Realizing the circumstances under which these children were first referred to you and believing this situation has again become very bad for these children, we are naturally most concerned for their welfare. It would appear that our efforts to reach the mother and help her return the children to us voluntary have failed. It also appears that she is avoiding contacts, not only with us but Social Security since that have been trying to locate her and have failed."

I am going to omit much of what was in the records for my blog readers (maybe there will be a book someday), but this led to the worst two years of our life -living with Aunt Betty. The state finally had made contact with my mother. They were going to take custody of us, and my mother would probably have lost us for good. She convinced (manipulated into believing) the caseworker and the state that her sister, my aunt Betty, would take care of us. She lived in Ft. Worth and was a legal secretary. At this time, the background checks were not as extensive as they are today. The caseworker and the state agreed. If they only had uncovered that my aunt had been arrested for prostitution, it might have changed everything.

Next - "What are we going to do now Terry?" and life with Aunt Betty.