Yesterday I was running errands and ended up in a familiar area of town for a Facebook Marketplace meetup. I plugged the address into my phone and realized as I was driving that it must be near the daycare my son used to go to. The closer I got, I began to get confused. I knew the daycare had to be very close but I couldn’t see it. As I pulled into the parking lot of the business where I was to meet the seller, it dawned on me that the former daycare must have been bulldozed to make way for this new, fancy building.
I attempted to get my bearings. I noted the apartment building that sat next door to the old daycare. It was still there. The elementary school across the road was still in its spot. From my calculations, it appeared that a parking lot now filled the spot that was once the daycare. There was no trace of the building that I had been to for drop off and pick up for over two years and it felt really weird.
Yesterday was also the two-year anniversary of our daughter coming to us via foster care. I couldn’t help but consider a parallel between my case of The Missing Daycare and what kids in foster care must go through when their little lives are turned upside down.
It’s difficult to consider being picked up from everything I know and trust and feel comfortable with and being dropped into a new world. I can only imagine that these kids must be looking around, searching for something familiar, trying to get their bearings. Everything is different and strange, from the faces to the smells to the foods to the routines. Can you even imagine how scary that must feel? While my experience with The Missing Daycare was strange, I never felt threatened or afraid. I feel pretty confident that threatened and afraid might be exactly how kids entering foster care must feel.
My brush with feeling out of sorts was brief but it has given me insight into the world of these little people coming into foster homes for the first time. And while my knowledge won’t empower me to take away their fear and confusion, it just might allow me some empathy and extra tenderness during their transition.
