To celebrate or not to celebrate? that is the question. - Countryside Carer

Our Countryside Carer is reflecting on her year with her fostering brood, celebrating life changes and keeping them safe from harm.

The one year mark is soon upon our home and there is definitely a mixture of emotions about it. I love to celebrate and getting through the last year alive, relatively unscathed and still functioning, I believe, is worth celebrating. It’s a massive milestone for us. Over two years have gone by since we first started our fostering journey and made that initial phone call to Nexus. So much has happened yet bizarrely, due to the pandemic, it feels like our world has stood still.

For me, reaching a year with our children feels pretty special especially when I look back at that very first weekend they arrived and I wasn’t sure how we would make it to Monday. So much has been learnt in that year about the fostering system, court dates, how social workers operate and just how many different individuals are involved within the fostering community to support our children.

It’s been a whirlwind and a rollercoaster ride all rolled into one. And, looking back over it, it’s been positive, life changing and 100% worth the hard work.

So for me, celebrating that year would be the obvious thing to do. Yet, it would be insensitive and short sighted of me to not take into consideration the views of three very important members of family.

For them this has been a much harder year. A year of immeasurable and completely unasked for change. A year without parents, a year without their own beds, a year away from the place they called ‘home’ their whole lives. And I’m not sure if a celebration of that is right. It feels a little like laughing at a funeral. Inappropriate, insensitive and hurtful. I don’t know if they (or us) are in a position to embrace that occasion just yet. Maybe in the future they will ask about specific dates and want to, in some way, commemorate that day but for now I will bake something I know they love and possibly treat them to McDonalds or fish and chips, and in my head and heart I will be celebrating. Celebrating having them, celebrating them not being in harm any more and celebrating making it through the year without completely turning grey and emigrating to Outer Mongolia!