They are gone

The two dear children that we have been caring for during the last six weeks left this past Wednesday. Over and over again we have had people say to us, "We don't know how you can handle 6 children!" And I would always answer, "The children are great! We love having them and they bring such joy to our family. It is all of the drama and difficulty of the situation that is hard."

On Wednesday, the parents finalized their divorce and the children went to live with their dad. I don't know if I am glad or upset about how everything ended because it is such a convoluted situation. But this phase for us is now over.

Wednesday night, Joe and I collapsed into bed at 9 and slept soundly until morning. Joe, who wakes at 5 for personal devotions, went back to sleep on the couch Thursday morning because he just could not stay awake. All of the adrenaline that sustained us for 6 weeks is gone and we are tired! We are emotionally drained too. I particularly am still reeling emotionally from all of the anger, manipulation, lying, and stress that we dealt with.

Joe has been so kind as to give me some needed alone time over the past few days. Because of some of the specifics of what had happened to the children before they came to us, we didn't leave the little girl alone with Joe at all. Which meant that I had a delightful tag-a-long all of the time. And she was delightful too--a sweet little girl with such spunk and zest. But I need quiet desperately, even in small doses, and have been dreadfully short on it recently. I am still recharging.

We learned a lot during the past 6 weeks and have been thinking a lot as we have processed everything this week. I hope to get some of my thoughts into post-form soon, but at least wanted to write tonight to say that they are gone. And we do miss them so! I hadn't expected to have so many heart strings tied to them in such a short period of time. I have been surprised by how dear they became to me.

For now, I leave with a picture of little R.'s bathing suit on our clothesline. The children had all played in the sprinkler and put their suits on the line to dry. M. and R. left so quickly on Wednesday that I have still been finding their things all over the house and packing them away for them. I have walked past R.'s suit several times each day, but hadn't had the heart to take it down. I told Joe that I just couldn't bear to take it down and so he did it for me last night as we walked in from the garden.