When we started this thing we said we weren’t interested in adoption.

We were sitting in an office getting our license to foster parent. After months of training, home studies, and paperwork (oh my gosh, the paperwork!), it was official. It was my birthday, and it seemed like the perfect way to start a new chapter. A heck of a lot better than my birthday two years ago when I found out about my second miscarriage.

I figured my body wouldn’t let me be a mother, so maybe the state would.

But we weren’t interested in adoption. We sat in that office and told the agency that we only wanted to foster or provide respite care. Nothing permanent. Our explanation was that we’ve had too many disappointments already, and we would be able to guard our hearts if we knew the placement was only temporary.

Yes, dear reader, we actually believed this.

We actually believed that we could keep a child at arms length if we knew they would be with us for no more than a year.

It was a foolish thought.

It was a foolish thought because everything in life is temporary. One day I will have to say a final goodbye to my parents. And there may come a day when I’ll have to walk this earth without Michael by my side, a thought that terrifies me. My house will one day crumble. My car will give out. I’ll get too old to continue my career.

Everything is temporary. All the more reason to love it while you got it.

It was a foolish thought because these kids need someone to love them like a mother and a father. They need someone to finally put them first because they’ve always been second to addiction or power. They need to feel that kind of love because maybe it will stop the cycle. Maybe it will change their life. And then maybe they will change another’s.

Michael and I knew it was a foolish thought 2 hours after getting our license when the first group of pumpkins came into our home. It didn’t take long to love them, and it wasn’t long before having to say goodbye.  I miss them still, just like I’ll miss the pumpkins we have now.

But I guess the good news is that everything is temporary, and this sadness won’t last forever.