So here I am, wide awake at 12:16 a.m. Sept. 9. I should be asleep upstairs so I can be awake in nine hours when I go to work. After all, I have a ton of Sept. 11 news coverage to prepare and do, and regular work at the newspaper besides, but I can't help it. Sleep is about as far from me as the Super Bowl is from the Pittsburgh Steelers.
My foster son is going to his parents for a visit this morning, one that will last 24 hours or so. My daughter is going to be asking for him nonstop, and I'm going to be looking for him all day too. He's not going to be there when I get home from work, and he's not going to scream for joy to see me. I'm not going to get a hug from him, I won't get to hear him build his language skills, and I'm not going to be able to tuck him into bed tonight.
Instead, he's going to be with the people who left him in the abominable developmental mess he's been struggling out of for the last 10 months. He'll be in an apartment so filthy that cockroaches climb on the bedroom wall, under the tender ministrations of people who got his sister to bleed from the head while they were changing her diaper during last week's visit.
His caseworker acknowledges they're a mess and the situation, far from improving, probably has worsened since the children were removed last December.
And yet it looks like he's going back there in just two short months.
If God is just
If there is intelligence in the courts
If this universe makes any sense
... something's going to happen to stop that from happening.
In the meantime, I'm faced with the inevitability of the unthinkable. I feel like I'm watching a child die in front of me, and I'm unable to give him the treatment he needs to live.
I can't begin to tell you how angry -- and how very, very heartbroken -- I am right now.
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