What Does it Mean to Carry Someone?

For the last 11 years I've been carrying other human beings. First inside my body, later cradled as delicately as glass in my hands, then on my hip, and in rowdy piggy-back rides years later. I noticed one day after a year with 3 babies and then a year with three toddlers that the skin on my right arm where I tend to hold babies on my hip more often is actually permanently wrinkled from being stretched like that for so long. Ah unexpected hazards of motherhood.
Carrying a child is a natural thing. They need us. They can't reach and I can help, so I do. They can't walk and I can get them where they need to go, so I do. They are lonely and just want to come along, so I bring them along. Sometimes its an airplane ride full of giggles and stomach turning drops, and sometimes its a horse-y ride where the goal is getting bucked off. And sometimes, its a scraped knee or bumped head or brother hurt me and a snuggle will make everything ok. No matter what the reason, I love carrying them. Some days of course, the weight of their bodies gets the best of me, and that's probably good, because I would probably carry them too much otherwise. Its a burden, a stress to my body, to carry someone else. And it's also such a joy. A joy that's greater than the burden.
I held my infant niece a couple weeks ago and I couldn't believe how much I missed holding a baby. I remember when it felt like a burden, getting up again in the middle of the night because someone missed me and wanted to be held in my arms. I remember when my arms were so tired because I'd held that teething baby all day while I loaded the dishwasher and washing machine with my other free arm. It would be easier and faster with two hands, I'd think. But now thinking of all that I can get done with my two free hands makes me just sit on the floor and cry. You won't realize how much you'll miss carrying someone, what a gift it truly is.

But I'm not talking about just children today. What does it really mean to carry someone?


Last weekend I watched my husband, along with his brothers and cousins, carry their uncle's body to his grave. I watched their bodies strain under the weight, but the strain on their face was the reality that this was the final goodbye. This didn't seem natural. These young men had all once been carried by this man, who they looked up to, and now instead they were carrying him.






What does it mean to carry someone?


So many times in my life, when I have experienced something so hard, the death of our babies, the loss of a foster child, there have been people who have carried me. They have lifted me in prayer, listened to me cry for hours, brought food, cleaned my house, even painted my living room when I was on bed-rest, but most of all they helped me carry the emotional burden of whatever I was going through because I didn't have to do it alone. The lifted some of the weight of a burden that was too heavy just for me. Sometimes, maybe almost all of it.






I also think if you are carrying someone it means you have once been carried.


Obviously my children only grow to love because they have been loved. They grow to care for others because they have been cared for. My husband can carry his uncle because his uncle taught him to take care of people.






And I think if you carry someone it also means you will someday again be carried.


What a beautiful moment, watching those young men carry the man who once carried them. And in so many relationships, in so many ways, when we help others, then we are helped in return. When we give not expecting to receive, we usually receive so much more. I think about the wisdom he shared with them as they worked on tractors and contemplated things a lot heavier than bolts and metal. He was carrying them then yet, as young men, even young fathers meddling through financial decisions, work, relationships and parenting. And then, they began to carry him. To doctors appointments, through tough diagnosis's, through treatments and phone calls just to pass the time, and finally, to God. What each was receiving was so much more than what they were giving.






I think having been carried means we carry others better.


Once we've been carried though something difficult in life, we tend to notice when others need to be carried when maybe we wouldn't have noticed before. We relate. We understand. We can be more compassionate. Each new suffering I realize how selfish I have been in the past. I realize how I just didn't understand what someone was going through. I really didn't realize how much they needed to be carried or exactly how they needed to be helped. And I try to open my eyes, to notice more often when and what someone needs.


But beyond noticing, I need to lend a hand. And not just a passing, "I'll pray for you" or a pat on the back. To carry someone means to commit my whole self, to be ready for the whole weight of their burden, and to see it through. The same way those young men committed to carrying their uncle.


It might take a lot of time, it might be a huge sacrifice. And I might feel ill-equipped and just too tired from my own struggles. But I think, the true secret to carrying others and being carried is that we must first be carried by Jesus, in whom we receive all of our strength. "it is a sign of the fidelity born of love, for those who put their faith in God can also be faithful to others. They do not desert others in bad times; they accompany them in their anxiety and distress, even though doing so may not bring immediate satisfaction." Rejoice and Be Glad, Pope Francis 2018


If I put my faith in God, I can be faithful to others. If I allow God to carry me, I will be able to carry others.


This is the message of the cross, in order to help we must be brought to our lowest. We must need in order to give. We must be humiliated in order to hold power.
I am being carried right now. By friends who listen and share their company when the quiet days in my house get too long. By meals shared. By so much PRAYER. I am so incredibly grateful to be carried by you and by God. I don't enjoy being having to be carried, I would much rather be the carrier, but here is where God has allowed me to be, so I will open my eyes and take in the lessons. I will appreciate that God is using this to help me grow in virtue, to grow in mission, so that I can better carry someone else someday. Because today good people lifted my burden with a visit, a text message and an email. Today I could breathe easier than yesterday and could be joyful with my children. Because someone carried me, I could carry my children. Can you ease someone's burden today?




"We love because He first loved us." 1 Jn 4:19

Dear Person Holding my Child's Life in Your Hands

Dear Person Holding my Child's Life in Your Hands,
Four weeks ago, someone came and took our foster son from his home, to take him to a new home, to live with the mother who gave birth to him. After 13 months, after living here and knowing us as his parents and his family his whole life. He doesn't understand anything about laws or judges or court, he only knows what he has experienced, and that is that we are his family, who have always been here and always cared for him.

When you took him away, and then told us we couldn't visit him, I don't know if you understood what you did to our family and I don't think you understand what you are doing to him. You see, you forced us to "abandon" him. All I can do all day is picture his face, and imagine that he is wondering where we are. All I can think about is how this abandonment is hurting him, and that he might struggle for the rest of his life to trust because of this trauma.
You want him to attach to his new mom, that's what you say. Except that logic doesn't match any research out there about attachment and children. I have looked for it and read document after document and everything says children attach better when they have a transition, and when they stay attached to their previous attachment. Like this article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3422627/
or this one https://www.bcadoption.com/resources/articles/better-adoption-transitions
In our foster care training, our facilitator transplanted a plant, and asked us if we should clear away the old dirt from the roots, cut the roots, etc to be sure the plant did well in the new soil. NO! Everyone shouted. Of course anyone that knows anything about transplanting a plant knows the best chance at surviving in new soil is to keep as much of the old soil around it, to keep the roots as in tact as possible. This is one of the reasons why we keep our kids in contact with their birth families. This is why I reached out to this child's mother to ask her to please come to visits with her daughter last year when she stopped coming. This is why we still try to spend time with our other foster children if parents will let us. When children lose people out of their lives they start to believe they aren't good, they aren't worthy of someone caring about them. They stop trusting people to ever stay, they stop trying to even have relationships. When they are supported by the sturdy foundation of a positive attachment, they can confidently build new attachments.
Maybe you don't know all of this. Maybe you haven't had the attachment training that I have. Maybe you haven't lived with multiple children who have struggled with attachment issues. Maybe you haven't held them and seen the pain in their eyes as they fight an internal battle wanting to trust their mom but needing to protect themselves as history has shown. Maybe you don't know multiple families like I do whose adopted children can't function in society because of their extreme attachment issues. Maybe you really do need to hear from the attachment specialist you are supposed to be consulting.
But here's the thing, it's been FOUR WEEKS. You haven't managed to have that meeting in FOUR WEEKS. Maybe that doesn't seem like a long time, but that is 28 days that he has looked for us. 28 days he has felt abandoned. 28 days we have cried missing him and afraid for him. 28 days we can't sleep or eat. 28 days I feel like I am going to throw up most of the time. 28 days his sister has spent half the day crying or throwing tantrums because another person has disappeared from her life, just when she was starting to trust us again, she is now sure she shouldn't. 28 days my seven year old has cried and missed his brother and wondered why people he thought were good have made this decision he feels is so bad. 28 days when I haven't been able to answer my children's questions when they will get to see him.


Have you ever left your child for 28 days? I bet if you even left them for a few days somewhere it was in a familiar environment, with someone you trusted and someone they knew. And I bet you and they both knew you were coming back.
I am upset, and hurt, and so so worried about the damage that is being done to him in this very crucial age where his brain is developing the ability to form healthy attachment.
I contacted my daughters attachment therapist in Sioux Falls, she and everyone in her office specialize in child attachment, and she would never be supportive of him going this long without a visit with us. She is worried about Jadence and the setback this is for her as well.
No one seems to have time to set up a meeting, or to respond to phone calls. But I'm betting you didn't go into this line of work to hurt children. So I'm asking, one more time, to please let us visit him.
I don't know if you think a visit is just something we are being selfish about. I hope you realize that as much as we want to see him, visits are so hard for us, because they have to end, and at the end I have to walk away, and leave him once more. I have to talk my body through motions that are not natural as a mother, and my heart will break all over again. But I do it because I know he needs it, because it's better for him to know I didn't disappear completely. I do it because I know my kids need to know people don't just disappear.
If there is research that supports no contact, I'd love to see it. If you really truly believe it's best for him not to see us, and that belief is based on actual data, then please share it. We are his parents. We only want what's best for him. We only want him to be ok. Unfortunately, it seems a visit just isn't happening because everyone is too busy. Please don't be too busy today for my son. He is such a special little boy. He is so full of love and joy. He has a purpose. Another person like him will never again exist in this world. Would you please treat him like he is that precious? Like this matters? Because it really truly does.
I know we're all busy. But at the end of the day, you turn off your computer, close your office door and go home to your life. But this IS his life. This is our life. Your decisions, even the decision to ignore something, severely impacts all of our lives, changes them forever.  Will you consider that before you shut your office door tonight? Will you realize how you spend your time at work determines if my children will cry themselves to sleep again tonight? Before you pick up your phone to send that personal text message, will you realize doing so means you didn't take the time to message the therapist and my son will now go to sleep for the 29th day wondering what he did wrong to make us not come back for him?
When you make a decision, he needs you to do it with the same care that my husband used when he held him for the first time in the photo above. Because that is what you are doing: You are holding his life in your hands. Did you do it with care today as if his whole life depended on how gently you handled him? Its an enormous responsibility, making decisions about the life of a child. Please don't get so accustomed to it that you stop doing it with care.
And if you won't take the time to handle him with care today, maybe my readers will. Maybe my readers will share this post to get your attention, to get you to respond. Maybe my readers will share this post so that all people who work with children will be reminded of the importance of prioritizing our children. Because they are so incredibly precious. They aren't replaceable. And they need us to protect them. We can't keep treating our children like this and expect our world to get better. Will you help this little boy today?