So I've been thinking a lot about family lately--my family in particular, of course. I left last fall in the middle of August and I didn't go home for any substantial amount of time until mid July of this summer. Almost an entire year away from my family, and most of it was spent on at Wheaton and the rest of it was spent in England. Then suddenly I was home again, thrust without ceremony into a mess of children all clamoring to tell me about the frogs they had caught and the pictures they'd drawn and this bunny rabbit they saw in the garden. I was back into the swing of things after just a couple days, sweeping floors and doing dishes and volunteering to do childcare, all the while wondering how on earth my parents had been doing this before I got home.
But when it's been a year, things are guaranteed to have changed, and it wasn't long until I began to notice the differences. Some uncharacteristic harshness from Mom, a tired shake of the head from Dad, a swear word from a our new three year old foster child, and suddenly I'm reminded of just how different this family is from the one I remember growing up in. Far away, in Chicago, it was easy to romanticize the difficulties at home, "Yeah, my family does foster care, and it's really hard sometimes, but you know, we all love each other and do our part."
Last spring I wrote a nonfiction piece about my family's experience of adopting my youngest brother. I got a good grade on the paper, but more than that, it really helped me to process some experiences I hadn't thought about--and hadn't thought I needed to think about--for a long time. I guess I was feeling so much better after writing it, that I sorta assumed that things at home had improved as well. Time had passed, hadn't it? And time heals, doesn't it?
Which is why I was so surprised by coming home. I remembered that home was hard, but my mental picture of "hard" doesn't really grasp the exhaustion I see in my family, and I can tell they're tired and beginning to wonder if it will ever get easier. I help as much as I can, but my deadline is come and gone, and now I'm off to live my happy little college life. Sometimes going to college feels like cowardice. What if I'm running away from these responsibilities? Will my college education help my little sister finally make a friend? Will it help our foster child finally find a safe and secure family? Will it help my little brother sift through his traumatic past and curb how he acts out? Will it help my parents make the right choices for their children?
There's so many people in my family who need help, who are halfway to broken and don't know how to deal with their own feelings, and I'm beginning to doubt just how "competent" the rest of us supposedly normal people are. Love can't fix everything, can it? Love can't change the things these children have gone through, love can't heal the exhaustion I know my parents and sisters feel, it won't keep me from going away to college. Love just isn't enough, but it has to be, because I know it's all my family has to give.
I know it's not my fault, I know that college is where I'm supposed to be at this time in my life, that living at home wouldn't actually help that much. But someone has to do it, right? Someone has to fix all the hurt, someone has to heal all the families desperately hoping that their love for one another will be wide and deep enough to cover all the hurts. Someone has to keep hoping.
I suppose that's what I'll have to do--hope and pray. I need to remember all the laughter and games and inside jokes I've found during my month at home this summer. I need to remember the happy past and look forward to the happy future and be certain not to miss the joy in the now. And rest in the truth that there is One who has love deep enough and wide enough to hold us together. But speaking truth isn't always the same at believing it, and it's certainly not the same as feeling it.
But you can't change your heart on a whim, and I suppose I'll have to cope with the soul I've got, hoping that Someone has enough love to fix what I know I can't but wish I could.
