⚠️ Content Warning:
This entry reflects on childhood experiences of supervised family visits, emotional distress, and the impact of broken promises. Reader discretion is advised.
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The First Foster Home – A Prayer I Didn’t Know Yet
Even though Rose was with me, it still felt like parts of my heart were missing.
Lily and Ethan were placed in a different foster home.
We didn’t get to stay together.
It was like our family had been torn into pieces, and someone scattered us across a map with no way to fold it back together.
I remember wondering if they were okay, if they missed us, if they were scared.
And I carried that wondering like a quiet ache, tucked deep where no one could see.
But I had Rose.
And somehow, having her there—familiar, steady, still mine—helped me survive the rest.
We were placed in a home that felt safer than what we’d left behind.
Not because everything was easy or perfect, but because it was calm. Predictable.
We ate meals like a family.
There were no slammed doors.
No silence laced with fear.
And every night before bed, we prayed.
At first, the prayer felt unfamiliar, like walking into a language I didn’t speak.
I didn’t know the words.
I didn’t know what they meant or if they were even meant for me.
But I tried.
I listened.
I followed.
The foster mother never made me feel embarrassed for not knowing it by heart.
She smiled gently, like she saw me trying, and that was enough.
She didn’t demand belief—only presence.
And in her presence, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time: patience.
Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom,
And the power,
And the glory, forever and ever.
- Amen.
Each night we said those words, something small would shift inside me.
It didn’t fix the hole where Lily and Ethan should’ve been.
It didn’t erase the confusion or soften all the pain.
But it gave me a moment of stillness.
A breath I could count on.
A rhythm I could follow when everything else felt lost.
I don’t remember the color of the walls or what the bedrooms looked like.
But I remember that prayer.
And how it carried me.
How it asked nothing of me but to be still and open.
How it reminded me that even when everything is unfamiliar, I can still choose to try.
We were broken, but not forgotten.
Scattered, but still holding on.
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Bridge: Between Safety and Silence
There isn’t much I remember after that prayer— at least not in the way trauma forces you to remember.
Maybe because my body finally stopped bracing for the next blow.
Maybe because peace, when it first arrived, felt too gentle to trust.
What I do remember are the small things—me and Rose trying to just be kids.
Going out to eat sometimes.
Family dinners where the air felt calm enough to breathe. Feeding the dog under the table when we were not supposed to.
Sneaking candy from the cup holder in the kitchen and laughing, trying not to get caught.
Praying every night before bed, the smell of the house is soft, weird, and familiar, but it was not.
Little sounds in the evening—the hum of a dishwasher, footsteps on the floorboards—each one steady, predictable, almost safe.
At school, I tried to blend in.
Walked the hallways like everyone else.
I remember one day walking into the wrong bathroom by accident—the boys’ room instead of the girls’—and realizing it just in time to spin around and laugh it off.
At my old schools, the girls’ room had always been on the right, but at this one, it was on the left.
That’s how it was back then— each new school had its own map, and I just kept learning the directions as I went.
Those were the quiet days.
Steady, but not still.
Safe, but not secure.
Like the world had stopped shouting, but I was still waiting for the echo.
That’s where Era 3 begins—where the echo finally answers back.
