by Mia Marconi
‘He’s fine,’ they said, ‘but we think it will unsettle him if you have contact.’
I could have understood better if it had been me trying to contact him, but he was contacting me saying that he missed me and would like to see me. Neither of us was angry any more, so surely it was safe enough to meet?
Brody continued calling me and texting occasionally, and I would let social services know when I heard from him, but they always felt that for us to meet up would be disruptive. I could see their point and accepted their decision, although it was frustrating not to have closure. Supervised contact might have worked for both of us, just to clear the air. After all, Brody had stayed with us for six years – the longest he had stayed with any of his foster families – and he clearly had things he wanted to say, although I doubted that ‘sorry’ was one of them.
We spoke on the phone and I was grateful for his messages – which were strangely healing to me – and to know that he was okay. We even laughed on occasions. The conversations were never very deep. He would ask how the girls were and was pleased to hear that they were doing well, but he never once asked about Alfie. Never.
School never did work for Brody and he left with no qualifications. His only focus was getting home, and that was more important to him than trying to get an education. Family is so powerful, and until it’s taken away from you, you never really appreciate the hold it has over you. I’m sure a psychologist would be able to explain it, but all I understood from some of the children who had lived with me was that, however chaotic their parents were, they still wanted to be with them. As amazing as it may seem, I had discovered that this was the rule rather than the exception. Our yearning to hang onto our roots is so strong because without them we have no foundation. We become a house of cards that can collapse at any minute. But if those foundations are rotten, our house still falls down, so what was the answer? I didn’t know.
When Brody was fifteen he ran away from his seventh foster family. He kept running away until social services accepted that he was safe to be living at home with his mum and dad. They visited him regularly and monitored his progress, and he seemed happy.
We met once after his eighteenth birthday and I asked him about the stone-throwing incident. He said he could remember absolutely nothing about it, and I believed him because at the time he was in a different zone to us. Alfie, however, remembers absolutely everything about that evening.
It would be years before I accepted that, really, there was nothing I could have done differently to help Brody. The cold, hard facts were – and he’d drawn this quite clearly as a ten-year-old boy on his Forrest Gump map – that he wanted to be at home with his dysfunctional family. His loyalty to them was so strong he needed to sabotage anyone and anything that might take him away from them. Brody could not accept that life could be good for him. I suppose he was like my uncle, sent off to public school to get a good education and a good job, and, to outsiders, he seemed to get a better life. But he committed suicide because he no longer fitted the family blueprint. He was alienated from the people he loved once he was on a different level to them, and it put him in a lonely place. Brody faced the same kind of alienation if he conformed and began to fit in with society. There was no guarantee for him that he could start a brand-new life.
There were children who were so relieved to be away from their abusive families that they reinvented themselves and totally moved away, but they were the exception. Most of them wanted to have contact with their families, they just wanted them to behave better, and when they didn’t change they threw in the towel and settled down to a life of drink and drugs to deal with it, and so the cycle went on.
Brody is just at the beginning of his journey – a young man with no qualifications, a chaotic family and not much hope for the future. But all that was his choice and one that, for the moment, he seems happy with. In one of the last texts he sent he said: ‘You see, I got what I wanted.’
I’ve come to realise that life teaches us many things and that our experiences mould us into the adults we become. Little things that don’t seem important at the time emerge from our memories years later, and we begin to understand that they happened for a reason.
I have struggled at times with the decisions I have made and the heartache my kids have endured because of my decision to care for damaged children, but I console myself with the knowledge that with each foster child who came into our home, we learned as much from them as they did from us, and as a family we cope with the world much better because of that.
My children have learned that the simple things they take for granted, like Christmas turkey and birthday celebrations, are in fact not a normal part of life for many children, and so they really appreciate the little things in life.
As a child I once eavesdropped on my grandmother, listening to her from behind the door. I heard her say that forgiveness is a gift that comes with age. I didn’t understand what she meant then, but now I do. And I have learned to forgive Brody, as hard as it was.
As a family, we have learned to forgive and forget, to embrace differences and accept challenges without judging. This might seem like a small thing, but it’s not; it’s huge. My children share their love, time and kindness without hesitation, and that is a big thing to ask of anyone.
At low points, when I weep into my pillow with guilt, I have to remind myself how beautiful and wonderful my children have become. They have a unique quality of not discriminating against people in any way, and one thing is certain: they have plenty of hair-raising stories to tell their own children.
Now Brody is back with his family I have faith that I and my family, and particularly Alfie, made a difference to his life, and he can hold onto that as he grows up.
We were made with two ears and one mouth for a reason and that is because listening is more important. A few years ago I asked Alfie why he hadn’t told me earlier about his unhappiness. He said, ‘I did, Mum, but you just weren’t listening.’ I instantly remembered our conversation when he told me about the butterflies in his stomach and wondered why I didn’t probe deeper then. He was right. I was not ready to hear. I was the one in denial.
Despite what happened with Brody, we, as a country, take a lot of pride in fostering children and doing it well. My training is intense, and although you occasionally hear of the odd bad apple in foster care, the vast majority of carers are dedicated to making a difference. We cherish moments with the children who come into our homes. We hold their hands when they need us, tuck them into bed and reassure them that they are safe, and then do the same again after they’ve had a nightmare. We stand in the rain while they play football or netball, rearrange our schedules so we can attend parents’ evenings and school plays, and we do what most parents do without thinking: we love and we care and we nurture.
But when your extended family no longer feels happy and normal, and the reason you are fostering becomes unclear, and your home seems an alien environment and your own children begin to suffer, it is time to question what good you are doing and ask whether you are helping at all.
As a family, we have had so many positive placements, which is why Brody leaving us was such a big deal. He just did not want to fit into our family, which left Alfie and me heartbroken. I remained angry, hurt and wounded for months, but I slowly regained my energy and enthusiasm. Alfie, on the other hand, still cannot forgive years later. They were dark, dark days for him, and although he learned from the experience he is not ready to absolve Brody.
Brody continued to move around until he eventually went home. He and I have spoken a number of times since his New Year’s Eve phone call, and during one of our conversations he said something that explained exactly why he had done the things that he had done. He said simply: ‘Mia, living with you were some of the best days of my life, but I just wanted to go home.’
Also by Mia Marconi
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Also by Mia Marconi
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Also by Mia Marconi
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