**My story is written chronologically, so it may be terribly confusing unless you go back to the oldest entries first**
At the time my brothers and I were picked up from our home and taken to the orphanage (Lena Pope Home in Fort Worth, Texas), I was most likely two or three months old. Who knows? Maybe four? Regardless, the fact that I was an infant certainly shielded me from the trauma of our abandonment and upheaval. My heart breaks to think about my three brothers who were old enough to experience the pain of abandonment, and then had to bear the ensuing distress of being uprooted from everything familiar to them.
Although we were delivered to the section of Lena Pope Home called Babyland, it was actually for the youngest age group of children there – just not babies. The orphanage did not have facilities to keep infants in a long-term situation, so the staff set out to find a foster family who would be willing to take care of me. They shuffled me back and forth from their home to the orphanage when necessary for parental visitation. As I grew up, I tried to picture this scenario in my mind, and it was as though a library book was being checked out for a day or two and then dropped off until someone felt like reading it again. NOT TRUE. I know this now, of course.
A huge shout-out to every foster parent out there: THANK YOU! May God bless you for opening your home and taking on the task of raising someone else’s child. I applaud your selflessness!
I heard the phrase “Lori was in a foster home in West Texas“ each time our story was repeated. Have you seen a map of Texas? Did you know that the entire United Kingdom could sprawl itself out in West Texas and still have plenty of room to invite some neighbors over? The sheer enormity of our state (okay, yes, the greatest state in the Union 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻) gave me little hope that I would ever pinpoint where I lived part-time, much less find the family who fostered me.
After many years, I discovered that the phrasing was not meant as I had heard it (that I was in a home somewhere out in the vast expanse of the entire western portion of Texas), but, instead, that I was with a family in the small town of West, Texas (yes, people, punctuation matters!). Oh, how I would love to find those people and express my gratitude for their gift to me!
I once thought I had a brilliant idea and drove to West and randomly asked townspeople where some of the older folks might meet up for coffee and conversation. If you’ve ever lived in a small town, you know why I went this route – it’s the hub of history and all things current. Locating the group proved easy, but no one there knew of foster parents who might have cared for me. My search for them has been fruitless so far.
Such was life for my brothers and me over the course of the next year: full-time at the orphanage for the three of them, shuttling back and forth for me. Our parents’ divorce was finalized somewhere along the way; although we don’t have a timeline to follow, I recently found an online record of our mother’s remarriage when I was just six months old.
My mother and stepfather were allowed visitation at the orphanage, and then at some point were permitted to “check me out“ for extended visits (I’m not sure if these were for an allotted number of hours or perhaps overnight). What I do know is that they were granted access long enough to put me in danger on at least one of those occasions.
My stepfather worked at a gas station – maybe as an employee, maybe as the owner or the manager. On this particular day (the one I know about), I had been picked up from the orphanage to spend time with my mother and her new husband. For whatever reason, they decided that instead of keeping me with them inside the gas station, they would leave me lying on the front seat of the parked car. I can’t imagine why. Was I too loud to be inside the building with them? Maybe they convinced themselves I would be fine out there? This baffles me.
Despite my brother’s best efforts to find ways to feed me in those early months, I had suffered from malnourishment since birth. As a result, I was unable to move around on my own – I hadn’t yet gained the strength to be a normally active baby.
Once I was placed on the front seat of that car, I was going nowhere. Did my mother venture outside to feed me? Change my diaper?
It must have been a sunny day in Texas. I was left lying in that one spot for several hours, the sunrays beating through the glass window and essentially frying that delicate baby skin.
I was later returned to the orphanage with second-degree burns. The blistering was severe and became terribly infected (hey, remember when we were little and we all called it “infant-eye-go” ~ I finally realized one day it was impetigo). My guess is that it fell to the foster parents to nurse me back to health. How grateful I am for their care! Thank You, Lord!
Just because I want to say it again:
I do not share these difficult chapters of my life to evoke pity from anyone. My only hope is to proclaim that no matter how dire the circumstances, no matter how crushing the pain, the God Who made you is there with you, His arms outstretched, eager to wipe away your tears and heal your broken heart.
“I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears. Behold, I am healing you.”
2 Kings 20:5