“I will love you forever, and you will always be enough.”
Were the last words I ever spoke to my daughter.
Choking back the tears so that I could manage to somehow whisper it in her ear.
She looked up at me from the social worker’s car seat with that trademark smile, large round brown eyes beaming, vivacious with the ignorance of youth. Kicking her feet to an internal beat only she would know, in the brand-new pink shoes (her favorite color) we had just given her – rushing to get them prior to the departure date that had already changed three times in the past week. This last, which would prove to be the final, gave us less than 24 hours to prepare.
The whole process had been as big a traumatic shit show as you could possibly imagine.
Actually, it was worse.
“See you. See you, Daddy.” She finally said softly in that priceless toddler voice.
I tried to smile for her. I tried to be strong.
But those final words melted any last bit of resolve I could muster. The tears flowed. Gut wrenching sobs erupted as she reached out her small hand and patted me on the head, in the unconditional loving way only a child can console.
I lifted my head, and she could see the tears streaming down my cheeks, but she wasn’t sad. If anything, she was confused and actually a little bit excited because she was sitting in a forward position car seat for the first time (something we would never let her do in our own vehicles because she was so small). This was an adventure for her. Yet at the same time, her brow crinkled in the slightest way, and her eyes darted uncertainly all along my face – tears, to cheek, to mouth – trying to decipher what was wrong.
But to her this was just another normal day with the slightest twist. Instead of the social worker conducting their routine once-a-month visit inside our home, our daughter would get a fateful car ride instead.
She had no reason to worry. She trusted us unconditionally.
For the entirety of her life, wherever she had gone, we had always returned.
We were her parents. This was her home.
She was safe, secure and loved.
Yet, she had no clue that for the first time in two years, one month and 15 days, the only family she had ever known wouldn’t be coming back. Or more accurately, she would never be coming back.
I would never see her again.
She would never see me again.
This is the part, no matter how many times you run it through your mind, you can never prepare for. You tell yourself you’re ready. You tell yourself you can do this. You’re strong enough. Someday you’ll get over it.
But you never really know until you’ve experienced it.
And let me tell you, it was so much worse than I ever could have imagined. She was my oxygen, and now I couldn’t breathe.
For the past two years we had known she could be moved any day. Trust me, that was no way to live. The constant anxiety and worry of wondering if each week might be your last with her takes its toll. Yet when the final moment came, all that mental preparation didn’t matter one single bit.
It all ended with the sudden, chaotic finality of walking off a cliff.
One moment she was there, and then the next she was gone.
Gone forever.
That little smile will haunt me for the rest of my life. Her tiny hand waving goodbye out the open window as the social worker pulled away.
Autumn leaves crinkled under my feet as I turned to face our home, a home that would never be the same without her.
She was gone. This was real. We’d never see her again.
The solemn finality of it hung over my head like a thundercloud in the sky.
After a one-hour car ride across Los Angeles, she would be dropped off at LAX like a piece of luggage with utter strangers. Another lifeless DCFS transaction complete, court ordered, judge approved, as cold and cruel as the winter month it inhabited.
The price wasn’t that steep, it only cost a single childhood.
I never thought it would be possible, but she stole my heart.
I tried so hard to fight for her. I threw everything I had at her case – 12 court dates over two plus years.
But it wasn’t enough.
In the end, judgement day had come. And I had lost.
It was a hard pill to swallow. You start questioning everything in your grief. What else could I have done? Was I even doing the right thing in the first place?
Everyone tells you what a great person you are and how much you will impact her life.
But they are hollow words in the moment. The bitterness seeps into everything like darkness stalking dusk.
Shock. Anger. Denial. Heartbreak. Anguish. Depression. Devastation.
Nothing can really describe what it is like to lose a child.
It all boils down to I couldn’t protect her. I couldn’t save her. I had failed.
I was her guardian. Her hero. Her Daddy.
With one single job to do.
Keep her safe.
Yet I couldn’t.
There is nothing in the world that will make you feel more powerless than failing a child.
—-
It’s interesting how trauma works.
I remember how happy she seemed being placed in the car seat; how strong she was.
All the details swirl around me like a milkshake of memories and sensations… how that 20-minute handoff went down.
It was a perfect sunny, winter Southern California day – December 15, 2023, only about a week and a half until Christmas. Temperature 68 degrees. Humming birds frolicked in my front yard from one aloe bloom to another.
I had been pacing back and forth frantically in the kitchen, peering out our front window every few seconds to see if the social worker’s car had arrived yet. We had just finished taking our last family selfie of all of us together. Trying to wipe the tears out of our eyes as we smiled so it wouldn’t look like the funeral snapshot it was turning out to be.
We had tried to delay the transfer date until after Christmas to reduce the trauma for our daughter. But the new family wouldn’t have it. They had just been granted rights by the court and didn’t want to delay. Choosing what was best for them rather than what was best for the unknowing girls’ life that was about to be flipped upside down.
Finally, the social worker’s Honda Ridgeline Truck pulled up.
My stomach dropped.
This was it.
The defining moment that I had prayed and hoped would never come to pass, was finally here.
In that instance, I wished with all my being I could be another man, a man that I would never get to meet. He was the dad that was able to protect her. Keep her by his side. Watch her grow and flourish over the next 16 years into the confident, courageous and amazing young woman he always knew she would be. guiding her. Teaching her. Witnessing her attending college. Seeing her get married and someday having a family of her own.
It’s the man who I will forever mourn and the life that will never come to be.
We met the social workers on our front steps, two of them from LA County Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) to do the hand off. We call them CSWs for short (certified social worker). They tried small talk and the normal, “this must be so hard for you.” “We can’t imagine what you must be going through.” “You’ve done such a good job taking care of her.”
But we were already sobbing. We were a wreck.
You hear all the time, be strong for the kids, don’t show your emotion. But I couldn’t. She was the only one who could console me.
“Daddy. Love you Daddy,” she would say.
Then wrap those tiny little arms around my neck and just like that, in the span of a finger snap, everything would be okay.
When I brought out her suitcase and duffel bag full of toys you could see something change in her face. She knew something was going on (keep in mind she’s only a little over two, but these kids sense things, it’s amazing how much they pick up on).
I began to unzip the pink hardshell suitcase (which we had bought for her to take on a family vacation to Kauai only last June – that was now feeling like a lifetime ago) so the social worker could document all her things, and she jumped on top of it.
“No daddy, no,” she kept saying.
As if she knew seeing all her things packed up on the living room floor meant she was being sent away. Discarded. Eviscerated from our family like the cold precision of a surgeon’s scalpel removing a tumor.
But this is what had to be done. Court order. There would be no turning back.
For me, this was the part that no one talks about, how in less than 24 hours you need to pack your entire child’s life into a suitcase. You need to write out to undeserving strangers – literally, this is how you love my daughter. This is how you care for her.
When she says “pink,” she wants milk. Or she calls “cake” ice cream. It’s those details you’ve come to love and cherish. It’s what makes her your daughter.
How dare someone else get to replace those intimacies overnight, when you’ve spent years building them, nourishing them.
Yet in the tumultuous world of fostering, anything can change on a dime.
—
The most common question I get asked is, “How can you do it? How can you bring a child into your home, raise them as your own, love them unconditionally, while knowing that at any time they can be taken from you?”
My answer is always the same, and it’s twofold.
The first part is simple.
“If I don’t, then who will?”
That statement alone should speak for itself.
The second part is much more complicated because we’re delving into the psychological wasteland of every shade of gray that might exist in the universe.
“You just keep lying to yourself until it becomes true.”
What I mean by that is, you bit by bit try to convince yourself that you are not missing out on the rest of her life. But instead, the two years that you have spent with her are a gift. They are the priceless gift that she has given you to be a chapter in her life story that she’ll never get to read.
She’ll never know that she was my first child, that she was the one who taught me how to be a dad. That the first six months of her life required around the clock two-hour feedings because the FASD and drug exposure in the womb were so bad – and it scared the living shit out of me. Or that when she woke up from a nap and wrapped her little arms around my neck as I carried her into the living room was the utmost prideful and joyful moment I looked forward to every day.
And if we have done our jobs right, then the best thing for her, now that she has found her forever home, regardless of whether I agree with it or not, is to never remember us.
That’s our best-case scenario. The trauma wasn’t so severe that she’ll never know what we did for her or who we were.
It’s the most selfless thing I have ever had to confront in my entire life. What is the right thing to do, goes against all my natural inclinations as a father, goes against everything in my entire being.
Yet, down the road, it is the best thing for her.
—
The gravel crunched underneath my feet as I walked along the footpath to carry her suitcase to the social worker’s truck. After I put it in, I turned around and my daughter was standing right there on the sidewalk – static, curly black hair blowing in the wind. Excitement bubbling off her that we might be going on a trip.
I hadn’t even heard her come out.
I looked at the social worker and she just shrugged at me. “When you left the screen door open, she just ran out after you.”
I picked her up in my arms and held her one last time. Lied to her as best I could that she was going on an adventure (Well, not technically a lie, she would be embarking on the greatest adventure of her life, just not with us). She would be flying on a plane to Alaska. How exciting would that be?
I handed her off to my wife and took a step back, as if I were stepping into an alternate universe… into an out of body experience.
It was surreal.
I couldn’t yet wrap my mind around what was happening.
And it was a nightmare. A real-life living nightmare that had come to swallow me whole.
Ask me so far, what was the worst day of my life, and it doesn’t even come close. I thought I had been through trauma before with my addiction, but nothing in my 42-year life ever prepared me for losing my daughter.
When another life is on the line, and you come up short.
There’s no forgiveness that can make it right.
Every day the world is ending for someone.
—
She was headed to LAX to meet an aunt she had never known. Remote Northern Alaska was the destination. A small, isolated 300 person Eskimo village in the middle of fucking nowhere.
When I say Aunt, this is only family on paper. We’re talking the amount of effort to make three shameful phone calls over a two-year period.
This would be the future home for a child suffering from neurological shuddering episodes and FASD. Isolated and out of reach of the required medical care.
We had methodically built the case against the transfer for over two years in anguished detail with her attorney and social workers, yet the judge was resolute.
ICWA (Indian Child Welfare Act) is known as the “kiss of death” for adoption in fostering circles.
That’s what power does.
And there is nothing more powerful than tribal authority muscling its way around the halls of children courts.
The best way I’ve heard it summed up, is placements in foster care follow the money. And the tribes are dependent on federal dollars for each placement they get to keep. So unfortunately, the “best interests of the child standard” is ignored, and essentially tribal child trafficking is the result.
It’s hard to watch, but ICWA being a federal law, trumps almost everything.
The irony is my daughter is 75% African American and 25% Native American. You look at her, and it’s clear as night and day, she’s black. The only family member that loved her and made any effort to connect with her was black. Yet she’ll be transported from the melting pot of Los Angeles where she fits in, away from six other siblings to an isolated Eskimo village, where everyone looks the same but her.
All because of a little blood.
They say it isn’t racial. It’s cultural. The tribe is a political entity.
Yet when a political entities rights, trumps that of a child’s rights, we’re walking down a long and dark path that explains why the system is only getting worse.
But I’ll let you be the one who decides.
Over the span of two years, the tribe never wanted to meet her. They never even inquired about her well-being once. They wouldn’t acknowledge her numerous medical conditions or listen to required advised treatment.
They didn’t care.
She was their property, and they’d do with her as they pleased.
Simply, because they could.
But we all know how that story ends.
Kids will be kids.
And they attack what’s different.
Outcasts are on their own.
There is probably no worse placement I can think of that the woke state of CA could permit based on our child’s medical requirements and psychological needs.
Yet a judge’s power is absolute.
—
In an hour’s time, the social worker would do the handoff at LAX. Sign her paperwork and then be gone. My daughter would spend the entire day in the airport with this new stranger. Then hop on a red eye flight to Anchorage, Alaska. Then fly to Nome. And weather permitting, fly from there on a single prop plane or take a boat to the Northern Alaska Tundra. There’s no other way to access the small village because it is so isolated.
A two-day trip. Yeah, it’s that remote.
The weather will be below zero when she arrives, with only four hours of daylight, while she is used to running around in the Southern California sun in shorts and a T-shirt. She will know no one. They never wanted to help with the transition.
Ignored us. Treated us like criminals for wanting to love a child and provide security and support. I have never had a harder and more thankless job, than taking another life into our own home and treated like you were less than nothing.
It is fucking wild.
In ten days’ time, my daughter will be opening presents on Christmas morning, with strangers, in an unfamiliar house, around no one in her life that has ever cared for her.
She will be scared, frightened and confused. Forever wondering what she had done so wrong to make her family abandon her to such a fate.
It breaks my heart just thinking about it. That in this day and age, a child can still be denied a loving and caring home to placate the rule of law.
I’d like to believe in happily ever after. But I’ve put in too much time and effort nursing this little girl back to life, to know how it will end.
She left our house alone and abandoned by the State that had sworn to protect her.
Needing care, security and love.
Shipped to a foreign land with no more thought than a boxed-up package in the mail.
A paper transaction. A name on a page. A number in a system.
To what comes next… I can only hope.
But I’ll finish as I began, with the last words I ever spoke to my daughter.
“I will love you forever, and you will always be enough.”
-Q-FI
—
Writing has always been cathartic for me and this is the first post I’ve written in over two years. Not because I wanted to, more because I had to. But, wow. Yeah, that’s a shit load of time homies. It’s wild to even type that. Not sure I’ll be writing anything else. I kind of thought I’d just let the blog die, as so many others have done after that 1-2 year death march into irrelevancy and other life interests take priority. Then Bluehost fees shoot through the roof. Haha. Those sheisty fuckers. But we’ll see…
However, when it comes to trauma, there’s not much to say, you just have to push through it and time eventually heals all wounds. We’ll be back at it sooner than later, and keep trying to grow the fam. Fostering is just one of those things that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Hahaha. Financial Independence couldn’t be farther from my mind. I’m still on track to peace out early from corporate America, but my priorities have shifted to helping children rather trying to obsessively worry about liberating my own freedom. And don’t take that as a knock if you’re in a different place than me. FI is an amazing accomplishment and goal. It’s just that my interests have led me to different pastures in this season of life. To all those bloggers who still write, mad props to you. I haven’t been reading anything in this realm, but would someday like to peek and see how all the old commenters are doing these days. I hope everyone is well, and I’ll see if I can scrounge up some time to update everyone on the past two years of a chaotic journey dabbling in causes greater than myself.
I was at first delighted to hear from an old online friend after so long – and then I wasn’t. I can feel the pain screaming out from here and feel helpless, knowing nothing I can say or do will help you & your wife through this.
There’s such a huge difference between mentally understanding the risks and downsides of something to actually living through them and surviving. I know you guys will survive this and I have nothing but admiration for you getting up and continuing to help.
I can not imagine how angry you must be. The temptation to just disappear with her must have been so strong. There is so much of our various political systems that no longer do what most people would consider the ‘right’ or logical thing. Money corrupts many of the best intentions.
Fwiw, we’ve had a bumpy year losing my partner’s Dad but we’re all getting through it, as you have to at some point. Otherwise, life after FIRE goes on well – it was five years last year since quitting – crazy days.
Take care.
Hey Michelle, no it is always a good thing to hear from an old online friend. Unfortunately it took a little pain to get me out again, but there have been many positives over the last two years. Hopefully I’ll be able to spit out a couple more ramblings sooner than later. And this post was more to get out some venting and cathartic rawness, that only happened a month ago. Our little girl was a dream come true, and you learn to deal with the realities of the system as you go. It just so happened our first placement happened to be as complicated a case as you could get with all the moving pieces. And it’s hard to get into all the many layers of complexities – social, racial, cultural, economic, political, etc. in a few page post without sounding a little tone death. ICWA can be a very emotionally charged subject in the US after the recent supreme court ruling, however much of the press was about it’s political ramifications to tribes rather than the racial bias Indian children face.
But she’s moved on and so must we.
It’s funny you say the temptation to disappear with her. I was so attached to her that I had to actually play that scenario out in mind. What would happen, what are the consequences, how does that effect her, my family…. hahaha. Etc. Etc. Obviously I would have never done that, but after dissecting every portion of ICWA, getting legal opinions, trying to come up with creative case law, you analyze every single possibility at your disposal.
Sorry to hear about the bumpy year, but sounds like you doing well overall. I will get to your blog soon and catch up on your latest adventures!
Thanks for the kind words and comment!
😢
Thanks David. Hope you are doing well.
Hi QFi,
The only reason I’m not crying is that I’m at work and can’t, but that is the most heartbreaking story, only it’s real and not a movie or book. I’m so sorry for you all. What an unfair situation that in no way serves the best interest of your precious daughter. Blood family clearly differs from an adoptive one but it’s not necessarily better, and you’re all suffering as a result of an immeasurable detail. Our system failed. Not you. I’m so deeply sorry.
But I can’t tell you how happy I was to see your post alert in my inbox and to see you back in this space! Like you said, I let my blog go though I’ve lately considered resuming it. Only I don’t know that I’d have much to say about FIRE these days. I hit my original FI number and then the one I set after that, but it’s meaningless in so many ways. I’m not even close to leaving my career. Yes, some days I want to quit, but I love serving patients and will likely serve them for another 15, maybe 20 years.
I walked part of the El Camino last fall, and my friends and I played a game where we asked a question and each one had to respond. When one friend asked what super power I would choose, without thinking I said “healing.” Not money, not flying, or world domination. No amount of money can heal my family member who desperately needs it. Just as no amount of money can bring back your precious little girl. But the power of healing is priceless. And it’s not at all related to an arbitrary number.
I can’t heal anyone, but I can help. And I can do that every day that I show up to work. So there’s no reason for me to leave any time soon. Would I love more time? Sure! I always want more time for what matters. But that’s finite too. So how we spend our time matters. What you did for your little girl matters. You were there for those precious early moments that determine so much of her life. The love you gave her as a child weaned off drugs is priceless. You instilled in her a sense of love, safety, and worth she would otherwise never have known. You have spent your time wisely and selflessly.
Twelve years ago when I was a nursing student, I cared for a number of methadone babies. Their mothers never showed up to the NICU to hold or love them, but I did. There was one little guy in particular who I still frequently wonder about. I hope he’s okay, but I know he likely has a sad and hopeless life. Even so, I like to believe my nurturing early on stays with him, letting him know he’s loved. Your little girl knows that far better than my little buddy.
I can’t imagine your pain, but I know you did the right thing. You did the hard, painful right thing. You did the selfless thing. And you should be proud.
Why hello Miss Katie Camel! It is so good to hear from you. Thanks for the kind words and always, much appreciated.
When I saw your blog was down, I just assumed you had moved on to more pressing life interests, as we all do at some point. So good to hear your update, and don’t worry, I’ll probably write a more uplifting post after this, there is much good news as well to update everyone on.
But first, yes, your work with babies in the NICU 100% matters!!! Being in the medical field, you understand how important those early days/months are in child development to provide love, affection and stability – 1 month to 2, then six months, one year and so on. Every bit matters. And as weird as this might sound, we were lucky to have her transferred only a little after two. With the other ICWA cases from support groups, kids have been ripped out at 3, 4, 5.
Healing is a noble calling. We all hit that cliche in FI, that once the numbers are set or on the right track, there’s not much else to do but get busy living your life. I still hate corporate America, but kids and life have made me push the goal posts back quite a bit, which is fine. Since starting my blog in 2019, the only thing that constantly amazes me is how much change can take place year after year.
So glad to hear you are doing well and liking (if not loving) your job at times. And I promise there will be some more uplifting posts to come. Can’t leave the blog on such a down note for long.
And yes, you should write again! The community needs your voice! At least, the old commenters selfishly need some life updates… hahaha.
Such a heartbeaking post to read. But nothing compared to the heartbreak you’ve had to experience, of course. I hope the memories you have from your time with your daughter and the knowledge that you did so much good for her serve as a salve that speeds the healing process for you.
Hey bud, I appreciate the kind words. And I’ll be honest, this one is probably going to take years before I finally put it behind me, but that more shows how special she was to have that effect on me. But you’re 100% right in what you wrote, you daily try to remember all the positives and use those memories to build on and get through your day the best you can. I hope to get over to your blog soon and catch up on the adventures of Thing 1 and Thing 2. Ha! Hope you’re doing well man.
We miss you, brother… And thinking of you all 🙏
Thanks J$. I appreciate the comment, thoughts and prayers. Hope you had a good 2023 bud.
Wow. I just don’t have the words. That is one brutal ending to a rich and fulfilling journey.
Be proud. The world is a better place because of you. Opening your heart, home, and wallet to a complete stranger for who simply needs the help. To your daughter it made a world of difference. She may never know it, but you always will. It doesn’t get more rewarding than that.
I hope you get the opportunity to line up again when the time is right, and next time around are able to enjoy a well deserved happily ever after ending.
Hello Mr. Indeedably! You’re at the top of my list to check out your blog and recent adventures. If you have still been writing as much as you did in the past, then I have quite the task ahead of me. Haha.
Thanks for the kind and uplifting words. I’m pretty sure this year we’ll get another placement. There’s just too many kids in need and not enough homes. But the wife and I heal differently, and having never been through trauma quite like this, I just don’t really know what those healing timelines will look like. Everyone processes grief differently, and I’ve found it sure as hell isn’t linear. Some days are better than others.
And yeah, it was definitely a brutal ending, and the irony is the details are much worse than anything I wanted to put in the blog. It really tests you as a person watching kids not being protected and further abused by the system. Some people give up after an experience like ours, and I don’t blame them. It can be devastating. The past two years have been extremely difficult, dealing with poverty, a strung out mom, dad in and out of jail, parental rights, sibling rights, domestic abuse, neglect, never ending court dates, tribal jurisdiction, county law, state law, federal law and an out of state transfer, to only name a few. It’s an entirely different world you come in contact with. But everyday I walk by her empty room I tell myself, fuck’em, this is not how our story will end. I know I have more to give.
Thanks again for the comment and more to come bud…
i read this last week and am glad you kept the blog alive. i should have bitten the bullet and paid the stupid fee for mine.
there is a fascinating dichotomy between “killers of the flower moon” which i just read and what the modern system can do now. those osage got completely hosed and murdered back in the 20’s and this backwards system of today (at least partly) is the result of using kids as a political football.
it’s a damned shame the way it all went down for y’all. sorry.
Thanks Freddy and hope you’re doing well. At least all the Dodgers latest acquisitions can give us something to cheer about this year. =)
The hosting shit is getting ridiculous.
I didn’t want to even mention ICWA originally, but the post didn’t really make any sense without saying a little bit. But you’re right, there was 100% need for ICWA back in the day, just unfortunately it needs some updating.
Sharing pain seems to help. Glad you did. Knowing what you have gone through puts my little 1st world problems in perspective.
Here is to the good you did. Hope it doesn’t prevent you from continuing such a noble thankless path again in the future. You are stronger then I could ever be knowing that outcome was a possibly
Thanks for the kind words Vader and comment. I think I have at least one or two more tries/placements in me depending on how they go (pending of course the wife’s concurrent approval). There’s nothing quite like the familial, cultural, multi-racial, societal, socio-economic challenges of fostering to test your relationship. But like I said in one of the comments above, regardless of how traumatic and painful our parting was, I know I have more to give. Time isn’t on my side, and I have probably a finite window of only a few more years to keep this up, but I’d like to try to impact as many young lives as I can. We’ll see. I try to chalk up each new challenge as a learning experience, no matter how taxing it proves to be.
Hope you have a healthy and prosperous 2024 bud.
Holy shit! Powerful.
As others have said, good to hear from you, and at the same time not. Wish it were a happier occassion. Thanks for writing this.
(same blog death march here–bluehost auto-renew got me haha)
Hahaha… oh, bluehost. I’m in the process of trying to figure out my email. It used to be forwarded but then stopped and now I can’t even access it because bluehost changed my subscription. It really sucks. Seems like a lot of good creators get turned off by the antics and just end up stop writing. I think I have about a year left on the last one I did. So maybe I’ll try to use that as motivation to pump some posts out before.
Thanks for the comment IF and hope you’re doing well!
Wow you’re back.
Damn what a crappy turn of events. I can’t even imagine how I would react in your situation. All of these laws that are supposed to make society better are heartless double sided blades. What can be said is that you made your little girl’s life better while given the opportunity. Pretty insane to think of any child going from a diverse big city to remote Alaska. What an extreme.
Hope you’re on the road to healing from this loss. Tip of the hat for your willingness to put yourself in that situation again. Says a lot.
Hahaha… kind of back, in the most round about loose interpretation of the phrase. Joking. But I hope to write more at some point. Unfortunately, like the post, just been down and would rather wait a little bit to put something more positive out there.
But we’re getting better. The wife and I have each been processing it in our own way, which is how it should be. Support groups have been great. I can finally tell the story to strangers without entirely breaking down. Today is literally the 3 month anniversary from when we lost her. This Monday we put our name back on the accepting placements list, and already got one call. We had decided to wait at least 2-3 months and see where we were at. But walking by that empty bedroom every day is the best reminder we need to get back up and do our part. We’re still really sad but it does feel good to know you can help another child out. FI plays a big roll in that. Without being financially secure we wouldn’t be able to slim down to a single income and do this.
I’ve been meaning to brush up on my FI reading so I need to get over to your blog and catch up on all of your adventures. If I remember correctly, you’re probably getting pretty close to reaching your ultimate freedom and peacing out of the workplace for good. I hope you, your wife and your girls are doing well up in the Bay Noel. It’s been too long. And I’ve always enjoyed and respected your ruminations and creative reflections on life.
One other cool thing, it’s been really neat to see the comments and how many bloggers are still producing content or at least keep their sites up. This is a great community regardless whichever niche you fall into.
Thanks again for the kind words my man, all these little supportive comments mean the world to me or I wouldn’t have even bothered to post about it.
Hopefully more to come, sooner than later. I have a lot of updating that needs to be shared….
I’m so sorry to read of your experience. I have two young kids and I can’t even imagine the thought of losing them. This one really hit me in the feels (and I don’t get emotional easily!) so thank you for taking the time to express your thoughts. Your post has given me a shot across the bows to appreciate what I have.
I hope you have the support you need and get another placement when you are ready.
Hey YMB – thanks for the kind words and thoughts. Prior to having her, I never thought I’d have the capacity to love another human being as much as I did her. But I guess that’s kind of what children do to you. Taught me some priceless although extremely painful lessons on life, love and the constant ephemeral nature of change.
But I’m a better person for it.
I hope you and your family are doing well.
Hey Q-Fi – I’ve no idea why I didn’t see this when it was published but glad I came across it and I’m grateful you wrote it.
I don’t quite know what to say. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain, heartbreak, frustration and all the other emotions that you experienced here. It’s beyond tragic. My heart goes out to you and you wife.
Glad you kept the site up and while your interests (as well as mine) have shifted, it’s nice to have your own place to write and share with others.
Hey Mr. Fate – thanks for the kind words and appreciate the comment. No worries on just seeing it now, I’ve not been great with the reading/writing as well as you can tell. Always great to hear from a long time blogging friend.
And yes, it’s been really nice to still have a place to write when the inspiration comes. Speaking of, I’m long due for another one. It will be 7 months to the day tomorrow when we lost her and life does go on but never really gets easier. Like everything, you just learn to deal with it. Still don’t have our next placement yet, but hopefully it will happen this year.
Hope you’re doing well bud and I’ll get over to your blog soon to catch up on what you’ve been up to with that much earned and coveted retired life!!!