Holding hands

It was the image of their hands entwined that broke my heart the most. My boys tell me it’s called “waffling”, when you hold hands with a person that way. And that it’s much more personal than “pancaking” where your palms touch but your fingers stay apart. Waffling is reserved for only those you really love, they tell me.

And this little boy really does love his mama, despite the anger and the confusion and the sadness he is feeling on this day, his last time to visit with her after she has given up her parental rights to him.

I am grateful to see him finally sitting in her lap, this last time, when he had spent the 20 or so minutes before, by himself, sitting across the room, his head down on the back of the chair he sat straddling. He had been so angry and in so much pain that the waves of both emotions radiated off his little body in almost visible waves.

But finally now, in these last minutes he will be with her, he sits in his mama’s lap. He’s a little big really to be sitting there, his legs hanging all the way to the floor. She holds him as she must have when he was a toddler, in her arms, kissing his face. He doesn’t wipe the kisses away this time as he did two weeks before, when he didn’t know what was coming, but when I wanted to badly to go in the room and tell him, don’t wipe away the kisses, sweetie. You’re going to want to keep them. You’re going to want to keep them always.

He sits there, his fingers entwined with hers, as she whispers in his ear, as she did with his two sisters, all the things that she needs to say to him while she still has the chance. This little boy who once grew in her body and under her heart. This little boy for whom I’m sure she once had great plans and big dreams. This little boy who will grow up with a different family because the hold methamphetamine has on her is stronger than the hold her little man has on her hand.

And tears leak from my eyes for the 5^th time this visit, my heart breaking as I wonder, how many more times must I watch this play out? How many more times will I have to witness children saying goodbye to their parents because of the hold that drugs or other demons have on their parents? How many times? And the answer is as long as I am here. As long as I do this work. However long that may be. Because I owe it to these children. I owe it to these parents. I owe it to my workers. And I owe it to myself. 

May I never forget the heartbreak that comes when I ask a judge or a jury to bring a legal end to a family. May I never forget the image of two hands entwined, for the last time, as a little boy says goodbye to the person in the world who is supposed to love him most and put him first. 

May I never stop praying for his healing, and for hers, and for new healthy lives for them both. So that some day, when this little boy looks for his mother, as I have faith he probably will, he will find her healthy and whole. And he will be able to build a new relationship with her that is life giving and love affirming. And that one day she will have the opportunity to waffle hands with her grandchildren, the way she once did with this sweet little boy, on the day that they said goodbye.