You know, all of us have things we would change if we had the opportunity to go back in time. For me, it is how my relationship with my father is. On one hand, I want nothing to do with him, he was a very physically abusive person, to me, and the reason why I became a foster child. So, I think most people wouldn't blame me for having a little resentment for him. And I did, I used to not want anything to do with my father, to me he was the reason for all of these negative events that were happening and in my mind, he didn't seem to care. He wasn't there for me, and I had made it up in my mind that when he needed me, I wouldn't be there for him either. So about a month ago, I get a phone call from my father, and the people he had been staying at had kicked him out. So there he was, 42 years old, and he had no place to go and needed me to help him out. When he told me this, my first thought was to hang up the phone, but I couldn't, this was my father and I just didn't have it in me to let him sleep outside, especially with this east coast weather. It was hard for me to know that my father was doing bad, but probably the hardest thing for me was when I saw him that night.
My father looked bad, he was homeless so he had on dirty clothes, and he had just gotten into a fight that left him with a broken nose, blind out of his left eye, and two big black eyes from getting hit. This was a hard sight to see because even though he had put me through so much, had so many chances to get me back and didn't want to, damaged me emotionally and physically at an early age, he was still my father, and at the end of the day, I love him. So I let him stay with me. Don't get me wrong it was hard, especially not having a job and having another person to take care of, it has definitely been hard, but I made it work. Now he is getting ready to get his own place and start supporting himself. That brings me to why I wrote this blog.
When most people think of being in foster care they think of traumatizing events and a hard life. Which I 100% agree with, foster care is hard, traumatizing, and can really take a toll on one's self-esteem. But, you see, in these few short weeks, I have realized that foster care really saved my life. If I weren't a foster child, I would still be living with my father, and would probably be in a much worse off position than I am now. So to my fellow foster brothers and sisters; keep your heads up, stay focused, and learn to play the cards you were dealt, because no matter what you have been through, it could have been worse!!