Foster Friday: Impact Made By Fostering

Foster Friday: The Impact Made When by Fostering and/or Adopting

We have waited a whole week! Fostering is a tool to help kids and parents out of a rut! Today we are blessed to hear the continuation of how a sweet girl in Foster Care, Marilee, grows into a beautiful young woman. See the beginning of the story here.

Before you read, remember that life pushes through. I hope you can see how fostering a child helps. We each face our fears in life and the results shape us into the person we are today. Marilee was called to face her fears at an early age in life. And against all odds, with a supportive foster family and a wonderful Aunt, Marilee triumphs.

Please do not think for one minute that the love you extend to a child is insignificant. Every gift of love you give truly makes an impact! Whether you Foster, adopt, or birth, we all impact children and therefore the future of a soul. I am so proud to call Marilee my friend.

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I spent the next two weeks next to my mother’s side hoping she would wake up. Eventually she woke up, but she was so upset when she did. She wasn’t able to speak due to her condition, but it was obvious how upset she was. She could have been upset about what she had done to herself and to me, but I suspect she was upset that she hadn’t succeeded. Two days later, my family and I had returned to the hotel from going out to dinner to find a message from the hospital. A few minutes later my aunt tells me that my mother had passed while we were out. My mother and I had always been the black sheep in our family, always on our own for the most part. In that moment when I fell to the floor, I had never felt more alone in my life. [Ideas on Coping with Losing a Loved One]

The following day I decided to go back to school even though I didn’t have to. Having ADD/ADHD did not make me the most popular kid in school. I was often picked on and beat up for being the odd one out. I remember being in my math class when two girls approached me and started to pick on me, alleging that I had been talking crap about the other girl. It’s a little hard to talk crap about someone when I hadn’t been in school for two weeks; they were obviously making it up. My teachers had been made aware of what had happened and were asked to keep an eye out for me. The two girls came back to me and apologized and said they had made everything up and that they were sorry about my mother. I suspect my teacher had something to do with their apology. I don’t know why I remember those girls, I just do.

I had my mother cremated after having a wake. I was in the last half of 8^th grade at this point. The school district had decided to skip me up to the 8^th grade after I finished my second year of 6^th grade. My aunt [below] asked my foster parents if they would be willing to let me stay with them and finish out the school year. Being the good parents that they are, they took me without hesitation.

I stayed with them for the remainder of the school year before my aunt moved me up to northern California with her family. My foster parents were my saving grace. Not long after my mother passed, a guy that my mother had worked with contacted me looking for the money that my mother owed him. You can only imagine how that conversation went with a 13-year-old who had just lost her mother. Some people just have no decency. My foster parents took money from their own savings and paid this man to leave me alone. It wasn’t much, something like $350 I believe, but they did it for me and never expected anything in return.

My foster parents stopped fostering kids around the time I entered my sophomore year of high school I believe. Since then I am the only foster child that has kept in touch with them. I am considered the eldest child in their family, as I am older than their children. I talk to my foster grandmother regularly, and love her dearly [shown in 1st photo]. I have one foster-sister and three foster brothers, as well as three foster nieces and two foster nephews.

I am now 38 years old, single, and currently have no children. I work full time for a law firm as a legal secretary. Well, that’s what I do by day. On the side, I am a food blogger following a paleo lifestyle with a ketogenic focus. I am known as Kitchen Vixxen in the blogging world, but my friends and family know me as Marilee, or Mar for short.

[I love this photo of Marilee. It just oozes with self-confidence! What a gorgeous photo, Marilee!]

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Mandy

Mandy is the force behind the nonprofit advocacy portal Real Food Recovery. Seeing the need for children at risk to have better foods and education to handle their trauma, Mandy founded a nonprofit organization using real food, real discussion, and encouragement. A Wife, Mom of birth and adopted children, author, BSc., Functional Nutritional Therapy Practice, Mandy shares simple food tips online and volunteers at local Group and Orphanage Homes.

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