Everyone has a story.  Everyone has a past.  We just need to listen.

“Growing up in foster care is like having all the innate childhood enchantment stripped from you.  It is being punished because adults could not love you enough.  It is being eleven and scared.  It is the first night you’re removed from your home and meagerly clicking your heels three times, whispering “I wish I was home”.  This too-optimistic endeavor is not enough to disengage you from the spell that ripped you from the siblings you’d spent your childhood raising.  You never get them back.  Growing up in foster care is rejecting any idea of God because you cannot fathom how this oh-so-powerful entity could watch you crush up crayons in your own spit and feed it to your siblings, convincing them that it tastes just like mac and cheese and not intervene.”

Rage Against the Minivan: What I want you to know about growing up in foster care and subsequently aging out