THE LOST CHILDREN

As a very young child I remember wanting to save the world. So I started with the bugs in the garden. I Was sure that they could not possibly be happy out in the cold and rain and that I was doing them a favour by bringing them inside in boxes and bottles. Spiders, ants and chameleons, anything that crawled. My mother was long suffering.

As I grew into my teens my passion turned to children, abused or neglected children. I did not have a plan, but a plan came into fruition as the years went by.

I married, and still had my passion, which was to show less fortunate children that there is a better life out there and to love them. My husband and I went to Nazareth House in Salisbury, Rhodesia and spoke to them. They had children who could be taken out by families for weekends. Our first experience in foster care was an 18 month old toddler, Shirley Ann. The fact that my eldest daughter's name is Shirley-Ann is purely coincidental, she had her name before we met Shirley Ann from Nazareth House. I do not have a photo of her but can tell you a bit about her.

There was a company which let out baby furniture, so we organised for a cot to be delivered to our flat on Friday afternoons and for it to be collected on Monday mornings.

We would collect Shirley Ann on Friday after work, when we arrived they were eating their supper, we then whisked her off. This set the pattern for many months. Her parents were drug adicts and alcoholics and her mother made contact with the child once in six months. As long as parents did that the child could not be adopted. Crazy hey.

She had been badly neglected and was very withdrawn. She also had a little brother Darren who was a year older than she was, and he was eventually taken out by a life long friend of mine, Veronica. We decided after some time that it would be better if they were together so Veronica and her husband took them both and kept on doing so for a very long time. But, as often happens, once the parents or parent knows that someone else is interested in their child, THEY start showing interest and demand that the child goes to them for some weekends. This confused the two so much Veronica stopped taking them out so that the mother could step in. I think of them often as they are in their 40's now -wow, and I hope that they had good lives, and happy lives. That is all we can hope for.
We went back to Nazareth House and asked if there were any other children needing a weekend home. Above you see Jenny and Darryl in trousers I made for them so that they would have things that could stay with us. They were 3 and 4 when they came to us. Jenny was a fiesty little thing, asking questions and very inquisitive. Darryl was destined to become a rag and bone man as he could always be found rummaging around in the rubbish dump behind the flats and brings in "treasures" of other peoples discarded junk and eventually had a box full of his prizes which we were to watch over during the week!

We then had children of our own, and anyone following my blogs will know just how demanding they all were and with the situation in the country being as it was, I was basically raising them on my own, so for a number of years we did not foster any other children.

We came to South Africa when they were small and once again my mind turned to foster care.

This time it was not weekends that we took children but we applied to be Place of Safety parents for children who have to be immediately removed. The social worker would telephone me and ask if we could take a child within the next 2 or so hours. These children would stay with us for up to 6 months when they were permanently fostered by a family, adopted or returned to rehabilitated parents.

Above you see Charlie, a little french boy who was 2 year old, with Shirley left, then Kerry, and Lisa on the other side of him. She was 4 and very jealous as she was the baby and now she had competition, this did not please Lisa, but she always came up with ways to get rid of poor Charlie! I heard the kitchen door slam one day and a scream from outside. Lisa was in the kitchen, door closed. "I told him to go home" she said. Well, that was new, taking in children when we had our own children who had no idea why we were doing this!

Within 6 months Charlie's mother had started to visit him on weekends, evidently rehabilitated herself and Charlie was returned to her. A week after he was gone we were watching Police File when a picture came on the screen of Charlie's mother and father. They were wanted by police for stealing a caravan and they were thought to be in Zimbabwe! We wondered why she had suddenly become this "super mom" , all was made clear! Charlie is in his 30's now.


We decided to go back to weekend foster care as we did not want any of the girls throwing these children out in the street behind our backs, so when Shirley was 8, Alice came to us. She was 9 and a delightful child with a very confusing family life. We loved having Alice and she and Shirley got on very well right from the start. She started to come to us for school holidays too and often came with on holiday,in the pic above we were camping on the Eastern Cape coast close to Port Alfred.

The story gets more complicated however, as within 2 weeks a social worker telephoned us with a place of safety child.

Matthew was the 3rd of 4 brothers all very close in age, Scots immigrant family. His mother had walked out on all of them and his father could not cope with the two youngest, so they were to be removed immediately. He was 2 and I could not say no. They brought him, with his father, who seemed as distraught as the child but as time went by never came to see him again. He had a few clothes in a black bag. Our church friends all rallied round and donated clothing for him. He still wore nappies at night, I had 2 in the bag and no pin, so they all saw to that, they truly saved the day.

He was adorable. But he was our biggest challenge.

He could not speak when he came to us but within a month we could not stop him from speaking, he was like a wind up toy with no off button.

We became very fond of Matthew and when it was time to find him permanent foster care, we applied to be his permanent foster parents. The girls fought with him no more than they fought with one another but they never told him to go home! In fact when the issue of his going to a foster home came up they all begged if he could stay.

We actually had to apply to foster him. We were "accepted". Dumb rule, we had taken care of him for 9 months by this time.

He stayed with us until he left high school. Brian, my son, was born when he was 5 years old. They were always brothers to one another, even to this day. Matthew is 28 and has a baby girl. Brian sees Matthew and his brothers often.

He was a very difficult child to raise and it often became hard. He was returned to his mother when he was 11 but she brought him back to us because she could cope with him, so with us he stayed. He was clever and successful. He is still connected to the family and I know that now he is happy.

What I would do differently? Make sure that I had the FULL support of my husband and children, because at the end of the day they were living MY dream, it was never anything they chose for themselves.

I thank them all from the bottom of my heart for letting me realise my dream of helping the lost children.

MY TWO FAMILIES....MY TWO LIFE EXPERIENCES

I have written much of my daughters and my experiences mothering these imps throughout the years, what was often stressful and horrifying then is, in retrospect funny and the memories bring a smile to my face. I even laugh at times when recalling something which could have been brought back to mind by a song, smell, or picture.

I also have an only child.

God has a sense of humour - I know this, actually, He must have a terrific sense of humour! My only child crept up on me, and what a wonderful gift from God. As I was watching my daughters grow up, become independent and slowly move away from me, I was blessed with a boy child, and what I difference I found there to be between girls and boys! Brian was like 3 children rolled into one and anyone who has a bunch of them deserves a medal! This one child had me running as fast as the girls did - or it could be that I was older and not used to it anymore??

THEIR life experiences have been very different, and mine with them as well.

A bushel of children need to learn pretty young certain rules. In the girls case and during a war, they had to learn to obey without arguing, it could save their lives. Obedience in certain situations were deal breakers. Next, if we were to go out as a family for a meal they had to learn to sit through it so that everyone could enjoy the meal and the company. I was once told that I was too strict on them and told our host that if I was not strict we would not have been able to enjoy one another's company as we just had'

For Brian, his life was very different. He learned many thing from his older sisters, they definitely contributed to his knowledge of how the world works. Without realising it they taught him CONTROL. As soon as this baby cried he had 3 willing sisters in a race to get to him first. ADORATION. He had 3 playmates and someone was always at hand to relieve his boredom, boredom just wasn't on his radar.

The girls grew into beauties (we all have them hey?) and as usually happens, boys appeared, hundreds of them traipsing through the house, drinking all the coffee and guess what that meant for Brian - more people to play with his lego with him, his cars with him and some used to come to take him to the skateboard track.

But one day, he realised that he was not the adored baby brother any longer with undivided attention, at least not since all the boys had arrived. He knew he had POWER over people and became DEMANDING to the point that his sisters, when they wanted privacy with their friends had to PAY HIM OFF to get him out from behind the couch and spying on them, or worse still, joining in the conversation. You see, they had taught him EXTORTION.

Soon I had complaints from the sisters, I had spoiled him, they had never been allowed to do THAT, he ALWAYS got his own way etc etc. (who was it did the spoiling?) Yes, I did spoil him a bit, everything about his life and theirs was different. He stayed in our bed for a year to make feeding easier. Imagine 3 babies in my bed all groping my boobs, like a litter of kittens! GOOD GRIEF.

Not long after I weaned him I discovered that he had a fraction in his blood missing without which he would have surely died as a newborn had I formula fed him. The fraction that was missing was gammaglobulin and the only things that would boost his weak immune system came from breast milk or gammaglobulin injections. He was in hospital weeks after me weaning him and this set the pattern for his pre-school years.

He was and is fearless. Something else that was a cause of great concern. Pain is a sign of something being wrong, we all know that, but his pain threshhold was very high and nearly got me into a whole heap of trouble once. When he was 2 and a half he rolled off our low bed, and the screams of pain took me quite aback. I took him to the doctor who, after ascertaining that he could not lift his right arm, ordered xrays. Upon their return the doctor inspected them, and looking at me over his glassed asked"when did he break his colar bone" "He didn't" I replied. But upon inspecting the xray, even I could see the truth of it. "This break is 2 weeks old, it is already mending" he said. He filled in a form and gave it to me, "what is this?" I asked, "body xrays" came the blunt reply. HE THINKS I ABUSE MY CHILD my thoughts screamed at me. I was mortified. There was no other damage of course and the doctor said it was procedure. But it was then that we discovered that when Brian was sick, he was probably very VERY sick. By the age of 2 and a half he had broken his nose twice, colar bone once, at 6 his arm by falling from the top of a tree, and acquired 7 stitches by diving into a swimming pool wall. He never seemed to feel the injections, LOVED to watch in fact (morbid child). He was also swimming in the deepend of the pool with the men at the age of 3, not fear of water, he just used to jump in and basically taught himself!

Now, today, the girls are still close, but they all married and have children of their own, they do not know their brother as only mothers know each of her children. Brian does not know all his sisters.

His teen years were not as happy as his sisters, but I always believed in him and knew what he was capable of. Believe in your children, be their champion because if you have a good relationship with them they will not want to let you down so they will work hard for your approval. I am glad I did, and he did not disappoint me.

I weep as my late lamb stands on the threshold of parenthood himself. His baby boy is due any day. You deserve this joy Brian.

I believe that you can do this too.

DOUBLE TROUBLE AND LIFE MADE EASIER

"I am NEVER going shopping with you again!"

This from my loving mother and loving grandmother to her, at that time, 3 grandchildren. I did feel her pain, I really did, she probably thought that she had left all that behind only to find the whole circle start again when she became the owner of grandchildren!

I, on the other hand, felt like some company with someone who could speak properly and hold a knife and fork. This was going to be a fun mother/grandmother/granddaughters day out. What FUN!! No, it wasn't my imagination, my dear mom DID change colour there for a moment.!

SO...(mothers are patient and long suffering you know, so if I ever doubted it, it was at moments like these that all doubt was put aside, she knew what was coming, I was only a rookie).

We loaded all the kids up in the car. Kerry and Shirley in car seats - the seats of the day simply clipped over the back of the seat, Lisa in the pram, a large highly sprung pram, very grand but not very practical.

Kerry always tried to reach down with her legs to see if she would be able to stamp on Lisa. I would put the hood up and all the way to town Kerry would rhythmically bump her feet up and down on the pram hood, but at least Lisa would stay in once piece.

Trying to have a conversation with mom was nigh impossible as children have this antenai that hears what they shouldn't and does not hear what they should. When adults are on the phone for example, they are all counting teeth as we try and concentrate on our conversation and chase them away at the same time. In this case the moment I drew breath to speak, that was the signal to do whatever they could to be heard over us. It is the signal to kick the hood harder, someone would drop a bottle and shriek for its retrieval and the one in the pram to schreech in fear for this abominably noisy and disorganised world she has been born into. The performance is worthy of an Oscar nomination. No wonder Lisa copes so well with turmoil today!

We then find a parking lot, no parkades, those only came later when I was not in great need of them anymore. Alighting from a vehicle parked in a parking space is hazadous as children run blindly into the road, never for the pavement.

We get Shirley into her harness - yes, I know, dogs also use them, I was told often enough, with disapproving looks. Tied her to the pram, harnessed Kerry in the pushchair (don't say anything), my mom pushed them and I pushed Lisa in her huge hughly sprung pram once I had eased it out of the back seat without tearing the upholstery. It was a good quality pram because Kerry never did manage to mangle the hood and Lisa remained unscathed.

Mom and I looked at one another with loaded looks that said "whose idea was this". We go from shop to shop with our loud and demanding little enterage until the whole fun expedition becomes too much for all of us, we cut the shopping short (a common practice in those days) unloaded the car, put our little hells angels to sleep and sat down for a much needed cup of tea and, yes, a proper visit!.

A few days later, mom arrived at the door, she had with her a present for me. "I am never going shopping with you again - not ever, but this will make it easier for you!" It was a twin pushchair, seen above - she never had to come shopping with me again after that and we visited in the comfort of home, the best place to be with toddlers where they are happier anyway. They only enjoyed shopping many years later with me and my purse in tow!

I used the twin pram for 4 years. I became expert at pushing both prams an once without them colliding. In the photo Lisa (left) was 18 months and Kerry (right) was 2 and a half.

I gave the pram to a mother of 10 month old twin boys when we left the country, so it was put to very very good use.

To moms who have been there!

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE SHORT CHAPTERS

1.
I walk down the street.
there is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in
I am lost...I am helpless
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

2
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It takes a long time to get out.

3
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in...it's a habit.
My eyes are open
I know where I am
It is my fault
I get out immediately.

4
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

5
I walk down another street.

by Portia Nelson