My stepdaughter, Carol Anne, has always had a caring heart for children. She has no biological children, but she adopted two girls when they were preteens. They are now adults with children of their own.
While she was raising those two girls, she took into foster care a 6-month-old boy whose mother had lost custody of him. His name was Raymond, and over the next 15 months he became one of the family, and was greatly loved by Carol Anne and by my wife and me.
We thought of him as a grandchild. My wife often babysat him to give Carol Anne a break, as he was often sick with colds and other minor health problems.
Carol Anne loved Raymond so much that she sought to adopt him. But before she could complete the process, his mother came back into the picture and regained custody. The day before he was to return to his mother, my wife took Raymond to the local mall to get pictures taken. This was Sept. 11, 2001. Very few people were there because everyone was at home, glued to the TV, watching the tragedy unfold. My wife entertained Raymond by riding up and down an empty escalator.
It was heartbreaking for Carol Anne to let Raymond go, and for my wife and me to lose a grandchild. For many years after we wondered about him, where he was and how he was doing. We tried to accept that we would probably never know.
Twenty years later, on New Year’s Day of 2021, my wife answered the phone and the caller said, “This is Raymond.” Many joyful tears were shed.
Raymond had no memory of any of us, but when Carol Anne had given him to the social worker to take to his mother, she also gave a box that contained some of his favorite toys, some clothes and a few pictures of our family, including Carol Anne, her daughters, and my wife and me.
When Raymond turned 18, his mother gave him the box and told him about his time in foster care. He tried on and off for the next two years to find us, but it was not until he told his girlfriend about his quest to discover this part of his past that she made progress within a couple of hours. It was all done using Facebook.
To top it off, Raymond lived in central Oregon. We had moved to Woodland when we retired while Carol Anne still lived in Riverside, Calif., under a different last name since she had married. We immediately made plans for Carol Anne to fly to Portland where we would pick her up and drive to meet Raymond and his girlfriend.
What a wonderful experience that was. The last time we saw him he was an infant, and now he was a fine looking young man with a great work ethic and a bright future. Still, we could see in his face traces of his infant self.
This past June, Raymond married his girlfriend and we were invited to the wedding at his mother’s house. Carol Anne worried how she and his mother would react to each other, but when they met, Raymond’s mother said, “If it were not for you we wouldn’t be here today.”
They immediately bonded and got along well. Whatever Raymond’s mother’s problem was that caused her to lose custody, she overcame it and was a great host and planner of the wedding.
With so many stories of foster care failures, this one is a success.
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