Loosing Jason

Left to right, Lauren (2), a cousin, Jason (5), a cousin

When I was five I watched my brother be taken away by social services. It happened much like a scene from a movie. My sister and I sat, each of us with one of our new parents. I, with our new mother and Lauren with our new father. The people came into our new home and took our brother and in one day we went from being a family to being broken. What I remember about that day is sadness and confusion. What I mostly felt was abandonment. As if this 11 year old boy could do anything about what was happening to him or to me. I remember watching people that had handed us over to our new family, take my brother back. He wasn't going to be a part of our new beginning. He wasn't going to have the chance I had to grow up in a better situation. I can still see it as if it were yesterday.

Jason was older than Lauren and I. When we were taken from our mother he was 5 or 6, so he had already been through that once and remembered it, I am sure, much the way I remember him being taken from us. My sister was not even 3 and I was only 7 months old when we were all three put in foster care together. By all accounts and recognition, Jason was our protector. He was the quintessential big brother. I don't think Lauren and I knew how much that day affected us until later in life when my sister began to have trouble adjusting and when I, after having my own daughter I began to question "what the heck happened" and "how could a mother leave her children".

That day is forever grained in my memory. It is one of my earliest childhood memories. I didn't see my brother again much after that. I remember a few meetings here and there and I remember him giving me an E.T. figurine once. But mostly I just remember my adopted parents keeping us from him. I didn't know why they did that when I was a kid, and as an adult it just made me terribly mad. Many years would go by before I saw Jason again.

The story of these foster kids has many different layers, adversities, tragedies, losses and triumphs. The story of my life is one of searching and revealing. It is a story of forever trying to replace Jason in my life. Many relationships and friendships have come and gone and through it all I have realized that my entire life and the outcome of my future relationships were changed on that day. My trust for people, for authority figures, for loved ones, for people who said they loved me; was gone. It would be years before I would learn to trust again.