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Show A4 Castle Valley Review, February 2009 VIEWPOINT Opinion and Letters to the Editor They Called Me Dad James L. Davis My View From the Publisher T hey called me Dad. We had never been quite so nervous going into a McDonalds before, and it had nothing to do with the food. We weren’t even there to eat. We were there to meet the two newest members of our family. The call that would change our lives had come the night before as we sat in the gymnasium watching our daughter’s basketball game. It was the second call of the day with the same subject and the subject had me and my wife holding hands as we watched our daughter race up and down the basketball court. While we were physically watching the game our minds were a million miles away, each wondering about that first phone call, the phone call where we learned that there were two young girls who needed a home. We had been foster parents for more than a year and our first experience in foster care had been a painful one as we found ourselves facing a reality we had never imagined before; that love cannot always fix broken hearts or destroyed innocence. We had decided to try being foster parents again after a great deal of quiet conversations in the dead of night and a whole lot of prayer. But when the call came that there were children, sisters, who needed a home, we weren’t as prepared as we thought we were. We begged for time, a little more time to decide whether we were brave enough, strong enough, to take on such a responsibility again. But there was no time and during the second phone conversation in the middle of the basketball game the case worker explained that the children, already in foster care, needed to be placed in a new home as soon as possible. So during the game we held hands, said a quick prayer and told the case worker the girls would have a home with us. Less than 24 hours later we pulled up in front of the McDonalds to meet the girls and their foster parents, who loved them but knew they could not provide the adop- tive home they needed. We got there before them and my wife, daughter and I had time to pace anxiously before they arrived. We slipped away to buy sheets and blankets for the bunk beds we had hurriedly bought earlier that day and when we returned the pickup outside piled high with boxes and two girls bicycles told us that they had arrived. My wife, always the braver of the two of us when it comes to facing the really frightening things in life (rejection, heartache, frightened little girls facing the prospect of a new home), led the way. Inside the brightly lit McDonald’s, standing far enough away from the counter to not be pestered for their order, was a couple much like us and two girls anxiously looking here and there for the new faces in their lives. A 3-year-old and an 8-year-old, wide eyed, beautiful and not nearly as afraid it seemed as we were. We met the foster parents, exchanged hellos and handshakes and the 3-year-old, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flush from a nap only recently awakened from, stared up at my wife. “Are you my new Mom?” she asked, her voice high with excitement and my wife knelt beside her. “If you want me to be.” My wife replied and the little girl nodded and with that the matter was settled. She took her by the hand and pulled her toward the play land. With nervous laughs we were able to convince these two beautiful little girls that they could wait until after they ate to play and when food was ordered and delivered we sat in the play land, two sets of foster parents, two foster children and our youngest daughter, and tried to get to know each other. Very little food was eaten before the children had to explore the play land and we let them run while we parents talked. We learned that the girls were healthy and they were happy and that their foster parents loved them very much. They had worried as much about the kind of home they were going to as we had worried about what kind of home they had come from. We were all relieved by what we had learned sitting on the plastic seats inside the McDonald’s. My wife got up to go for more napkins and the bright eyed little 3-year-old called down from the top level of the play land. “Hey Mom, look.” Her previous foster mother looked up at her and I watched as a confused look passed over the little girl’s face as she mouthed the words “you’re not my Mom,” and searched for my wife. Twenty minutes before she had walked into McDonald’s hand-in-hand with her and she had been Mom, but now that title had been transferred to my wife. I wondered at that fact, and felt a little ache inside as I realized that for these girls Mom and Dad meant whoever was taking care of them. It was a title for them and the meaning of those words, two of the most important words there were for children, had been stolen from them. And a few minutes later, when other children in the play land had hurt the little one’s feelings, it wasn’t to her “old” mom or her “new” Mom that she went to for comfort. Instead she went in a corner by herself, pulled her legs up to her chest and cried away her hurt feelings. Her sister went to her, convinced her that everything was OK and she was soon playing and laughing again. “She cries a lot sometimes,” she said, shaking her head softly as older sisters will over younger sisters. With the food eaten and the play land explored, we transferred the girl’s belongings to our vehicle. The foster parents gave tearful goodbyes to the girls and we drove away. Later that night as we tucked them into bed they both gave me a hug and said “goodnight Dad.” They called me Dad. Right now, for them, the word may not hold the meaning that it should. Right now it is only a title. But I know what Dad should mean, what Dad does mean. It will be up to me to earn the right to truly be called their Dad. (For more information about becoming a foster/adoptive parent call Kobi Marchello at 1-877-5064666 or visit utahfostercare.org.) Welcome to the Castle Valley Review James L. Davis Welcome to the Castle Valley Review. For the past two years we have produced The Emery County Review as a weekly publication and at the end of 2008 we decided to expand our coverage area to include the people of Carbon County as well and to switch to a monthly format. The end result is the Castle Valley Review. We hope you enjoy our little publication. We have spent the past two years showing our readers that we are a different kind of newspaper and as we expand to Carbon County we hope to demonstrate that we truly live by our motto: “You’re News to Us.” We like to consider ourselves a people paper far more than a news paper. There are plenty of news organizations out there that consider it their duty to chase the bad news, to expose the latest scandal or crime or depressing trend and I would be the last to argue against such a calling. But at the Castle Valley Review we consider it our calling to spread the good news whenever we can find it and with equal enthusiasm. We will report on events that impact the communities we serve, but we are unabashed cheerleaders for the people, places and lifestyle of the Castle Valley and we will celebrate it each month in the Castle Valley Review. If you have news you want to share, we would like to hear about it. Our hope is that when reading the Castle Valley Review, you will not only be informed and entertained, but that when you put the paper down you won’t be depressed and might even have a reason to smile. Simple? Yes. Corny? Definitely. When we decided to expand the newspaper and go to a monthly format, we knew that in order to serve the community we needed to offer a source for information that would be timelier for news events than we could provide in a monthly publication. For that reason we have completely redesigned our website, www.castlevalleyreview.com to provide the news of the area on a daily basis. News items relevant to Carbon and Emery counties will be posted online as they become available, including society items such as weddings, missionary announcements, graduations, anniversaries, etc. We will also post online all obituary notices as they become available and any community event notices that are sent our way. All such notices will be provided online as a community service and free of charge, including obituaries. It is our intent to be your source for community news, both with our newspaper and online and we consider your society announcement a news item. We don’t charge for printing the news. In the print version of the Castle Valley Review there will be a collection of all of the society items we have posted online throughout the month and the obituaries. We invite anyone who has a significant event coming up to submit your item to us for the online version of the newspaper and after the event let us know how your wedding or event turned out. We will expand upon your announcement for the print version. For Continued on Next Page. |