Nate's Stomach Knot

Nate walked into the large meeting room. Looking around, he could see that the room was much larger than he thought it would be. The walls were made from cinder blocks yet painted with bright primary colors and there were toys all over the room. In the center of the room was a very large table that had far fewer chairs at in then you would expect.

On one end of the table was a large heavy-set man who looked as if his hair had not been combed or washed in a few days and his new caseworker. Nate had only seen her once about 3 weeks before this when she came by the foster home and introduced herself.

Nate was led into the room and sat at the table with Children and Youth Services people to his left. He laid his ThunderCats folder on the table and placed his pencil next to it. While he was only 10 years old, he had noticed both CYS people had their pencils next to their notepads and wanted to at least look as if he knew what was going on.

As he adjusted his pencil to be exactly parallel to his folder, he started to have a knot form in his stomach. Why was he here today? While he was not sad about missing school, he still was not sure what was going on.

The door opened and in walked his older sister Beth. Nate and Beth looked at each other and with their eyes a whole conversation played out. Why were we here, who is that man and why is our councilor here?

Next in walked Mary, she was Nate and Beth’s therapist. She was a very nice lady, young to most but seemed middle aged to Nate. She had long blonde hair and the brightest blue eyes he had ever seen. Mary was very kind but made Nate uncomfortable seeing her here. Did something happen? Were they in trouble?

After what seemed to be an hour of silence, the heavyset man cleared his throat, “Nate, Beth, we are having this meeting to talk to you about your placement” He croaked out as if he had my knot in his throat. “There is one more person that will be joining us, but I have to warn you that you cannot get out of your seats until we say you can” he cautioned.

Nate and Beth both looked at each other. It had to be their Mom that was joining!

Their mother entered the room and to her right was a sign language interpreter. Had his mother lost her hearing, Nate wondered as he fought the desire to run to her and hug her.

She signed the universal symbol for I love you and sat down at the table.

The heavyset man finally did a round of introductions and we learned that his name was Mark.

Mark started to address Beth and Nate.

“The goal of any removal from the home is to reunify the family as quickly as possible and there are times that reunification takes longer or just can’t happen at all.” He spoke to Beth and Nate as if all those words were easy to not only understand the meaning of, but to comprehend them as well. They were not.

“What is Mark talking about?” Nate thought and as he looked up to Beth, he saw a little fear or even defeat in his sister’s eyes.

As Mark spoke Nate looked around the room more closely, those vibrant primary colors were faded and chipped. The toys were a collection of old, broken toys and the whole room as kind of shabby and cheap looking.

Mark went on the state “After many long talks with your mom and your therapist, we have decided that reunification is not on option here and your mom has decided to release her parental rights so that we can move forward with adoption.”

The words hit Nates neck faster than his eardrum and he could feel his skin tighten and his knot grow. “Adoption?” he heard Beth choke out of her 12 year old mouth.

Nate instantly thought this was a mistake. When he had been woken up in the middle of the night by police and removed from his home, he was told to pack a small suitcase because he would be gone only a few days and he believed them. Those few days turned into weeks and those weeks have now been almost 9 months. He still believed though that he would be going back home. All Nate wanted to do was go home and now he was starting to realize that was not going to happen. Now all he wanted to do was scream and run to his mother for reassurance. He knew he could not though.

Nate opened his Thundercats folder and set it up so that he could hide his head from everyone.

Before he put his head down to cry, he looked at his mom and asked “Don’t you love us?” and he could see the pain in her eyes and knew that this decision was going to change his life and the lives of his sister and mother.

Nate put his head on the table as Mark still talked to the children as if they were grown-ups.

“If I were a grown-up, I would punch this man in his mouth!” Nate thought to himself.

He had lost his home, been placed into a foster home that was in a different side of town then he had even been to and his sister was put in a home in another city, now he was losing his mom.

He looked up at his folder and saw Lion-o, Lord of the ThunderCats and thought about the fact that Lion-o had lost his parents too and if he could manage without a Mom, maybe Nate could too.

But the problem is that Lion-o and The ThunderCats are not real, this is.

Nate looked over his folder at his sister who was crying and to his Mom who was crying as well. He knew no mater how much pleading and crying he did, this would not change, and he was going to have to be strong. But before he showed how brave he could be, he needed to be a little kid right now and he started to cry.

Nate was not able to keep track of the conversation that Mark was having and instead looked to his Mother and Sister and the three cried and had another long conversation with just their eyes.

As Mark asked if Nate or Beth had any questions, Beth said no and Nate asked, “Will we ever see our Mom again?”

Mark’s eyes finally seemed to soften a bit and he looked at their mom and said that he was not sure.

Nates life had changed the night he was removed from his home and now his life was going to change again.

Nate looked at Mary and asked if he could hug his Mom?

Mary looked at Mark who nodded yes

Both Beth and Nate jumped up and ran to their Mom. Both were mixed with pain and anger and sadness. They both kissed her and hugged her and told her that they would be brave and through the interpreter their mom asked Beth to always look out for Nate and for Nate to always look out for Beth.

Each one of them made the promise that neither of them knew would be broken in less than a year.

Nate clung to his mother trying to breath in her cigarette and perfume smell. Desperately trying to put that smell memory into a safe place in his mind.

What was going to happen to their Mom now? Who would take care of her?

Slowly, Nate realized that Mary was starting to pull him away from his mother. He did not want to go. He was becoming madder and madder that Mary would not let him hug her more. He turned to scream at Mary and Looking up he saw she too was crying, and his anger slowly passed. He knew at that moment that he needed to let his Mom go. This had to be harder for her than for them. He lost a mom today, she lost two kids.

Nate was not alone in his pain but would learn rather quickly that he was in fact going to be alone once his sister moved across the country with family and he was left all alone.

But that is another story.