MY views on an archaic system of child care. I raise the quesions, even if I don't have the answer. I feel that in my heart that one must shout out the questions so that others will help them find an answer. Or if not find at least start questioning their own self.

  The power of a word can define a persons life.  It took aging for me to truly understand this fact.  All my life I have been a reader and writer and at times a worshiper of words great and small.  As a small child I remember my mother having a set of the classics up on a shelf above my head.  The covers of these were a warm brown and beige with gold leafing at the edges of the pages.  I would drag a chair over to the shelf's and take the books down and just look at these markings.  I knew even before I could read that there was magic in books, Magic in words.
       I did not understand the true power of a word until I look back now in quiet reflection.  I am sure others would debate my choice of what I feel to be one of the strongest words on this planet.  But here in this essay I hope to prove my point.
       My choice of the one word that has destroyed hindered and choked the life out of too many young sprits is foster.  I am well aware that in the context I speak of this word it means to give parental care and to nurture, but when it is coupled with the word care it takes on a new meaning to those who live within the confining systems of foster care.
       Children who find their self in this system due to no fault of their own are branded for life.  Some thrive other faultier and too many fall under the weight of the word.
       Having been raised in a family who took in foster children I understand what it means to be one.  I saw the sisters I loved come to out family and leave.  I lived with others of them to adulthood who's familles could not take them home for one reason or another.
       I saw these sisters even the ones who returned to their families die at a much to young age and I wonder if they would still be alive today if they had never been foster children.  Do not get me wrong I am not blaming the system for the choices they made in their lives I can only point to the truths as I see them.
       Loving my sisters as I did I took their children in when they died.  I knew in my heart that I would never enter these beloved children into the system that I saw as the means to the end of their mothers lives.
       I have had my own personal guilt over the years that maybe I short changed my own birth children and them by sharing what I had with my wards but guilt does not mean I had regrets.
       These wonderful men and women who brought joy pride and laughter to my life as adults have proven me right.
       They were never tainted by the word foster and I am sure my sisters both of my sisters would be pleased by this fact. 
       Foster has become an over used word and in so many ways has lost it's true meaning.  Then again maybe in it's time it met the meaning but today's precious children seem to need more then to just be fostered.
       Today's children need to know they are cherished, that when they come into a family they will be held dear, shown and will share in all the affection that the family has to offer.  That more then their bodies will be nourished.  I would like them to know and feel that their bodies minds and souls are of matter.
       Cherished children know they have a voice and that they will be heard. Their self worth will come from within.