The Theory of... Stephen Hawking
Fostering has been a gift from God. I will not mince words there. Sure it has opened my eyes and given me sympathy but more importantly: empathy. The dictionary defines sympathy as having feelings of pity and such, whereas empathy is to understand the pain. Now it can be easy to to be critical of my thoughts here but give me a moment to take this a step further. I certainly have no idea what it is like to be abused as a child nor can I understand the pain that a toddler or infant feels when they are shaken to the point where the retinas in their eyes are detached, or when a child is stabbed with a sharp object by a drunk parent and I certainly have no clue just what it's like to have a surgery for a G Tube or a trach and I cannot fathom what it must be like to be paralyzed and in no way able to communicate but I have been a foster parent long enough to recognize fear and we all have known fear. Kathy and I started fostering around 2005 and what started out with simple requests t...