I have been meaning to write this for years. We are not good at saying it in person. We are usually on our way out of your front door, late for the next visit, with your biscuit in our hand.
So. Thank you.
For the phone call
Thank you for picking up at twenty to six on a Friday, when you knew what it would be.
For saying, “How old?” and “Has he eaten?” and “Give me an hour to make the bed up,” in that order. For not asking the questions we could not yet answer.
For the landing light you left on.
For the first night
Thank you for the child who arrived with a carrier bag, or a bin bag, or nothing, and who left your house months later with a suitcase that had their name on it.
For working out that he would not eat at the table but would eat on the stairs, and letting him eat on the stairs.
For the night light, and the second night light, and sitting outside the bedroom door until two.
For never once saying, “After everything I’ve done for you.”
For the things that are not in the report
We write that a placement is “stable” and that the child is “settled”. We do not write that you learned to plait hair from a video. That you know which cereal, which cup, which side of the bed the teddy goes.
That you went to the parents’ evening and sat on the tiny chair.
That you kept the school photograph on your fridge after they had moved on, and that it is still there.
We see it. We have no box on the form to put it in.
For the meetings
Thank you for sitting in rooms full of professionals and being treated as though you were not one.
You know this child better than any of us. You were there at three in the morning. You should be asked first and you are often asked last, and you come back anyway.
For the goodbye
Thank you for the hardest part, which is that the job is to love a child completely and then hand them over.
To their mum, who has worked so hard to get them back. To their nan. To the family who will adopt them. Sometimes to another carer, because it was not working, and you were brave enough to say so.
You pack the bag. You put the photographs in. You wave from the step. Then you go inside and change the bed.
I do not know how you do it. I have watched you do it and I still do not know.
What I would like for you
More money, to start with. More respite, more say, and a phone number that somebody answers.
A social worker who rings back. I know. I am sorry. We are trying.
And to be told, by somebody, that years from now there will be a grown man who does not remember your name, but who always leaves the landing light on for his own children.
That was you.
Thank you.
Maisie x
Next in the notebook: What the file leaves out