A Special Person With a Very Special Touch

She was round-faced and beautiful. Dark hair, tipped and dabbed with flashes of gold, bounced back and forth across her forehead as her head turned from side to side.

Everything about her was round. In her chair, she rolled like Humpty Dumpty. Tiny dimples dotted her fingers; brown eyes, like polished agates, darted from face to face, missing no one. I ached to touch her.

Traci is a beautiful baby girl whom I met in a restaurant in Encinitas. She was there to celebrate two occasions, her 6-month birthday and her release from the intensive care unit of a local hospital. Carried past my table, she seemed to be spilling out of the arms of her mother. Her gaily striped jump suit intensified her dark beauty; her uninhibited stare of curiosity enhanced her appeal. She caught my glance and grabbed my heart.

Her mother, an attractive blonde, was laughing and joking with her, yet the young woman’s attention was clearly shared with a much smaller child in the arms of a friend. The tiny babe was also beautiful, but fair and dainty in sharp contrast to Traci’s dark elegance.

My curiosity vied with my sense of courtesy. Finally, sheer nerve won out. I reached out my arms to the adjoining table, and the young woman handed over Traci. The obvious proximity of their ages compelled me to ask: “Are they both yours?”

Traci’s “mother” explained that she was the children’s foster mother. In another life, I had been on the staff of the Children’s Aid Society of New York, where I worked with foster parents. I had never met one like Jennifer.

Back then, 43 years ago, a young, single woman would never have received a license to become a foster mother. I never met such an exuberant, vivacious foster mother; I never met one with long blond hair and long red nails. I never met one who gave up her sports car for a station wagon to make room for other people’s kids, who filled her house with baby things because she enjoyed taking care of children in limbo. I never met one who cared so genuinely about her charges.

Jennifer explained that she took in children under 2 and had them for brief periods of time. When my husband, who by this time was holding the tiny one, asked, “How does it feel when you have to give them up,” she responded soberly that it was not easy. Since 1979, Jennifer has cared for 22 babies. She cannot handle more than a few a year because it is so hard to let go.

As she spoke, Jennifer gazed lovingly from one child to the other. Clear, honest affection, and she had been caring for these children for only a few days, a week at the most. Jennifer is special, just one of those people who really loves kids--anyone’s kids.

My mind was boggled with questions, but I did not have to ask many of them. Jennifer was an enthusiastic advocate of foster parenthood and eager to share her experience.

In 1979, she was injured in an automobile accident and spent considerable time in the hospital. Convalescence was a bore. A doctor friend suggested that Jennifer visit the children’s ward. Once there, she was put to work. What heart-warming, heart-breaking work!

There were babies abandoned, abused and exposed to drugs, all sharing a common need to be held, cuddled, warmed heart to heart and loved back to health. Jennifer was hooked.

Getting licensed was not easy--she was about 25--but Jennifer proved her sincerity and her ability. Prior studies in psychology joined her obvious love and caring, and she became part of San Diego County’s select team of special people who are willing to care for children in trouble and in need.

Children ought not be left, must not be left in limbo while we adults delay decisions about their future. While adults make up their minds, children continue to need the things that only adults can give them: love, nurturing and security. It takes adults like Jennifer who are willing to care for a child and never keep it, to love a child and give it up. It is a difficult assignment.

Jennifer suggested that in our grandchild-less state, my husband and I should become foster parents. It sounds so enticing--yet my tummy twists into knots at the thought of loving a baby and giving it up. I could not. I am not like Jennifer.

What happened to the round-faced Traci that brought her to a restaurant in Encinitas to celebrate a half-year birthday in the arms of a foster mother? Her parents were caught in an alien problem--Traci’s mother, an undocumented immigrant, her father, an American citizen. Traci can stay, but Mom must go. And Dad? He is only half in, half out of his baby’s life. For now, the county believes that Traci, who was abandoned by her panic-stricken mother, is safer with Jennifer. She came to Jennifer in time to be hospitalized. But when we met her, Traci was in full bloom, looking exceedingly robust.

The younger child who slept in my husband’s arms had prenatal exposure to drugs and needed to be watched and cared for carefully. I saw her tiny fist tremble, ever so slightly, as she slept--a pretty child in ugly trouble.

Our lunchtime encounter with the children and their foster mother left me in deep thought. They had crept into my heart and jolted my mind, so tiny and yet so many problems to face. They ask only to be stroked, fed, warmed and protected. Without Jennifer and others who care for foster children, these beautiful babies would have had to settle for so much less.

Despite Jennifer’s flattery and urging, I know I am too old to become a foster parent. But I do hope that more Jennifers will be found, because I know that there are many more Tracis.