Seeing our new ‘little brother’ for the first time. He points “There’s a rock for Jah!”

It was springtime 1980. Once we had agreed to see Jah, the little boy who might come to complete our family, Pat his social worker sprang into action.  She set up a date for D. and myself to visit the foster family.  They lived in the South of England in Sussex.  I had a few telephone calls with the foster mother and learned quite a bit about this little boy before our visit. It was a long train journey for us from the Midlands where we lived, but arrangements were soon made.

Image courtesy of Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It was quite unnerving, waiting in the railway car park. I could feel myself trembling with a mixture of fear and excitement. Any minute the van bringing our future “little brother” would appear.  There were several false alarms, but in the end a van drove up. It was full of children.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A little brown boy with dreadlocks was sitting on an older boy’s lap.  The small one was staring anxiously out of the window.  It was as if he sensed that we were significant people, even though I knew that the foster mother would not have spelled out why we were coming to visit.

Throughout the day Jah peered at us and seemed content that we watched all his activities.  He was keen to show us how far he could kick a full-sized football.  (He had prodigious strength in his legs!)  He also tried to impress us by his clever wielding of a croquet bat that was as tall as he was.

When we sat indoors talking to the grownups, he whizzed endlessly past the window, checking to see whether we were impressed.  We were.

The foster mother saw that Jah was interested in us.  She told him that we had three children.  She asked whether we had brought a picture of them. Of course we had and we produced it.

The photo showed all three children sitting on a big rock in Scotland.  He studied it carefully for a long time and then mentioned something that nobody else would have seen. He pointed to a small rock right next to them and said “There’s a rock for Jah”.  The simplicity of this statement moved all the adults.  We could sense his deep desire to belong.

D. and I felt that this little boy would fit in well into our family.  We knew that we should not rush into anything, but made arrangements for the next step.

The entire foster family, all six of them plus Jah, would come and visit us in Leicester, so that he could meet Sam, Lucy and Anna.  If plans were to go ahead for him to join our family, it was necessary for the foster brothers and sisters to see where he was going.  Each of those children had in their own way helped Jah through the transition from his original home, via the hospital, and in the hustle and bustle of their rich family life. They would need to feel that he would be able to settle happily in his new environment with his ‘forever family’.

Moving little Jah to a new family was going to be a life-changing event for all of us.