I am Lucia, I am 19 years old and I grew up in a family that made foster care a fundamental part of their lives. My parents started fostering before I was even born. This experience has shaped me in so many ways and what I am today is also thanks to my experience with foster care; in fact, it has taught me important values and given me valuable lessons that I could not have learned if I had not grown up this way.
It was always difficult to explain to those who had never had this experience what it meant for me to live with people who were always new; children or young people whom I called brothers or sisters and whom until recently I did not even know. And it was precisely when the fateful question “How many brothers or sisters do you have?” came up that I felt most at a loss. It was always difficult to try to give an answer, but depending on the moment, or my desire to explain, I would answer differently. Sometimes I would simply mention the names of my biological brother and sister, while at other times I would try to explain about the existence of other “heart” siblings, aware that I could not always be completely clear.
Nevertheless, I learned a lot from my experience as a foster sister. Growing up alongside people from difficult situations, I developed deep empathy. I learned to put myself in the shoes of others and to understand that people can react to circumstances in different ways. What I tried to do over the years was to make my sisterhood available and try to offer to all those who came, even for a short time, into my life, a demonstration of authentic, free love, unrelated to blood relations.
I have tried to share with them the good fortune that unpredictably has been granted to me.
We have learned to be prepared to have to continually shift family balances to give space and value to those whose balance has probably never been there. The dynamic nature of my family, with the arrival and departure of foster siblings over the years, has taught me to be open to change and to find stability in flexibility.
I have experienced that life can be unpredictable but with love, support and determination it is possible to overcome the greatest challenges.
I have learned to value the little things and be grateful for what I have; the experiences of those who have walked with me for a stretch have made me realize how fortunate I am in my life and pushed me to never take anything for granted.
It was not always easy and it still is not easy to have to share one’s own space, time and parents, especially if with people with whom one does not have a particular affinity, but that is precisely the beauty of this experience: living together with different people, each with their own life experiences, constitutes a source of mutual enrichment. The truthfulness of this experience, and perhaps the special feature that could make it accessible to anyone, lies in being spontaneous, in continuing to live family life as usual, and in trying to introduce the acolyte to his or her everyday family life. Trying to give him a chance to see life from a different perspective.
Living within a foster family for me means never feeling alone, feeling safe, in that place that not only you call home, but also everyone who can find a safe haven there, even if only momentarily.
And it is when you spend Christmas together, in the company of people who might not have even celebrated that Christmas, that you realize that “the greatest gift is being together.”
