A Hundred Lessons in Love

Saying goodbye to a child you love never gets easier, according to the couple who have done so more than 100 times over their career as foster parents. They’ve welcomed wounded children into their home, poured their hearts into healing their hurts and then hugged them tightly through tears for what they knew would be the last time. They’ve done it over and over again. And after reaching their 80s, they still aren’t done. So what made them do it? What kept them going? And what made it worth it?

Mavis and Jim built their home around the clamor of children — four biological children to be exact. When their youngest started school, however, the house got uncomfortably quiet.  

Jim was a logger by trade. He loved children but spent days at a time out in the field, often leaving Mavis to run the household alone. This left Jim surprised but delighted when she proposed the idea of filling their home once again by fostering. He smiled at the memory of bringing home their first placement — both their enthusiasm and naivety.

The same joy they felt as they welcomed each of their own babies showered that first newborn who joined the family with only a few hours' notice. One of 11 siblings herself, Mavis knew only how a heart grew and warmed with the addition of another child. For several months, she poured into that baby, treating him as her own for as long as she could.

When the day finally came to hand the baby over to the childless couple who were to adopt him, both Mavis’s and Jim’s hearts broke.

“Of course we fell in love. We were truly devastated when he left. How could we not be? I’d never had to let go of a child before,” Mavis said. “But I knew after that first one that I’d be doing this forever — as long as there was always another one who needed me.”

The depth of that need showed itself in a pair of young brothers named Ernest and Clay. Never had Jim and Mavis seen children so surprised and delighted to have beds of their own. Over the course of their first day in the couple’s care, the boys exulted over the most basic amenities — opening and closing dresser drawers that held more clothing than they’d ever seen; flushing the toilet over and over, grinning with delight as clean water filled the bowl each time.

“I didn’t realize just how rough some of these kids had it before coming to us,” Mavis said.

Jim and Mavis went on to receive children in every state of removal — babies in drug withdrawal straight from the NICU, toddlers with nothing but the clothes on their backs and empty bellies.  

Often, they’d receive multiple kids at one time, barely making it home with a set of siblings before getting another call for an infant. One summer, their home reached its bursting point as they cared for six children, all under the age of six.

Thankfully, Mavis and Jim had a tightknit family, shaped in the backwoods of the Swan Valley by a shared conviction to love those who felt unloved—even when it was messy.

“We went into this thinking we would just love these poor children and fix them right up, but that’s not how this works. They’re people, not projects,” Mavis said.

Once, Jim and Mavis were halfway through the process of butchering an elk when the phone rang. A 2-year-old girl lay in the hospital alone. She was the lone survivor of a devastating car accident that had killed both of her parents. Over 70 miles separated the couple and the toddler confined to her bed by a brutally broken leg. So for three weeks, Mavis made the trip every day to visit the child until she was finally discharged into her new family’s care.

Fragile and sore, little Paula arrived to find her boisterous new siblings bounding through the house. Her spica cast, huge and heavy, held her captive in a space she was eager to explore. The mass of plaster proved no match for her siblings’ determination, however, and before long, she was being hoisted onto horseback for rides and hauled around in a padded Red Flyer wagon.

Rather than discourage the toddler’s adventures, Jim brought a mechanic’s dolly in from his shop. Outfitted with wheels, Paula gleefully followed her older siblings by rolling from room to room on her belly. Her initial two-week placement stretched into months. Her cast came off, and she began to toddle in earnest around the same time that Jim and Mavis finalized her adoption.

The mud-eating, toothpaste-wearing realities of their household became fond, funny anecdotes that lightened the large family’s holidays. Each of the dozens of calls from the local school principal prompted the family to lean further in and find out what each individual child needed to thrive. Terrifying emergency room visits and gut-wrenching goodbyes became rallying points where older children and siblings offered transport, meals and prayer.  

“There are people who would love to consider foster care if it didn’t hurt so much, but that always kind of rubbed me the wrong way,” Mavis said. “I’ve cried buckets of tears. But you know what always makes me feel better? Opening the door to the next one.”

Whatever the next brought with them, Mavis and Jim committed to each child as they did to each other. Their 68 years of marriage have been colored by over 50 years of fostering— through time apart while Jim was in the field logging and time together caring for wounded children in their home, the couple clung to each other.

“We’re a team. We stick together no matter what, and the children know it,” Jim said.

Their devotion to one another has empowered husband and wife to continuously pour into the lives of over 100 children. It wasn’t until their most recent addition, a precious little girl named Annabella, that they even considered closing their license despite their advancing age.

Annabella was five years old with several foster homes already behind her when she joined the family. Mavis still remembers her first Sunday with them. Annabella had never been to church, and she raced forward when the pastor called all the children to the front.

“Guess what!” she plied the preacher.

“What?” he obligingly asked.

“Chicken butt!” Annabella shouted, beaming out at the congregation and her mortified new family.  

Mavis shook her head, smiling at the memory. “That didn't even hold a candle to some of the things she said to her teachers at school.”

Annabella had been to school only the handful of times her older brother managed to get her there. Just 14 himself, he’d been her primary caregiver before they and their siblings entered foster care. Most of their lessons up to that point had been in the art of survival. Reading and hand raising could hardly help sustain a child trapped in a home with a string of abusive men who’d left her birth mother black and blue.

One such man drew police to their door, resulting in the removal of all five children. Though Annabella was finally safe, it took some time to adjust to her new life.

In the beginning, Annabella lashed out against the unfamiliar structure and confusion she felt in the classroom. She hid from her teachers, distracted her classmates and expressed herself loudly with language most of her peers had never heard before.  

But Jim and Mavis met her fear and frustration with understanding and patience forged by many years of foster care. With time, they traded tense, mid-day phone calls from teachers for spirited reports directly from Annabelle when she got home from school.  

Then came a call that Jim and Mavis don’t get every day. Annabella’s caseworker informed them that her birth mother’s parental rights were soon to be terminated. The girl needed a forever family.

The couple hesitated only long enough to make sure that their older children would step up to care for Annabella should anything happen to them. With a resounding ‘yes,’ from the rest of the family, Mavis and Jim, now in their 80s, adopted their youngest daughter.

Jim and Mavis’ only regret is not having at least one other child for Annabella to grow up with. The love that has spread like wildfire across five decades and into the lives of countless children has left its final spark to kindle and burn in the heart of this special little girl.

Although, Mavis hinted with a sly smile, if they got a call to take another child tomorrow, they would be hard-pressed to say no.