Patrice Keet & Melissa LaHommedieu: From Foster Care to Family

29:06because essentially when I think about like my success that's essentially where I'm at I'm a functioning member of society now and I'll always have more work and even if it's just maintenance like the same way that you maintain a brand new car we do that for ourselves too but that's the end goal we all want to be well-rounded whole people who feel like we have a purpose and can support that our dreams and our goals and contribute to others you have insights on how to break the cycle, Patrice? I think that not everyone who was in the situation that Melissa was in will get as lucky as she did. And you say that too, right?

29:45Yeah, absolutely. And I think that systems change needs to happen on so many levels. We need to have more foster families. And as David Ambrose in his fabulous book and podcast talks about why not retrofit unused government buildings into dorms for foster youth to go to college. They need support. And luckily now there's new legislation within the last 10 years between 18 and 21. But at 21, a traumatized young adult does not have the same skills that a child who came from an intact family with resources has. So they need more education, more educational opportunities. Foster families need more incentives.

30:37People said to us, why are you doing that? And we had to say, we want to, it feels good. We love children. We want to make a difference. Not everyone's going to have that inclination or that ability. On a personal individual level, I believe that, let's say, someone, a child like Melissa is a cup and that we all as a society have responsibility for how full she is because we in some ways facilitated her being born, right? I guess I'll start back. Number one, parenting has to be a choice. In this country, we have to make it so that parenting is a choice, not a default result of a mistake someone might have made.

31:25So that's where we start. Parenting is a choice. And we all know who are parents. Even in the best of circumstances, it's a challenging thing to do. So if you don't want to be a parent and you're forced to be a parent by your society, we're off to the wrong start. After that, a child who is in an abusive, neglectful situation needs adults around them to be looking at them. Animals, I like animals, not as much as most people, not as much as most people, I have to say. But our society loves animals. And if they see a hungry animal downtown, or they see a hungry animal or a mistreated whale. How many rescue services do we have?

32:10And do we put those same resources into children? No. And it's very curious. And I want to do much more thinking about why that is. I guess the whole parenting relationship with kids is much more complicated. You can't just grab them out. But we all need to have our eyes on how well children are functioning. The teacher, the social worker, and we need to be willing to intervene and say, there's something wrong there. Yeah, that's a hungry child, and I'm going to do more than just give them a snack at school. It's a societal responsibility. Otherwise, it becomes a societal liability, which we see.

32:46And so we need more government intervention. We need more money to the foster care system. We need foster parenting to be raised up to a level, like we need teachers to be more recognized and value. And the same thing with foster parents. So they may need incentives as David Ambrose again says, why not give them supplemental incomes or benefits like their own children can go to college for free or community college. So there's that. But back to the cup analogy, I think that not everyone's going to take a family into their home and a young person into their home like we did, But we can all donate clothes to Hope's Closet in Santa Cruz or somewhere, right?

33:29Leftover clothes. We can donate. We can pick a charity and put a little bit of extra money in that. We can foster legislation and help that way. So my belief, and I'm an optimist, is that as we look at our and touch into our generous spirits, we can make little bits of differences that eventually fill up, say, Melissa's cup. And she spills over. And look, she is spilling over. She is generative. She is making the world a better place, as are her kids. Her cup got full enough. And there are ways that we can do that. Our priorities are wrong. We have plenty of military spending. People spend money on sporting events.

34:10They spend money on concerts. Do we spend money on a hungry child? I maintain my optimism that we are basically good and that we will come to a realization and that there are improvements. Melissa is on the CASA board. I was on the CASA board. We both believe very much in that organization as mentoring and a bridge for foster children. And when parents cannot always take care of their children, that was the case with Melissa for a bunch of reasons. And the society needed to do that and failed her many steps along the way. Up next on Remarkable People. Am I okay? I'm okay. Tell me I'm okay. Because it brought up all the shame and the failure, and I can still feel right now, of having failed her.

35:02I was a successful therapist, a successful parent, successful member of the community, and I couldn't keep a foster daughter.

35:13If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate, and review it. Even better, forward it to a friend. A big mahalo to you for doing this. Welcome back to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki. Do you think universal basic income would have helped? It depends. I think fundamentally UBI is a positive concept. It's a step in the right direction. But am I confident that UBI would be implemented in a way to where it provided enough support to meet basic needs? If universal base income was enough money to fundamentally cover basic needs, I think it would facilitate a lot of growth and improvement.

36:01And that's just fundamentally based off of what Maslow's hierarchy of needs. When you have your essential needs met, it allows you to look beyond that and facilitate growth in other aspects of your life. So yeah, I think that's something that I have considered. And I think that I would be on board for depending upon how it was implemented. If it's implemented in the same way that our current welfare, what's commonly referred to as our welfare system, is implemented, then I don't think that it would be effective because welfare isn't implemented in a way to where it allows people to meet their basic needs.

36:37It's just like, here, we're going to give you a little like extra. We're going to give you a little something because you're so far away from meeting your basic needs, but it never balances it out and brings them up to where they can start thinking about, oh, cool. I have a roof over my head. I have food. I have clothing. I'm not going to die I have hypothermia and the cold. I don't have to think about getting my very fundamental basic need met the next day. That's when you can start looking beyond and saying, okay, what is it about myself that I want to work on? What is it that I want to be? How do I want to contribute?

37:09What type of life do I want to provide to my children, right? It's really stressful being poor. And when you're poor, it's hard to parent the way that you want to. I think anybody can look back on just a bad day at work and coming home and who's the first person that you usually take it out on. It's the people that you're closest with. And it's just because you just don't have the capacity in that moment. So when every single day is like that, it just piles up and it piles up more and more and more. And it suppresses your ability to be more, to look inward, to give. So to think of a solution for that, we need more parent support.

37:46Yeah. We need parent support groups. We need foster care support groups. And Melissa, one of our talks came up with what I think was a great idea, which is mentoring for foster parents. I believe some foster parents do it well. And I understand that you haven't had the experience of knowing the results of that, but the ones that do it well and have had positive outcomes should be there to mentor. And that should be a mandatory thing, I think, for foster parents. You're going to meet with people who know how to do it. It's kind of like a grandmother. And societies historically have worked because there's a clan, there's a community.

38:28And what if someone listening to this is considering being a foster parent? What would you tell him or her? I would say, look at what your motivations are. Look at what your resources are. Are you a single parent already and a little stretched? Don't give up on the idea, but try to enhance your support system because it's hard enough to raise a child alone. And some people have that ability. They have the internal resources, the external resources, but find out more about what it's like. Talk to other foster parents, talk to social workers, and look at what your motivations are, what your resources are, and then maybe take that leap and step into it and learn about what it is.

39:14But what should be your motivations? We'd have to go back and say, why do we have children, right? And part of it is to get love, to give love. It's like CASA, the Court Appointed Special Advocates. They do an extensive training and evaluation of people to figure out what their motivation is in becoming a CASA. And if it's all about meeting the adult's needs, then they're screened out. So I think that could be implemented. Right now, there's a shortage of foster parents, so it's not as selective. I think if there's a larger pool, it can be more selective, and there can be a way of saying, why do you want to do this, and what do you think, and how's the rest of your life going, and all that.

39:57And then when they become foster parents, they need training, they need skills training, specific conflict management. They need to learn the developmental stages of children and developmental stages of traumatized children. What are going to be the unique things that a traumatized child brings to your family? And then the family needs support. I remember it is in our book. My son Colin said to me at one point, after Melissa had been with us for maybe a half a year, he said, when is she going to become a keet? And I knew what he meant. And then I deconstructed it a bit. And it was like, oh, she doesn't play with Barbies and doesn't eat meat and hurry up.

40:36There were very superficial things. And he was well adjusted and he was fine with having Melissa. But I had to educate him. I never told him the details of what she had been through. But I had to say, she's different. It's OK. One time he said she's bragging and she's going to lose friends that way. And I said, it's OK if she brags. She hasn't felt good about herself for a long time. Let's give her the place to brag. So a foster family that has children in it, biological children, needs support as well. They need some education too. So let's shore up families in general and let's shore up foster families especially.

41:14My wife and I have adopted two children. I did not know that. Yeah, so we have two children adopted from Guatemala. And it has been a beautiful experience. It is one of the most, maybe the most important experience of my life. And probably my wife would say that too. In fact, I'm sure she would say that too. And I remember the adoption process, the questions and the research and the screening that we went through. If biological parents went through that screening, there would be a whole lot less kids who are not loved. Absolutely. So we talked about breaking the cycle. The question I have to ask you, Melissa in particular, is just how do you deal with trauma?

42:08That's a good question. I guess it depends on the type of trauma and what stage of dealing with it I'm in. If it's an emergency situation, somebody's been in a car accident, I see somebody get hit by a car, I'm probably going to be the most level-headed person there and the calmest out of everybody and able to call 911. But then after that experience, when everybody else is coming back to their senses, that's when my trauma sets in and I start processing. And I'm like, wow, that was really crazy. And there's a little bit of shock that comes in. And I think for me, it takes me a little longer to come out of that than other people.

42:46So what I'm saying is there's pros and cons to the way that I've been socialized to experience trauma. In some ways, it's really helpful and it gives me an advantage if I'm able to harness it in certain ways. But then in other ways, it really is a disadvantage. Small things can set me back for a really, really long time. And so it really just depends. I think one thing that I tend to rely on most predominantly is that I tend to process things through verbal communication. and so when I've experienced a trauma I seek out people that I trust so that I have someone to process to help me process that and it's not necessarily like I'm going to them and I need your advice what to do but more or less just having somebody there to like help me work through it on my own I think that's one of the ways that I process trauma.

43:36Some of these questions I don't even want to ask but I want to take the extreme case you're being sexually assaulted by your stepfather stepfather and many others yeah and many others yeah how does one deal with something like that yeah that's a good question so I think the initial tool that happened for me which is really common is dissociation. Yeah. So dissociation, it makes it to where you like detach from your feelings and you look at yourself. It's like a derealization and a depersonalization that happens where you don't really feel like what you're experiencing is real. And then that's the derealization.

44:19And the depersonalization is it can be expressed as somebody looking down on an event happening to them. And even though they know it's them, there's no emotional connection that's happening to it. That's essentially like the foundation of dissociation right there. And I think that was an adaptive mechanism to help me get through it while I was experiencing it. And then after I was experiencing it, it presented in behavioral outbursts, which is really, really common for young children. And I'm not really sure how I managed that, but there was a few things that were maladaptive that I can respond to.

44:56And a lot of them. It was like an escape. So like I would, I would experience something and then I would want to sleep like an exorbitant amount of sleep to process. And it's like an escape tool. And then I've processed it in so many unhealthy and then healthy ways too. I mean, eating is another one, like eating feelings, trying to, that's a really common one. And then writing, writing, I started writing poetry, just writing in general was really cathartic for me. You never used drugs as a way to deal with trauma, to escape? Not initially. It's hard to say yes or no to that. I think that my relationships with drugs, I couldn't necessarily relate to the same way that it was expressed by people who identify as addicts where they're like, I just can't say no to it.

45:47I need to have this. My relationship with drugs, it had some sort of function to it. And then once that function was no longer there, then I wasn't really interested in it anymore. And so I don't know, it's hard for me to say. You know, in the book, there was a part where you said that you were taking meth so that you could stay up, so that you could protect your kids. And my head exploded. That's kind of a rational thing honestly. It took meth so that your kids would not be harmed. So you could watch them 24 hours. I'm still putting pieces of my brain back in my head after I read that. That was unbelievable.

46:34I can tell you that's actually a fairly common experience. It's a fairly common experience that has been conveyed to me in my case management and social work and working with particularly women who are homeless, street homeless, many of them will resort to drug use for that very purpose because they have to stay up to protect themselves, whether it be from theft, whether it be from sexual assault, whether it be from physical assault, but it's not a super uncommon motivator. So let's say that your friend confides in you that they're being abused, they're being assaulted, whatever and this friend who has the best interests of the person at heart has this very difficult decision which is I want what's best for her do I report this but if I report this she may be taken away from this foster family she may be separated from her biological brother who knows what's going to happen if I report this the person is telling me don't report this because I don't know what's going to happen maybe my next family is worse than this family so what is this well-meaning well-intentioned person supposed to do what is their decision process to report do I just let it go what do I do yeah I guess this kind of reminds me of a similar scenario in the book where I'm in the foster home, the very abusive foster home, and I had made an alliance with Rochelle.

48:13And she had shared information that she was being sexually assaulted by the foster father and the family and had confided in me that there was a history. There was another older girl in the home who had also been sexually assaulted by him. And she didn't want me to share that with anybody. And I actually grappled with that for a really long time because the way that I grew up was honoring that or withholding that information was a representation of our friendship and my loyalty to her. And it was really difficult. And that's actually sharing that information with my counselor is what facilitated that foster family losing their license.

48:50And I grappled with the exact same concerns like, oh, she's going to be so upset with me. What if she goes somewhere different? The short answer is, I don't know. I can't answer that for anyone. I think for me, the reason that I ended up sharing it was because, first of all, I had the support of a therapist helping me to work through some of these conflicting emotions and concerns. But ultimately, it was the decision for me to share that wasn't out of loyalty to Rochelle. It was like, what about the next girl who goes in there? That was the position that I was in. So I think that for me, when I'm struck with really difficult decisions, I have to separate myself from the personal connection of it, take myself out of it.

49:38It's not all about Rochelle. It's not all about me. If I don't share this, then I'm allowing another girl to go into that situation and potentially be harmed. And that's why I ultimately shared that information. So I don't know if it answers your question or if it's going to help anybody else, but that was the thought process that helped me in that scenario. Do you have any insights into this thought process? I think that in every group, including a group home, there'll be a bonding, as Melissa's saying, she did with Rochelle. So it was hard to figure out what would be best for Rochelle. And again, David Ambrose was so amazing that he so often was asked questions and he lied because he was afraid that it would get worse.

50:24And he was asked in front of his mother, which was egregious, and it did get worse. There should be protections for people, and there should be enough supports, including therapists, and a sense of, I don't know, I guess right and wrong. I think that for you, Melissa, it was in some ways the family culture of your biological family. You were told to lie. You were not supposed to tell the truth because it would break you all apart. And all you had was each other. And to have that broken apart, you didn't know what that would look like. You didn't know if it would be worse. You didn't even have the luxury to think that.

51:02So you stayed as you did with your husband because it looked scarier to not stay. So we as a society need to provide that picture, it can get better. There are resources for people, and that this is not the way to live. And it re-traumatized you from your earlier experiences to see what was happening to her. So you at some point had to take care of yourself too. I don't want to be the victim again. I don't want another person to be the victim. I mean, you took the moral high ground, which is a great place to be, I think, in this case, where you protected her, yourself and, as you said, other children.

51:46So it's so hard to break that loyalty bond, though, and to change the thinking that I can tell the truth and the truth may save me, it may save other people. And in his case, David's case, it was almost death that made him realize, I've got to get out of this. I can't protect my mother anymore. I have to protect myself. And I don't think there were enough other adults in his world, and I don't think there are in most foster children's worlds, who can say to them, you're worth more than this. You don't have to live this way. And he didn't know that there was another choice. He just knew he couldn't die.

52:24Bottom line, Melissa, 39 years old now, did the system work for you? Yeah, I guess. Or, I mean, you could tell me it didn't. I'm just, I don't know. I don't know. I think it's pretty clear the ways in which it didn't work. But I think what's astounding about my story is that I found ways to make that experience work in really positive ways for me. My outlook supports my growth in a lot of ways. Is it easier for me to look back and say, oh my gosh, that was horrible. There was nothing to have been learned from that or look back on that and be like, wow, I may not be the person that I am today without those horrible experiences.

53:02and I really like who I am. And I chose the latter. So I guess in a sense, it kind of worked. In a sense, there was a positive outcome for it. But I think for many people, there's not. And that's the enigma to the story is we don't know. We don't have the formula. We're able to identify a lot of key recipes. And there was a lot of key recipes and maybe certain attributes that I was born with. There was a key recipe is a lot of luck. A key recipe was like certain events that facilitated this just astronomical reworking of my psyche in those moments. And so there's key ingredients in the recipe, but we don't know the whole formula.

53:44And you can take key ingredients and put them together, but it's still without the little guys, the little things like that little dash of salt or a little baking soda to make it rise properly. You're not going to get like a whole cake yeah so yeah so i like to think that it worked for me because that's what helps me cope with it otherwise i think it would be really easy to get lost in those traumas when they resurface but melissa for every successful melissa how many people got ground up and spit out too many too many you're the exception i'm certain i'm not the only one though yeah He didn't say the exception.

54:28You're an exception. I think that my story is an exception to the rule. But that's part of what motivated me to put this into writing in the first place. And not just for foster youth. I think a big aspect of it, because such a huge part of my identity is being a former foster youth, it shaped a lot of who I am and how I relate to myself and others. but there's a lot of other things in there too that are separate from that experience. There's poverty, there's substance use, there's codependency, there's domestic violence, there's being a single mother, there's being first-generation college student, there's social mobility, there's internal growth process and coming of age.

55:12There's just so many other things that are wrapped up into the story and it's because of all of those that I wanted to share it with people in hopes that they could relate. And it's been an amazing tool in being able to relate better with my family as well, particularly with my mom. And oh, to clarify, when I talk about my mom, I'm talking about portrayals. Yeah. That should be obvious. Which wasn't always the case. No, it was not always the case. I would say it's how long? I don't know. It just melded into this organically. Would you say years, months? Yeah, I think it started using the term mom.

55:53I think it started with relating to us as family and then relating to you and Bob as my parents. I can't really pinpoint where it was, but it was very natural and organic process. Coming to refer to you as my mom or Bob as my dad or as parents. And it was just like very gradual. I mean, at this point, Patrice is mom, Bob is dad. And when they introduce you as my daughter, not my foster daughter. There was a period of time where we did, though, and it would teeter back and forth. Sometimes it would be daughter and sometimes it would be foster daughter. And I did the same thing with them. Actually, I wonder if you have that platter that I painted.

56:32Yes. We should find that and show it to them. So the girls and I went down to Petroglyph for one Christmas. I think it was like two years. Oh, the place where you paint? Uh-huh. And I had this. So my mom loves entertaining. She's really good at it. And I was like, oh, I'll paint a platter. So they had this platter down there. And I did this platter and I wrote in cursive on it this really funny thing about how we relate to each other as a family. We'll have to pull it out and show it to you at some point. It's really funny. Yeah. It's very lovely and it's not simple. It's not simple. It's not simple raising children.

57:06It's not simple raising a child that you didn't have a start with. So there were missteps along the way. Both of us have had trouble catching, I think. I'd say that's fair to say. Yeah. And yeah. And then she disappeared for nine years. 20. 20. Oh, 20. Yeah. 20. Disappeared for 20 years. Yeah. And we found out that they were going to be homeless and that she wouldn't be able to meet her dreams because when we went out for lunch, I said, I know you always wanted to go to school. How far did you go? And I think you said I've taken a class at Cabrillo. No, I had taken a year and a half at Cabrillo.

57:47Oh, wow. On your own. Holy moly. Yeah, I'd taken a year and a half at Cabrillo and I had to take a step back because I got a promotion at work. And that's why I actually had left Carl's Jr. to go to Burger King because I was trying to fit that back into my schedule. Carl's Jr. wasn't willing to accommodate that. So when you ran into her at this speech, that was 20 years from the time she left? Yeah. With no contact? None. No. She had gone into Bob's office to see another doctor in his office. And he came home and told me about it. And I was just completely discombobulated. What year was that? 1 ,008.

58:26So how many years had you been gone? So 20. We re-met in 14. I'd have been 24 at that time. We would have been 12 years. And she wasn't in a good place. And I, for a lot of reasons, just wasn't willing to re-engage. Not that she wanted to get out of his office as fast as possible. Oh, yeah. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. It was horrible. Yeah, it wasn't. She said, oh, come tell me. I want to go see Patrice. Let's get together again. So she walks out, 12 years go by, goes into Bob's office by mistake, because Bob shares the office. Happenstance, yeah. Then another eight years go by, and you see her making this speech.

59:12Yeah. You find out she's about to be homeless, and bada bing, bada bang, she's back. We had a second chance. We got to redo it. And when we discovered, there was some psychological block of not knowing who she was immediately when she was standing in front of the 250 people giving a speech about her life. I'm looking out the window like, where am I going to get money for the Children's Museum? Who am I going to hire? What the hell am I going to do to get this project moving forward? And I just wasn't paying attention. At some point, there were enough identifying pieces of information where we said, is that our Melissa?

59:47I waited until she was finished. I said, I've got to go, Bob. I've got to get out of here. I ran out. I tried to call my other daughter and say, am I okay? I'm okay. Tell me I'm, because I brought up all the shame and the failure, and I can still feel right now, of having failed her. I was a successful therapist, a successful parent, successful member of the community, and I couldn't keep a foster daughter. And I couldn't make our life work together. And I was so full of shame. and I just had to look at that and look at myself, and so I just ran out, and I needed affirmation, and couldn't reach my other daughter, and finally Bob brought Melissa to me, and she came running down the hall at Chaminade, and I had been dragged out of the bathroom, and Bob said, are you ready to meet Melissa?

1:00:42And I said, I don't know if this is a good idea, and she came running up to me, buried my head in her hair, which was really massive and beautiful and we're cheek to cheek. And she said, I'm so sorry I hurt you. I love you so much. I never should have left. I collapsed into her and it was like it was written. It was like some of the other aspects of our story. They just came. That was like a script. Okay. I say to the higher power or whatever, write me a script that will make me feel okay. That will make me feel validated. That will make me feel close. That will make me take away my shame. You can ask chat GPT to do this.

1:01:26Exactly. She must've done that because it was perfect. And from then we just started sharing our stories. I literally get chills now about that experience because it was like, yes, all those things are true. I was hurt. You had some part in that. I'm not giving you all that, but I love you. I love to hear that you love me. And yes, you should not have left. Evidence is proving you should not have left. But now we know it. So it was already, wow, how are we going to get more of Are we going to get back with her? Not to live with us. I have no idea about that, but just make it right. Make peace with this person that I loved.

1:02:09And then her daughter spilled the beans when we were out on our sailboat. That you needed a house. Yeah, that we're getting evicted. And it was against Melissa. Apparently, I was out with the other daughter. But apparently, according to Bob, Melissa blanched, tried to shut her daughter up and said something like, it's fine. And we're always going to make it. We're going to be fine. Don't worry about us and make her daughter feel okay. But Bob, when he got in the car and told me what had happened, I was speechless. Just like we had been when we met her at Chaminade. I just wrote home and tears running down my face.

1:02:45Right after that, we went out to a restaurant and we were eating dinner. And Bob said, I don't think I can ever go out to a restaurant again. I'm picturing them hungry. I'm picturing them unhoused. I just can't do this. I can't do this. And we both knew where it was going. We both knew where it was going to see if we could reconnect and help again. And yeah. Can I spend a minute sharing what I learned as a foster parent? Of course. Okay. I would say to a person who starts engaging in the process of being a foster parent, slow down, chill out. I was so unchill. I like Melissa said I encountered this nine-year-old I could see this potential she was so bright and so articulate and so amazing and I just wanted to catch her up and I ran roughshod over her past I thought I want to put a force field around her past but you refused to look at her file right I went that far yes I went that far and that was well-meaning in my world of I want to give her a fresh start.

1:03:54I don't want to know what else she did. I don't want to, it was so misguided. People out there, please read the file, get to know your child, get to know them and slow down and get to know who they are. You don't necessarily want to have abusers in your house and visiting, but let their past be real. They have to process it, just like in therapy. And I was so bent on the idea that we had the secret sauce, we've got this thing that we can do for Melissa and just bring her on. So instead of building a bridge from her past to us, culturally, economically, everything, almost everything, I just chopped it off.

1:04:38I put the moat. They're there. We're here. You've got a new start. None of that. And we've been better with her daughters in letting their past organically come in and asking them questions and finding out what their past is. But foster parents out there, slow down, get to know your child, meet them where they are. Don't try and take them too fast to where you want them to go. And that, isn't that true for all parenting? We have agendas for our kids, which, because well-meaning, we want them to be happy and successful and enjoy life. And sometimes we're in too much of a rush and don't let them be where they are.

1:05:14So it's a process that we're continuing to learn for me to let Melissa be where she is, making missteps, even as a 39-year-old. I hope she allows me to make missteps as an older woman. And so there's just a lot. And I used to teach parenting classes back in the day as part of my job. I have a desire to share with the world what I've learned as a foster parent. And I'm hoping that this book will go in that direction of helping foster parents, not to have to do it the hard way, learn from some of my experience. Just like Melissa, your intention is to have people learn from your experience and learn that there's hope.

1:06:02There's hope at the other end. There's hope for a foster family who's tried it twice and got it right. We believe in our story and what actions people might take. They might say, I'll take a chance too on a foster child. I'll take a chance on keeping my eye on that child who's not doing well, who needs extra help. What I hope people understand is there's humongous problems, right? And you think, what can I do? the old saying about there's so many starfish who are dying on the sand you picked up five and threw them back in the water what difference does it make well it does make a difference to the five starfish and you made a difference to this starfish right yeah and her children yeah yeah and that carries on i don't think we'll ever really truly understand the impact that we have on people's lives because sometimes the smallest thing can have such a huge impact and you never know what the consequence of that impact is going to be and how it's going to get carried on and facilitated.

1:07:06It's like a little ripple. And like sometimes the smallest little pebble can make the biggest waves and those carry on and carry on. And I'm even seeing that with my children today. And it's something that's really beautiful and inspires a lot of hope moving forward. And that partly kept me going, thinking that we had a positive impact on you in that almost two years that you were with us. Friends would say, yeah, she's gone. And we see you suffering, but you did good things for her. And maybe that will help her. And then you've since said, those were the only happy childhood memories that you had.

1:07:43I wouldn't have had the connection that I do to academia. I wouldn't have had a lot of the same like values that I do today, had I not been introduced to it. And you know, there were other foster homes that I went to that were not bad homes. There was nothing wrong with those homes, but they still weren't happy homes for me. And I think I got little kernels of that in the home of my parents that I didn't. It just there was some secret sauce there. You did have some secret sauce. And you let your guard down. You let yourself say to yourself somehow along in those moments, this could be the happy family or this moment is happy.

1:08:20and that your loyalty to your biological family had its limit. You were able to say this is maybe say this is a little bit better. This is better. We're getting off into another area here. But I think listeners can hear whether it's a teacher. I mean, how many of us say, oh, that teacher was the one who inspired me to do X, Y, and Z. Or some people say that was the only person who believed in me when I was young. That coach, that teacher. So anyone who's paying attention and around children pay even more attention. Thank you to Patrice Keat and Melissa Laomadue for sharing their remarkable journeys, their wisdom and their resilience.

1:09:05They are truly sources of inspiration. Their intertwined narratives remind us of the power of connection, the strength of the human spirit, and the incredible ways in which our lives can intersect. My thanks to Janice Manabe for making this episode happen. If she had not brought Patrice and Melissa to my attention, I would have never heard this great story. Further thanks to the Remarkable People team, producer and drop-in queen Madison Nismer, Tessa Nismer, Luis Magana, Alexis Nishimura, Fallon Yates, and the incredible sound design team of Jeff C. and Shannon Hernandez. Thanks also to Merge 4.

1:09:59Remember, they make the coolest socks. Enter the promo code FRIENDOFGUY to get a 30 % discount. Until next week, mahalo and aloha.

1:10:19This is Remarkable People.