SIMPLY NEGLECT
Redemption beyond poverty and foster care
by
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It’s January 1990, the beginning of a fresh new year and the middle of a freezing cold Canadian winter. I’m out for a walk with Mom, Rachel, and Ellie—which is odd because Mom doesn’t usually come with us. I study Mom’s posture as she walks ahead of us with determination in her steps. I sense that whatever we’re doing or wherever we’re going must be important. Her straw-like hair sits just past her shoulders. She hates her ears and makes sure they’re always covered. Her shoulders are slouched, and her full face of makeup stares toward the ground.
The sun is shining and makes the icicles on the trees look like dancing crystals. I pull one off a low-hanging branch and suck on it. The cold snow crunches beneath our ripped shoes. It’s a perfect day for a snowball fight. Rachel rubs her thumbs on both my and Ellie’s hands as she grips them and pulls us close. I glance at her face and notice she’s crying. Something doesn’t feel right.
Mom walks us up a path leading to a large building and tells the people inside with name tags that they’re putting too much pressure and responsibility on her as a mother. She tells them she’s leaving “the girls” here. I think about what she’s said. Mom refers to me and Ellie as the girls, and I wonder whether she’s talking about us. Rachel’s eyes fill with tears, and she begins to weep uncontrollably. Mom’s whole body is twitching as if she’s being shocked. She’s frustrated. My thirteen-year-old sister is suddenly expected to hand over the little sisters she’s raised.
“I’m so sorry, girls,” Rachel sobs. “I begged Mom to change her mind and keep you, but she can’t. I wish I could, but I can’t either. We need to be apart for a while.”
“You going?” I ask.
“Yes, you’re staying here, Lainie, and we’re leaving,” Mom says flatly.
Panic. My heart races and heat fills my body. My brain tries to make sense of what’s happening.
“You going?” I ask again. “And come back?”
Rachel wipes her face with the sleeve of her coat. “No, Lainie. I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”
“I go with you?” I grab hold of Rachel’s leg with both arms and feet. “You not going, Rachel. You stay here. With me.”
The workers peel me off Rachel’s leg. “You both should leave now,” one of them says, “before this gets out of hand.”
I’m physically picked up against my will and taken from my sister’s leg. It sends me into hysteria, a full-body panic. Mom’s eyes hold no emotion as she turns to walk away from me. “Don’t follow us out of here.”
“I love you girls so much,” Rachel says, weeping, as she turns to follow Mom out of the building.
I’m waiting for Rachel to turn around, grab our hands, and walk out with us together. But she doesn’t. I do everything I can to run to her, but the worker catches me and calls other workers for help.
“I go with you!” I plead. “Take me with you! Get me. Pick me up. Please, Rachel! No go! No leave me here!” I collapse to the floor, kicking and screaming, resisting the separation. I’m in shock. Ellie watches my tantrum, completely unaware of what’s happening. My body gives up the fight. I feel dead inside. I feel nothing.
Ellie and I are stripped of our nasty clothes, buckled into a van nearly naked, and brought by a stranger to a home that isn’t ours, to live with kids who aren’t our siblings. I’m scared. I don’t know where I am or what is happening.
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About the Book
Three-year-old Lainie kicks and screams as she tightly grips the leg of her older sister, pleading to stay with her family as she’s surrendered to the foster care system. Lainie, a year later, is reunited with her family, only to live another five tumultuous years hungry, neglected, and desperate for love and attention. Houseless again, Lainie’s mother breaks her promise of forever when she gives her away again, this time, in a motel parking lot, never to live with her or her family again.
Plagued with trauma, and consumed by the effects of abandonment and shame, fifteen-year-old Lainie escapes her living situation, and embarks on a naive and lonesome journey that feels similar to her mother’s. Desperate for change, Lainie enters a transformative Christ-centered recovery program and months later, falls in love with Levi, a pillar of unyielding love, her rock in the storm.
Lainie naively believes marriage and motherhood will heal her childhood wounds. Instead, she is ravaged by the years of neglect from her mother, which fuels an insatiable desire to understand her past. Investigating her foster care file, she reads the words, “No abuse – Simply Neglect.” Lainie realizes the system meant to protect her, neglected her too.
Aware of the injustice affecting today’s foster children, and the urgent need for foster and adoptive homes, Levi and Lainie become licensed and open their home to several children, including their forever son through adoption.
Lainie’s story is a testament to faith, forgiveness, and the resilience of the human spirit.
Front cover photograph by White Willow Photography.
About the Author
Lainie Hartley is an advocate, storyteller, mother, and mentor who uses her writing, speaking engagements, and podcast appearances to empower marginalized communities to shatter statistics, stigmas, and stereotypes. She and her husband, Levi, have two biological daughters and one adopted son. They currently live in a small rural area outside of London, Ontario.