There’s Always Room for One More

When I was a little girl, I remember laying on the bottom bunk in my bedroom and pushing my legs up against the top bunk as hard as I could to raise it up. While I strained my skinny little legs, I stared at a poster on my wall. It was one that had always been there for as long as I could remember. The poster was a picture of stuffed animals of various sorts sitting in a carboard box. The caption at the bottom read, “There’s Always Room For One More.”

I thought about that saying a lot, lying on the bottom bunk, when I was young. I thought it was quite literal. You could always squeeze one more stuffed animal into a box. They were squishy, soft and furry, and quite moldable as well. You could always make room for another one.

When I was eight, my mom’s cousin Aaron came to live with us. Aaron stayed on the gold pull-out couch in the living room at night because the bedrooms were all full. His black duffle bag was stuffed into the hall closet under the coats. For the first time I made the connection that we as humans in my family, were making room for one more.

Our First Foster Sister

When I was 12, we had our first foster sister. Her name was Maybelle and she came from a Navajo reservation in Arizona. She was very small for a teenager, and came with no suitcase or trunk. She was petite, and so was I and I had to share my clothes with her. I resented it, not understanding the living situation that she came from. She shared a room with my sisters out in the bunk house. My dad had set up the old wooden bunk bed out there. He had made room for one more.

Once I learned she had lived in a mud house, or Hogan with no electricity nor running water, I repented of my resentment. We had made room for one more, and she had really needed us. I was important because I was her same size, and that humbled me. I looked at the poster and thought, “Maybelle with her black hair and big black eyes is like that scrawny black teddy bear being squeezed into the box”.

The next year we had another Lamanite Placement Sister. Her name was Elizabeth, but we called her Biddy. I had loved Maybelle, but she was shy and quiet. Biddy had a contagious laugh and chubby full cheeks indicative to her Hopi tribe. I instantly adored her. She reminded me of the happy, chubby elephant in the box of toys. Again, we had made room for one more.

Making Room Again

Over the next few years, we had more foster kids. After Biddy was Doya who was Cherokee, and reminded me of the stuffed tiger, and then came Mary. Mary was my sister’s friend. She was Japanese. She came home with Lena my older sister after school one day. Mary came to stay the weekend, but she stayed for 2 and a half years. Mary was fun and always giggling. She was my size, and petite too, but this time it was different. Mary had such cute clothes, and she happily shared them with me! Mary joined the church and was really part of our family then. I adored her. I idolized her. Mary was my friend, confidant and older sister. My young heart was happy we had made room for her out in the bunk house. I remember looking at the poster and naming the Siamese cat Mary.

Making Room Isn’t Always Easy

My Freshman year of High School my cousin Jeanie came and lived with us. She was difficult. Jeanie was sassy and sneaky and wanted to do bad things whenever she could. The poster in my room reminded me that we had made room for her. I was sharing my room with her, and I did not like it. We were now out in the bunk house, and sleeping on the old wooden bunk bed, as my older sisters had moved away. I was trying to be good and she was naughty, selfish and rude. I decided that making room was not always a pleasant experience. Jeanie reminded me of the ugly stuffed frog on my poster. The one you had to keep and stuff in the box because it was after all, family. Still, my parents had made room for her.

My senior year we added a foster brother named Phil. He was my friend from school and I discovered that he was going to be removed from his foster home and have to finish his senior year somewhere else. My parents knew him, so when I asked if he could live with us, they made room for him. My sole brother was happy to get another boy in the house, and share his room. All of the other kids had been girls.  John was too little to remember when cousin Aaron lived with us.  Phillip also joined the church. He was eighteen. Now God also had one more in His Kingdom. Phillip had kind, big blue eyes like the stuffed gray puppy in the box on the poster. We had again, made room.

Then Came Susan

While we had Phillip, the church contacted us about a 16-year-old girl in the stake in desperate need of a home and safe shelter. So, once again I shared the bunk house and Susan came to live with us. Susan is Autistic, but back then we just thought she was weird. Still, I was nice to her even when she silently and awkwardly shadowed me at home and at the high school. She told me no one had ever been nice to her before. She came from an angry and abusive household. They were mean to her, locked her in and spanked her with belts. They had called the police on her when she got angry and couldn’t use her words. My heart melted towards her, and I made room for her in my heart as well as my room.

After Phillip and I graduated and left for college, a thriving Susan stayed with my parents for another year. Another friend also named Cynthia moved in with my parents for a year. So, Susan and Cynthia were together in my old room, with the old poster of the stuffed animals on the wall. Susan was like the sweet giraffe stuffed animal in the box. Kind of gawky and awkward, but with sweet big green eyes. There was a fearful little stuffed fox with big frightened eyes always watchful and afraid that reminded me of Cynthia. She would easily be startled. I was grateful to see that my parents were still lovingly making room for one more.

What items do we leave behind on our bedroom walls?

I had left my poster on the wall in the bunk house when I left for college. After Cynthia and Susan moved on, my room became a shelter for a young single, pregnant and abandoned woman named Christy and then her baby. Christy joined the church as well. My parents continued to make room for one more. Each needing a home, each slightly misfit in their own way. The poster was now old and ratty, but the animals inside the box were still sweet and welcoming. The Mama Koala and her cub reminding me of Christy and baby Michael.

Trying to Follow in My parent’s Footsteps

When I married, we were only able to have two children survive infancy. So, we made room for not one more, but three. We adopted a sibling set of three little ones. Noelle was 3, Nichelle was 20 months and Lane was 7 months. We made it work. It was never easy and continues to be difficult with their special needs. My parents had set the example for me that there was always room for one more. There was room for three more in both our home and our hearts.

Years later, my husband and I took in a beautiful black girl.  After being kicked out, Jules lived in her car. She was a friend of our daughter Nichole’s. Because she was baptized in the church, Jules had been kicked out by her unhappy parents. We made room by putting the three youngest children in one room to allow Jules to have her own. She gratefully finished her Senior year with us. I thought of my friend Phil and how he had spent his final months of his senior year with my family. My parents had made room for one more, and now we were doing the same for our daughter’s friend their senior year. Jules too, became family.

An Open and Loving Heart

I am grateful for a loving and caring set of parents who always made room in their home and in their hearts for one more, and at times more than one. They already had five children of their own. We weren’t wealthy, and it was a sacrifice. The church and county did not give monetary support. They made room, stretched meals and accepted strangers into their happy home who became friends and then became family.

I watched my parents as they clothed and fed the needy and the poor. They loved the difficult and the disrespectful. They brought laughter back into haunted eyes, and appreciated differences and cultural variances. My sweet parents truly lived the caption on the poster that There’s Always Room for One More. Because of them I too have made room for more.

Doesn’t our Father in Heaven always have room for us in His heart? He always makes room for us, no matter how scraggly, frightened or awkward we are. No matter what we’ve done. So, I try to follow in my parent’s footsteps, and in His, and Always Make Room for One More. Shouldn’t we all?