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“Ma, my head,” Deborah Holmes’ 3-year-old son, who had bumped his head, said to her.
“Let me kiss it,” she replied.
The boy is one of about 15 (she stopped counting) foster children with special needs Holmes has reared over the course of 25 years. He also is one of the five children whom she adopted.
“You had to feed a baby every three hours,” Holmes, a resident of the 2000 block of South Bonsall Street, who worked as a nurse at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for 16 years, said of the boy who was 5-months-old when she took him into her home. “Every time I’d feed him, his heart rate would drop, and he’d pass out.”
Like her son, who had breathing problems, many of those she cared for were newborns with breathing tubes, developmental delays, shaken baby syndrome, etc.
“If they didn’t have proper medical care and someone attentive, I know for a fact the baby would be gone,” the 56-year-old said.
The boy also is her final foster child, as she is retiring from the role, but plans to assist with recruiting for Episcopal Community Services, her social service agency.
“My house is too small — my heart is big,” the native of Third and Christian streets, who wanted to become a foster mother at 19, but was denied at first, said.
While her two biological children — 22 and 38 years old – and her first foster and adopted child — 27 years old — are grown, she still has a full house, with a 24-year-old son with autism, a 14-year-old son, 13-year-old daughter and her youngest son, who turns 4 next week.
Many of her fosters defied odds by doing things doctors predicted would never happen. Her oldest adopted daughter was not expected to walk, but at age 2-and-a-half, she did. Holmes also seeks out activities, such as dance, music, art or sports — whichever interests each child.
“I have to keep them off the streets, so they won’t be running all over South Philadelphia,” she said.
Even though she spent years caring for as many as six children and many late nights at doctor appointments tending to various medical problems, she wouldn’t change a thing.
“They make me happy, and I make them happy,” Holmes, who keeps in touch with her adopted and former foster children’s birth parents said. “I don’t think I’d be happy doing anything else.”
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
2013 Difference Makers
/ Bruce Baldwin / Anthony Benedetto Sr. / Lou Berman / Beth Coleman /
/ Diane DellaVella / Phyllis DiLemmo /
/ Roe and Jim Gallo / Tyrique Glasgow / Ali Hackett / Deborah Holmes /
/ Kat Kendon / Harry McKay / Jaime Pannone / Juanita Perkins-Qui /
/ Gaetano Piccirilli / Megan Rosenbach / Ted Scairato Sr /
/ Rich Sisman / Dan Stevenson / Paula Terreri / Lynn Oakes West / Lawrence Whitaker / Robert Wilbowe / Ilene Wilder /
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