We live in a small apartment. When you walk in our front door there is a wooden 2-drawer filing cabinet that works nicely as a table. Before we lost Aiden I decorated it with candles and it became a catch-all for keys, mail, and other junk. After he died I couldn't stand for his picture and stuffed alligator to be hidden away so I started putting his things on that table. Unintentionally, it became a shrine. I left the large candles there and added his picture, his urn, a piece of driftwood from the river where we spread some of his ashes, and some dried leaves from the resurrection ferns in our yard. I think it is pretty and tasteful but it is immediately obvious to anyone coming in our house that it is a shrine to our dead son.

It's a little early to worry about this but it's been on my mind. When I called the county about getting signed up for foster parenting classes, the person I talked to was pretty negative. She was trying to talk me out of doing this right now, saying I needed time to grieve my loss. I'm worried that if I leave Aiden's things in plain sight like that, the social worker will think we are "not over it" and deny our application. I was thinking about getting a shelf and putting all his things on the wall in our bedroom, kind of out of the way. I'm not sure if that would make me feel guilty. I don't much look at his things anymore but the point of having them in the living room was that he is still part of our family and our daily lives. On the other hand, I don't really want to share him with some stranger that is there to judge our ability to be parents.

I just wanted to talk about this and see what some of you think you would do, thanks for listening.

I think it sucks that they can judge you about things like that. Or that they are trying to schedule your grief and you haven't done enough time for them. Like you would put away your son's things when you are "done" grieving him. um...yeah. no.

I don't think you should have to hide anything. BUT... There is no harm or shame in INTENTIONALLY creating a new space for Aiden's remembrances. I plan to do that with Juniper's stuff when I figure out where it all went.
I'm sure the alter is lovely. It did kind of grow there organically, one might say. BUT that doesn't mean it can't move to a more permanent and perhaps private location. I think it could be quite meditative to consciously choose how and where to arrange those things.

Or, another way to look at it might be. Sometimes we have to move our kid's stuff around to make room for another person in our family. I had to get rid of a bunch of Nigel's crap to make room for Juniper's stuff (when we thought he was going to use it). Raven had to move rooms when Nigel was old enough to need more space. We shuffle our kids around constantly. So, Aiden's part of your family and that means his stuff gets shuffled too. As long as no one gets lost in the shuffle...

I might also think of it as part of getting ready to be a foster parent. You probably don't (and shouldn't) care how a random social worker feels about it, but you might want to very intentional about how you talk about Aiden with a child who came to live in your home. Micah's things are in my bedroom not because I want to hide them from my living son, but because I want to choose the right time and place to look at them with him. If they were near our front door, he would dig through them everyday, probably break something, and possibly see some things before I feel like he's developmentally ready for them. We still have a fully intact nursery, but I took all the things that felt like they were just for Micah out so I wouldn't be bothered when my living son pulls things out.

I've thought about a piece of art on the wall or something that would be meaningful to me, but not a discussion point for others. I wonder if your driftwood could become something like that for you in your public space.

Nothing is more terrifying than thinking a living child might break something absolutely irreplaceable - we had a close call with a plaster mold of her feet. That's what made me move things up into a cabinet. I like what turtle said - maybe the driftwood could be mounted and hung on the wall or something?