Tuesday 26 March 2019

10

10 years ago today we finalized our adoption of Kevin and Randall. I remember the day so very well and I was so hopeful about what our lives together were going to be like. We were going to be a family and family is forever. 

My sister came with her two kids and 7 of us celebrated together, we went to court, we took pictures with the judge and social workers. We promised to be committed to these boys forever. Then we all went to a pottery studio and made a platter to commemorate the day with their small hand prints making a heart. We went out for dinner. Later that week we had a bowling party with a large group of friends and had a great night together. There are a lot of hilarious photos of the boys hamming it up for the camera with our friends who came to celebrate with us. 

Family is forever. Except when it’s not. 

Today 10 years later neither of the boys is in my home. Kevin has not spoken to any of us since his siblings made the sexual assault allegations. Randall is living in a group home and for his sanity I did not draw attention to what the day was because I thought it would make him sad and instead will acknowledge it with him later this week. 

But it struck me this morning how sad I was. How much I missed them both and how this not what I planned or what I thought my life would be like at this point. I knew the day was coming, I was aware it was today but it hit me like a ton of bricks this morning at yoga. 

One minute I was sitting there focussing on my breath and the next minute I was doing everything I could to keep the sobs that were welling up in my chest at bay so I could get through the rest of the very crowded class without making a scene that I would be unable to explain to a room full of people who really just know me as a stay at home Mom to a bunch of teens. 

I did make it through the class and to my car but as I began to drive home the tears flowed. I am missing my boys and missing the family I dreamed I would have. 

I want things to be different, I want to change the past so that this is not our future. 

I cried all the way home and as I pulled in my yard I was overcome by the fact that what I dreamt of 10 years ago ( when I was so hopeful), is never, ever going to be what happens. I am never going to have the family I dreamt of when we stood in that court room and committed ourselves to two very broken boys who I though I could fix with a lot of love, patience and commitment.

 I am not going to see them thrive and create families of their own in the ways that other Moms do. I am not going to be able to protect from the outcomes of their criminal cases or from the big bad world that is pulling them in all sorts of directions because they are not here. 

They are not here for me to hug tonight and to tell them how much I love them. They were not here to make Root Beer floats with or ice cream sundaes to celebrate this special day of love for us. 


If I had thought I would of been this sad I would of made sure I had planned things. But I hit me like a tidal wave and I just cannot seem to catch my breath. 

Thursday 21 March 2019

A Trial

I heard on Monday via a letter the Kevin's court dates have been scheduled for October and November. The have set aside 9 days - 9 freakin days of court to establish whether or not my eldest child systamatically abused his sister over a number of years and then moved from her on to his brother and created wounds for both them that will likely always be there.

I am so sad that he could not just admit that he did it. That he could not plead guilty and accept that he had done something awful to two other humans who he was supposed to love instead of hurt. That he doesn't want to heal this and instead is just going to create more pain for all of us as we are forced to relive it again and again through the long journey of a trial and all that entails.

He is also telling people in town who go to school with Kate that he did not do it. Those much older kids then come to Kate and confront her at school, in front of other kids who may or may not have an idea about what is going on. We had to call the police yet again and report it and they tried to tell us there was nothing they could do.

Sorry that's not good enough. This should not be happening to Kate and y'all need to figure out how to make it stop. Luckily for Randall this isn't happening him for him although he did discover that one of the kids at his new school is someone who knows Kevin. I am hopeful they are no longer friends and that he doesn't figure out the connection and do the same thing to Randall.

This is one of those weeks when I can't believe this is my life and I am really not sure how all of this is going to play our.

Someone who doesn't know about any of this told me this week that I had GRIT, if only knew because most days I don't feel like anything except a big puddle of sad.

Friday 15 March 2019

Faking it.

Fake it till you make it has been my mantra all week.

It was Spring Break here this week and although Kate and had therapy and appointments and such we also had a lot of free time to fill and I wanted to hide in my room and do nothing but that didn't seem very fair to Kate so I pulled up my socks and planned a couple of things.

There was no earth shattering excitement but there was a movie, some shopping, ice cream for lunch and a lot of new books to read. We also spent our evenings watching Worst Witch on Netflix which sort of made me want to poke my eyes out but she loved it.

I used to plan every minute of break week like this. I would plan fun things and we do things with friends or  we would go a car trip to see something new or visit family. This year I just did not have that in me.

 I am still pretty sad/angry/upset/depressed ( depending on the day) by the situation we are in and the choices that our kids have made that have gotten us to this point. I want things to be different. I want all 5 of us to magically be together and for things to be the way I dreamed they would be.

I know that is not going to happen. I know that we will never go back to the way things were and that where we are is not the result of any single event. Instead is the result of us desiring to help 3 very broken kids have a family and for at least one of those kids there was just no way that they were ever going to be able to heal enough to be a typical kid.

We tried so hard for so long and when we finally let Kevin leave our home I was devastated and so sad but I knew I had done everything I possibly could and had no other choices. When it came out that Randall also had to leave it caught me by surprise and I was so not ready to have him go. It was not what I wanted, it was not what he needed but the choice was removed from our control and as a result we had to figure it out and in a mater of weeks we went from functioning as a family of 4 in one home to a family of 4 in two homes and I miss him a lot.

I will keep on faking it with Kate over here for as long as I need to and I know that with time I will become accustomed to our new normal.




Sunday 10 March 2019

Reading North of Normal and Growing up in an Non-Traditional Family.

So Just finished reading North of Normal by Cea Sunrise Persons, I enjoyed it did find some solace ( as I usually do) in the fact that her childhood was more insane and mixed up then mine was.

She writes quite eloquently about growing up in Northern Canada and living in tipi for much of her young life. She speaks of commune style living and having parents who struggle with addictions issues as if that is just the way we all grew up and yet we managed to not repeat those patterns for our kids and instead worked hard to create something we never had.

Much like Cea I grew up in very non traditional world. I did not have parents who lived in a tipi but I did have friends who had lived in one and whose parents often took us to the nearby nude beach were they smoked pot and drank all day and then put us all back in the car and drove us home. Sometimes we got to sit on the hood of the car until they got to the main road which we thought was the best thing ever. It as the 80's and it was a small town and no one really thought there was anything wrong with it but they were high, drunk and probably still naked which may of caused some issues if we were ever stopped.

My parents were more traditional then some of their friends, we had a nice house, they both had jobs ( most of the time) there was almost always food.  Unlike some of their friends we were allowed to eat whatever we wanted and until I was 12 I though Kool-Aid was juice. We were often left on our own and more then once I disappeared with my friends or alone and my siblings freaked out because they had lost me. I was always found and more then once I was missing because I wanted to go buy candy.

My parents would have huge parties when I was little and my sister tells stories about their ridiculous antics and leaving us with people who had no business looking after 3 young kids. I don't have a lot of memories of those events because they were 29 when they had me and by the time I was 7 we had moved to a city and they left most of their hippie friends behind but we did go back a visit a lot when I was kid. Living in the city opened had other adventures like getting trapped on the rocks of the beach when the tide came in and having to swim back to shore fully clothed at about 8 years old because other wise we would of missed dinner.

The summer I turned 12 they left me in that small town I been born in for 2 weeks with friends who were about 21 and had a young son. The couple didn't really care what I did or if I was there and so I spent most days tubing down the rapids with friends and then lounging around in our bathing suits eating candy we had stolen from the corner store. By the time my parents came to get me I had literally been in my bathing suit for days and had no idea whose house my suitcase was at. They did track it down and didn't seemed at all phased by what had been doing for the last two weeks.

There were always friends of theirs living in our house or camping in our driveway. It was not unusual for there to be a whole extra family camping out in the rec room for months while they got themselves organized. There was always enough food that could be stretched to serve another person or two and it was not unusual for a friend to conveniently show up right around supper time so that they could be fed too.

I had a "uncle" who used to visit with his laundry every few weeks and have dinner with us while he waited for it to dry. There were cousins who came and went, foster kids and developmentally delayed adults who lived in our for stint. We always had a big house and there was always a spot for someone else to stay when they needed it.

Perhaps one day I will write about it in detail. It was quirky and weird and definitely not the kind of childhood one expect that I had if you meat my parents on the street because they seemed so normal.


Saturday 2 March 2019

If one of my children were physically sick people would care...

I am feeling so very isolated at the moment. Many of my friends have been very judgemental and have distanced themselves from what is left of my family. Those who have remained and have tried to be supportive have busy lives of their own and my immense needs at the moment can be more then I want to burden a couple of close friends with.

If my child cancer or needed surgery there would be meals, support and prayers. Physical illness is easy to rally behind, it is easy for people to understand and to support because they can relate to it.

My adopted from foster care children sexually assaulted each other and all there is, is silence and judgement. I get it but it makes me so sad. My family has been torn apart, our dreams have been shattered and we are struggling to pick up the pieces all by ourselves because no one has the understanding that is needed to be supportive in a this type of crisis.

On Friday Kate got into trouble at school and there was no one to turn to, no one to connect and frankly no one to laugh about the ridiculousness  that has become my life and this is so not what I thought I would be doing at this point.