Tuesday, September 15, 2009

 

Josh with Amanda's son Aydn.

Rear left, Jennifer and her daughter, Krystal Bree, who is now 13. Amanda found her on MySpace, having looked for Jennifer all these years.

All the kids are of age now, so I can use their real names. Ben is Jerry Kirkpatrick, 27, married with a lovely wife and a dog, a five-year-plan, and loans and scholarships to go to college at last. Prison totally straightened him out; he never really belonged there and once he came out he determined he was never going to go back and has acted accordingly.

Angie is Amanda, 24, a single mom of Aydn, a toddler, for whom she wants a better life. Amanda never went back to school and is a shift supervisor at Starbucks, where she has worked  on and off since age 16. She still hasn't gotten a GED, but wants to do that, because becoming a mother has turned her life around.

Before her pregnancy, she smoked dope, lied, stole my credit cards, walked on all her apartment leases, and shoplifted.  Although she never went to prison, she did get caught and put on probation.  When she got pregnant and realized she was going to have the family that eluded her throughout her childhood, she straightened right out almost over night. She's paying restitution, supporting her son, and has been working the same job for over a year. It's amazing how she has grown up.

Bobby, or Josh, is 20. He was in what I thought was the most stable environment.  When Gerry was dying and we had to give him up, he went to a foster home where he stayed until age 18, although that family went through its own divorce. However, as soon as he aged out of the system, his foster dad delivered him to my house, because Josh told me he wanted to go to college.

I had always promised the kids that if they wanted to go to college I'd pay for it and they could live with me.  Indeed, Jerry and his fiancee did live with me for a year. So did Amanda on and off when she was on a positive path. So it was only natural for me to take in Josh.

Unfortunately, Josh didn't complete his classes and was fired from several jobs, ultimately ending up doing nothing.  I showed him some tough love, and kicked him out.  He hasn't really worked or gone to school since.  He's a sweet kid, but has no ambition or drive, and lives with Amanda, trading our rent for some help with Adyn.

And Ann (Jennifer), who vanished so many years ago? Well, last Sunday I got a call from Jerry telling me Amanda had located her at long last.  Amanda had never stopped looking for her older sister, who had taken care of her as a baby. Amanda's strong maternal instinct has helped her try to bring her family back together, and she finally found Krystal Bree on MySpace, and located Jennifer.

Jennifer wasn't sure I wanted to see her, but I told Jerry I would be right over.

Of course I wanted to see her.  I had made a vow to keep their family together, and I had tried as hard as I could to remain a still point in their turning world -- there when they needed me, though not to be taken advantage of if they indulged in counterproductive activities. Jennifer was the missing piece in my own puzzle as well.

I showered, dressed, and ran over to Amanda's.  They were all there!  There was an adult Jennifer with a teen-aged daughter (and two younger children she'd left in Tucson for the weekend). Although overweight, she looked healthy, resilient, strong.

But then I noticed that the rail-thin woman sitting glumly on the couch staring at the TV was their birth mom,  as angry as ever that someone might be a friend to her children. She refused to speak to me, barking only monosyllabic answers to my polite questions.  Nothing, she said repeatedly, was any of the kids' business. I asked after her boyfriend, whom Jerry had told me already was dying of cancer. "He's good," she said. "You know that's not true," Jerry said to her. "It's none of your damned business anything in my life," she barked. She got up and left the room.

The kids were ashamed of her, and angry at her rudeness to me.  By now, they know who I am and despite their various degrees of PTSD and attachment disorder, I know they all love me. They deal with her in their lives, but they are still very angry at the way she uses them when she wants a feeling of family, still tries to borrow money from them, and pretends she was not derelict as a mom when they needed her.

It was a pretty awkward meeting. At one point, Jerry and Amanda suggested we all go outside (although it was 105 degrees) so we could talk freely. That's when I took the photos.

How did I feel? I was really happy for them. I brought them a bottle of champagne so they could celebrate.  They have found each other at last. They are struggling as young people with their lives, but they are all trying to succeed, each in his or her different way. And they're a family, which is very important both to them and to me.

I think they are sorry now that they didn't get more education, yet the only one really trying to do that is Jerry, the one who originally sought me out as a mentor and spent the most time in my home.  But as Jennifer said, wisely, to me "the past is the past, and now we're in the present."

posted by Francine Hardaway, Ph.D 4:50 AM