tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88654864256305695912024-03-08T02:48:11.705-04:00Totally Deceived: The Journey Out of DenialFrom the heart of a grandmother comes this true story of a family victimization by the Minister of Community Services and the Agency that unjustly apprehended her grandson in Nova Scotia. She begins her journey naively believing in the system, but through circumstance and experience, she is finally forced to accept the horror that is the reality of the system that claims to care about the "best interest of the child".Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-67204254794501504892012-05-03T20:56:00.002-04:002015-09-20T02:42:57.789-04:00titleSeptember 20, 2015Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-60240460689613414222010-06-19T16:47:00.001-04:002010-06-19T16:49:46.187-04:00B 21 "Red Pen Marks"<div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">"Red Pen Marks"</span> (Jan 2, 2001)<br /><span style="color:#cc6600;">Chapter 21</span></span></strong> </div><br />Jan. 2, 2001<br /><br />When _____arrived for his visit, an unusually fine January morning, we first did our regular errand of taking out the garbage. I always gave him a light paper filled bag to carry out. It gave him pride and a sense of purpose to be helping Grammie out this way. When we finished our task, we stopped for a while to watch a young boy maneuver his remote control car in the parking lot. ______had never seen such a thing before and you could tell that he was amazed watching this noisy sports car boom across the bumpy pavement. Nevertheless, he remained respectful of this contraption watching from a "safe" distance, but squatting down to take a closer inspection whenever it ventured to come close.<br /><br />After a few minutes, we came in and _______ headed for the kitchen to get his ritual allotment of his favorite drink, dairy eggnog. This was also a Christmas favorite of mine which I utilized in my coffee whenever I had the opportunity. Being concerned that _______ was too young to understand the disappearance of his favorite drink at the end of the holiday season, I extended its availability by freezing a number of liters in the refrigerator. I don't think the foster mother knew or cared about his passion for eggnog, but then, this made it, all the more, a special treat between the two of us.<br /><br />With his drink polished off, we got ready to bake the Pillsbury Rudolph reindeer cookies packaged in the festive cardboard cylinder. "_____ cook, _____ cook" he chirped with much pride as together we donned our full aprons, mine a gentle blue with diagonally spaced dainty white flowers and his a handcrafted natural canvas with scattered multicolored hand prints. Then I popped open the tube, slide out the dough, and began slicing the disks of dough on the counter while this little angle boy eagerly waited standing by his cookie tray placed on a small table beside me.<br /><br />As one by one, I turned and handed down the slices to him, I watched with delight as he, with unusual ability and without instruction, carefully spread them evenly across the pan. Then I had to laugh. As I handed a slice to him he deftly turned his back to me, bent his head slightly as he took a bite and then, without missing a beat, smoothly slid the remainder on the cookie tray. He was so cute. What a well orchestrated tricky maneuver. Did he really think I had not noticed as I stared at this now crescent-shaped cookie portraying a now one-eared Rudolph!<br /><br />After the cookies were cooked and cooled, with a large grin stretched across his face, he triumphantly carried them out on a plate to offer the driver. Then he settled down in front of the Christmas tree with me to enjoy the fruits of his labor with yet another drink of his thick milky nog.<br /><br />The remainder of the visitation was filled with happy play: bouncing on the spring horse; conversing with Paddy, the orange mop headed tot-sized puppet; flipping through _____'s photos and those of his brother's, my first lost sheep; and then making the social circuit in the apartment hallway, greeting the many neighbors who knew and cared about him.<br /><br />When we returned from our hallway stroll, our time together was coming to a close so I decided to change ______ to make sure that he had a fresh diaper when he returned to the foster home. However, when I laid him out on the change pad on the floor and removed his pants I was concerned by the appearance of some very odd marks that appeared at the front of his legs in the area of the knees.<br /><br />I remember trying to call the driver's attention to this but she did not seem interested. I looked very closely at them. They were fine lines, perfectly straight, red, but not bright red. I knew that they had been made by the application of some sort of pressure but I could not figure out what possibly could have made these marks. They looked almost as if someone had wound thread around my grandson's knees except the lines did not extend to the back of his legs. I remember telling this to the driver.<br /><br />When she still persisted in her disinterest, I picked ______ up and brought him into the bathroom. Suspecting the foster mother might try to explain these marks as red ink, I determined to show the driver that this was not the case. First, I tried to rub the lines off with soap and water. Then I utilizing rubbing alcohol on a cotton pad. Nothing either lightened or removed the marks. Then I brought _______ to the driver and I specifically explained to her why these marks could not be red ink marks. Number one, as mentioned above, all the marks were perfectly straight. If ______ or someone else had made the marks with a pen they could not be so straight. Number two, the lines were too thin to be made by a pen and they were not red enough to be the type of ink usually found in a red pen. Then I demonstrated to her that I could not remove the marks with soap and water or rubbing alcohol, explaining that, if they were pen marks, I should have been able to make some difference in their appearance. At this point, the driver feigned some interest and promised that she would ask the foster mother about these marks.<br /><br />Can you imagine the frustration I felt when I was to find out, later, from reading the latest update of the Children's Services’ Case Recording Report, that the document stated that<br /><br />[the driver] "feels that the marks on the child's leg's look like pen marks (7)"<br /><br />and when the foster mother had been questioned upon ______'s return, the<br /><br />"foster mother told worker that earlier this morning ______ got into her red pen and marked on himself on his legs and ankles (7)".<br /><br />My careful explanation and demonstration indicating how these could not be red pen marks had not even been reported. And to make matters worse, according to the Children's Services case recording report, the foster mother stated, when ______ was picked up in the afternoon for a visit with his father<br /><br />"that she did not want to scrub it off and figured it would come off through the day in the bath (7)".<br /><br />Meanwhile, the foster mother was reporting that my grandson's<br /><br />"behaviors are getting worse daily. He has ruined their new carpet with crayons, broke most of the Christmas decorations. He appears to be genuinely mad. He has knocked foster sister's glasses off (7-8)"<br /><br />Yet ______ was not behaving this way in my home. He had thoroughly enjoyed helping me put snowflake decals on the window by dipping them in a pan of water, being lifted into the air to set them in place. He had also helped to trim the tree and he was gentle around all of my fragile Christmas decorations.<br /><br />This child described by the foster mother was not the little boy I knew. It broke my heart that it was apparent that there was something wrong, and I was helpless to do anything about it. It was frustrating that the reports seem to indicate that Children's Services were oblivious to any possible concerns in the foster home, or were unwilling to connect this negative behavior with separation trauma. Instead, they would allude to other outside causes, like too many visitations from family, or they would state that<br /><br />"it is apparent that ______ is a strong willed toddler that will require a lot of energy to care for" (9).<br /><br />In the documentation, they had also stated that this negative behavior was most apparent after visits with me. In this, I believed they were somehow trying to "blame" me for this behavior instead of connecting this acting out to his sadness of being separated from me again.<br /><br />For months I pondered on these strange red marks on my grandson‘s knees, asking everyone and anyone what could possibly make such afflictions on the skin. Then one day, when I described these marks to a resident in my apartment building, he, immediately and matter-of-factly, responded that these were the type of marks that would be made by whipping with a fine guitar string.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-92052657499030202692010-06-19T16:26:00.003-04:002012-05-03T20:57:08.704-04:0020 The Cigarette Burn<div align="center">
<strong><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">The Cigarette Burn (August 28, 2000)</span><br /><span style="color: #cc6600;">Chapter 16</span></span></strong></div>
<br />
<strong><em><span style="color: #663333; font-size: 85%;">People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle. - Thich Nhat Hanh</span></em></strong><br />
<br />
Monday August 28, 2000 <br />
<br />
It had been a long weekend without the sparkle of my grandson's eyes. Without a word, he could "play the crowd" on the bus with a tilt of his head and a swing of his feet, but most of all he played them with his eyes, his loving happy eyes. There seemed to be a whole story lurking behind those dark brown orbs, and, so effortlessly, he endeared himself to strangers - how much more he endeared himself to me his grandmother who had loved him since birth, who had cared for him, slept with him and sang to him. He was a precious soul and even before Children's Services came into our lives and snatched away my liberal time with him, I savored every minute I had with him.<br />
<br />
Today, Monday August 28, 2000, I would be granted a meager hour and a half visit with my grandson. With such a short allotment of time, from 9: 30 to 11: 00, now every second became precious. But C. was scheduled to bring my grandson today and for this I was happy. C. was a good and honest person and she was as much a friend as a worker for Children's Services could be. She had made herself available for special times and visits which I would otherwise not have gotten except for the flexible and generous giving of her time. With this in mind, I looked forward to my visitation as I scurried around my apartment, towel entwining my body getting ready for my morning shower.<br />
<br />
BUZZ- BUZZ. "It was 9:00! Who could be at my door so early in the morning?" When I picked up the intercom, I was quite numbed to find out that it was R., the dreaded Children's Services driver who had caused me so much trouble earlier in the spring, announcing her arrival. I heard my stunned voice asking why she was there and not C. and telling her that my visit was not suppose to start until 9:30. - There had been a change in the schedule. Now my visit was to be from 9:00 to 10:30 - I found myself asking why she had not phoned ahead to let me know of the change. - "No time" - "But you have a cell phone", I replied.<br />
<br />
What was her point of doing this to me? Had she hoped by her early arrival that she might "catch me at something"? Well the only thing she had caught me in was my towel and I told her that I still needed to take my shower - She offered to come back at 9:30 cautioning that she would still be leaving at 10: 30. Well, no shower was going to take a half hour and I wasn't trusting that she would be back in that space of time, thus diminishing my visitation even more, so I told her to come in and watch ______ while I quickly took my shower. I wanted as much time as possible with my grandson.<br />
<br />
Distracted by this disruption to my routine, as I rushed to get into the bathroom, I neglected to note my grandson's demeanor as he came through the door. My time was short, the day was beautiful and I wanted to get outside and spend some quality time with him. When I finished my shower, I threw on my clothes and quickly packed the stroller. Hurriedly I softly patted on his sun screen and then I strapped my "Pookie", my "sweetie", my "darling", my "love" into his seat and off we went into the sunshine - with R. in tow behind us of course.<br />
<br />
My heart is with ______ and, as I always did, I tried to block out this stranger who imposed upon the intimacy of our family love. Can you even begin to image how difficult it is to enjoy moments and make memories with your grandson as the eyes of a hostile person watches your every move, knowing that she will twist everything and anything during your visitation and write you up in a negative manner.<br />
<br />
This is my grandson and this is my time with him. I will make positive memories for him despite your wickedness! Though I will read your lying notes in your reports when they are filed with the court, he will not read them. His will be the memories, the true memories of this day, and you cannot take these away from him. I will ignore you and I will focus on him and I will love him and he will feel the love I have for him despite your hostile presence.<br />
<br />
We walked along the side of the lake and when we got to the small grassed area off the sidewalk I stopped and freed _____ from the stroller straps and carefully lifted him out. We played with his toys and when _____ saw a couple jogging along the sidewalk, he tried to mimicked them as young children do in serious tones, and I laughed at his antics and joined in with this "serious job" of running.<br />
<br />
It was during this mimicking jog that ______ fell on the asphalt not "ash fault" as it appeared in the report. And he did not cry as R. was later to put in her report. But it was when I went to help him up that I first noticed this awful hole on the inside of his hand. Momentarily I was puzzled. His tumble had been light, he wasn't crying, how could he have hurt himself so badly? Then I realized that what I was looking at was not a fresh wound. But it was a strange wound. It was a small circular hole that penetrated the inner base of his middle finger. The "meat", as I called it, was clearly visible. And I was astounded. I looked into ______’s eyes. He had been watching me looking at his wound and I wanted to cry.<br />
"What has happened to you?" I blurted out.<br />
<br />
And I saw a story in his eyes that he wanted to tell me but he couldn't say. He was 1 ½ years old and he was silent, but his eyes penetrated mine. Those eyes were so brave, I remember thinking they looked so brave. And I remember thinking that he is too young to be brave. A person so young should not be asked to be brave. This is not right. There is something wrong here. And his eyes kept watching me.<br />
<br />
Immediately I took him over to R. stretching out his hand for her to see.<br />
<br />
“What has happened to him?” I asked.<br />
<br />
I was shocked because I understood the regular procedure was to inform me upon my grandson's arrival of any unusual marks or bruises. She had told me nothing and I was just finding out now!<br />
<br />
"The foster mother said he touched a hot iron." she replied<br />
<br />
"A hot iron!" I responded.- He was just a little boy! "Where was it? On the floor? He couldn't reach an iron on an ironing board. “Besides," I explained, "an iron wouldn't leave a mark like that. This is a small round isolated burn. An iron burn would cover a larger area. "<br />
<br />
I was stunned I knew that explanation was a lie. But why would they lie? And I felt so helpless.<br />
<br />
My visitation time was almost finished. I wanted to be able to show this to someone, to have a witness. But I was not allowed to.<br />
<br />
"Has he been taken to a doctor" I asked.<br />
<br />
"No, the foster mother bandaged him and put ointment on it but _____ picked it off."<br />
<br />
All I could do was insist that he be taken to a doctor and I told R. that I would be checking when I saw him on Wednesday to see that he had been taken to a doctor.<br />
<br />
When _____ was brought for his visit on Wednesday, R. told me he had been taken to the doctor, but when I got the Children's Services case recording reports there was no indication that this had been done. Later, when I described the burn to a friend, I was told it was a cigarette burn. I was mortified. I remember, at the time I did not want to accept this, and I pushed it somewhere in the back of my mind. Surely, this could not be correct. My grandson was no more than a baby, a mere 1 ½ years old. Surely, this was not possible - I didn’t want this to be possible! Then, when I went to see my doctor, I described the burn to her, and she immediately said, "cigarette burn". I was stunned.<br />
<br />
I am convinced that my grandson was never taken to a doctor. Why would they do that? If they had, it would have been recognized immediately as a cigarette burn.<br />
<br />
Almost 3 years later, I would come across a booklet published by Nova Scotia Children's Services, the very department that allowed this to happen, entitled Indicators of Possible Abuse or Neglect. Here, on page 4, I read that one of the physical indicator of physical abuse is "small circular burns". I remember, the moment I read those words, I was immediately swept into the presence of my little grandson, and I was overshadowed with a depth of pain that I had not, up to this point, allowed myself to feel concerning this burn. In response, I threw the book down and, until today I have not even been able to look into this book.<br />
<br />
However, now that I read this page anew, it is ironic that I read on this very same page the following words:<br />
<br />
Section 22(2)(a) of the Children's and Family Service's Act states that a child is in need of protective services where " the child has suffered physical harm inflicted by a parent or guardian of the child or caused the failure of a parent or guardian to supervise and protect the child adequately."<br />
<br />
What is a person to do? Where is a person suppose to complain to when the Department of Children's Services are responsible for the "physical harm inflicted by . . . a guardian (the foster parents)" but they act in the "best interest of " themselves?<br />
<br />
Tell me, what gives this department the right to cause such pain in my soul?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-44334256281447659372010-06-19T14:23:00.003-04:002012-05-03T21:01:29.488-04:00A 19 Deja vous /Pinochio's Nose Grew Longer<div align="center">
<strong><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Deja vous /Pinochio's Nose Grew Longer (June 16, 2000)</span><span style="color: #cc9933;">Chapter 19</span></span></strong> </div>
<div align="left">
<br />
<span style="color: #663333;"><strong><em><span style="font-size: 85%;">We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. - Viktor Frankl</span></em></strong></span><br />
June 16, 2000 <br />
<br />
A chance meeting of a pleasant person on a cool spring day. This should have been a positive memory for me. Indeed, the actual meeting was pleasant. He was an older gentleman, but not elderly, finely dressed in a tailored three-quarter length coat and well groomed with that "distinguished" look. His speech denoted culture and refinement, and his accent revealed his Latin American roots. Our conversation was brief as we stood facing each other exchanging a few nondescript, unremembered pleasantries, but I recall him telling me that he was originally from Venezuela, and that he had three grandchildren, one the same age as my grandson. And as we talked, I wondered what life events and decisions had brought this person so far from his homeland in South America.<br />
<br />
All the while, my grandson played contentedly on the grass beside me occasionally stopping to lean against my leg, shooting beguiling responsive smiles up towards me and this gentleman as we conversed. As this brief conversation ended, this man picked up my grandson, and speaking a few grandfatherly words, he quickly kissed him on the cheek, immediately returning him to his contented play at my feet. Though this action was unexpected, it did not alarm me, nor did it alarm my grandson who always relished attention as his beaming eyes betrayed. Having taken a Spanish language course, which included instruction on Hispanic culture, I knew that this behavior in this setting, under these circumstances was perfectly innocent.<br />
<br />
But 20 feet away, other eyes belonging to the Children's Services driver, R., the person who oversaw my supervised visits, had penetrated this exchange and "other" ignorant conclusions were being reached. - "It was inappropriate of you to allow this man to kiss ______", I was told.<br />
<br />
At this point, my mistake was saying ANYTHING!<br />
<br />
I responded by stating that I had not "allowed" this man to kiss my grandson, it had just happened, quickly and unexpectedly. Then I tried to explain that I had not been concerned about this behavior because this person was from the Spanish culture and in the Spanish culture a kiss, even between strangers, was not considered inappropriate. I also added that in the traditional Native culture, my culture, such a display of affection towards a child within the presence of family would not be considered inappropriate either. Then, thinking I might calm the concerns she had, I told her that I understood her inability to comprehend because it was obvious that she had not taken cultural sensitivity training and was unaware of the norms of the Spanish culture. Ever helpful, I added that I knew someone who was experienced in providing this training to various government departments, and perhaps some arrangements might be made to have this training available to the Children's Services Department.<br />
<br />
O-o-oops - though this information was given with the best of intentions, it immediately became obvious that it had not been received as such. Suddenly, all semblance of the person I had known up to this point disappeared as this woman became like one possessed: the veins in her neck engorged as a flush of hot crimson claimed her usually pale face and neck, and her eyes, distended, were intense and livid with rage. "Stop arguing, right now, or your visit will cease immediately! " she emphatically threatened.<br />
<br />
I was shocked! This was not argument, not the non-academic argument she was referring to. I was not even attempting to change this woman's mind. I was only attempting to clarify to this woman why she did not understand my perspective. However, fearful of losing my visitation with my grandson, I instantly clamped my mouth shut, picked ______ up and put physical distance between me and this woman, all the while, being very careful not to move abruptly, concerned that such an action would be negatively interpreted.<br />
<br />
In my mind, I attempted to screen this person out. I did not want her to ruin my visitation with my grandson any more than she already had. But I was terrified as I stood there under the trees by the edge of the lake fearfully clutching my grandson as I gazed across the water, so still and empty. I felt completely helpless! I felt as if the whole world had gone insane. I had done nothing wrong yet my freedom to be with my grandson in a normal environment had been stripped from me, and with horror, I could now see that this person, with no specific education in social work or and any other degree, was enjoying wielding this power over me.<br />
<br />
As I stood there alone, transfixed in my fear, with no one to help me, afraid to speak, I momentarily felt transposed to another time and place. This is how it must have felt going into a concentration camp during the second world war: innocent yet imprisoned, with no voice and no one to turn to, afraid of losing contact with those you loved the most, holding your child but having no way of protecting it. How could I be living such a nightmare, in this country at this time. Surely, people do not realize that such torture is happening now in this country for if they did would they not do something to stop it? As I continued to gaze across the vacant expanse of the lake, I felt like I was a million miles away from any help, in a different dimension, alone.<br />
<br />
Then the need to make positive memories for my grandson pushed through my pain and fear and I looked at his sweet little face, innocent of the controversy that swirled around his life. He had no way of knowing how hard I was fighting to bring him back to his family, to a home where he was passionately loved and cared for.<br />
<br />
When I set _____ down under the trees, he wandered into the midst of an accumulation of golden brown leaves taking immediate delight in the rustling sounds as he scurried through these remnants of the previous fall. Then, as we played together, he laughed and giggled as he noted his ability to control the crunching sounds as we dashing back and forth, occasionally stopping to toss the leaves above our heads, immersing ourselves with this tattered woodland confetti.<br />
<br />
Then, abruptly, our precious time together came to a close as the driver announced that it was time to collect our things and head for home. At this point, I guess I was feeling safer, and naively I was thinking that with the closing of my visitation I might venture to clarify myself again So as we headed home I stated that my understanding of the Spanish culture came from a university course I had taken and that I felt this difference of opinion was due to a "cultural misunderstanding".<br />
<br />
But it was apparent that I was not enlightening this woman: her flushed coloring persisted, as she continued to adamantly declare that this behavior was "inappropriate". "In all her training she had never . . .!"<br />
<br />
At this point I interjected, and on this one sentence, only, I raised my voice saying, "I know you don't understand, and you do not understand because you have never taken any cultural sensitivity training!" Immediately realizing my mortal slip, I lowered my voice and said "Well, I raised my voice and I suppose you will document this, won't you?" This was the only recollection that I have, in the almost 2 years that I had to deal with "these people", the Children's Services Department, that I had ever allowed myself to raise my voice, yet even now it had not been raised in anger, only frustration, trying to get this person to hear what I was saying to her. But I would pay dearly for this infraction, and what was worse, my grandson, not yet two years old, would pay for this as well.<br />
<br />
Shortly after the driver drove _____ back to the foster home, the case worker phoned me. She would not allow me to explain myself. All she wanted to do was to establish if this person was a "stranger" - end of discussion. Then she told me that my visits with my grandson would immediately return to the office and that this issue would be raised in court - end of conversation. The unnatural circumstances in which I was forced to visit my grandson was now being made even more abnormal.<br />
<br />
Knowing that I had done nothing to justify their taking my home visitations away, I calmly began thinking how I could defend myself against such unrighteousness. First, I decided, while this "incident" was fresh in my mind, I would immediately draft an affidavit stating the events of my visitation and the resulting phone call with the social worker. I ended this affidavit with this plea:<br />
<br />
My home visits with my grandson are important to me. They are important for _____.. Weather permitting I take ______ outside. I live by Lake Banook where there are walkways to explore, grassy areas to play in, "duckies" to feed, beaches to sink your toes in, water to splash in, and trees to enjoy. The smells and sounds of nature are all around.<br />
<br />
To deprive _____ of these experiences surely cannot be in his best interest. The visitation rooms [at the Children's Services office] are small with no windows. Even in my apartment, ______ likes to get up at the window to watch and hear the birds. It is summer, the good weather days of summer are limited.<br />
<br />
In addition, I contacted my Spanish professor who wrote not only a letter of explanation to the innocence of the gentleman's behavior but included also a beautifully written message of support for me.<br />
<br />
[insert quote here]<br />
<br />
Once again, I was naive. I thought I had all the bases covered, but when people are willing to lie, anything is possible. As it turned out, at the next court appearance despite the declaration of the case worker and despite my specific instructions to my lawyer, the issue was not raised so that this situation was left unresolved. Instead, I was to learn after the court session, that the case worker had conversed with my lawyer, outside in the corridors before the court was called into session. And despite the importance of this conversation, I was not made aware of this until my lawyer was driving me back to her office after court.<br />
<br />
As this rushed and busy woman wound her car through the traffic, stopping here and there at the occasional red light making turns right and left, the enormity of our conversation became apparent. Here, for the first time, I learned that the reason being given for my loss of home access was that the case worker was now claiming that when she had phoned to speak to me that I had "slammed the receiver down on her ear".<br />
<br />
How does one react to such a bold face lie? As I set stunned on the passenger side, everything seemed to take on a cloak of surrealism. The car seemed to float as my lawyer maneuvered the corners. And though I became acutely aware of the people on the sidewalks and in the cars surrounding me, I knew they were but passing blurs unaware of the unfolding drama within the confines of this car. "I can't believe it!" I expressed in shock as my eyes bulged from their sockets as if searching for some unuttered explanation "I did nothing of the kind. She is lying! Why would she lie? I can't believe it!" "I can't believe it!" This phrase, I can't believe it, was to be repeated so often in my nightmare journey with Children's Services that I finally got to the point that I would catch my words as I began blurting them out and correct myself saying, "No, I have to wipe this out of my mind. Nothing surprises me any more, I do believe it, I do believe it!"<br />
<br />
Yet my lawyer was not surprised. She explained that when I had supported my argument of cultural insensitivity so well, it was not unlike the Children's Services Department to come up with another, different, excuse for taking my home visits away, even if it meant manufacturing a lie. Well, if she wasn't shocked at this behavior I was - I was new at the game and I still had so much to learn.<br />
<br />
Now, instead of the matter being brought up in court, as promised by both my lawyer and the social worker, an informal meeting was arranged between me and my counsel, and the case worker and the legal counsel for the Children's Services Department. During preliminary consultation with my lawyer, I had been instructed to let my lawyer do all the talking - yet this did not set right with me. This was to be an informal meeting. Why should I be the only one without a voice? As a result, I sought the advice of a friend who used to work for Children's Services as a driver. As it happened, she was aware of this particular lawyer, and she was aware of his ability to discern truth from lies. She, still believing that the lawyer for Children's Services would do right, strongly recommended that I speak forth because, she explained, he was experienced at recognizing a truth teller as well as a liar and that if I remained silent this lawyer would not have the opportunity to gauge my honesty.<br />
<br />
When we met, it was on the opposition's turf, the board room of the law firm representing Children's Services. It was a large rectangular room dwarfed by a grand solid conference table that claimed all but the outer fringes of the room. My lawyer and I were the first to arrive and we sat almost midway along the left side of the table, my chair being the closest to the doorway. I remember being conscious of my lawyer's comfort in this room, surely she had been here before, but I also recall my own discomfort. Then as our wait extended I began to wondered if the room was not wired for sound and if they might be listening in on our conversation. At the time, I also remember thinking that this was an irrational concern, but I have since found that, with matters concerning Children's Services, all things are possible, and no fear is necessarily unfounded.<br />
<br />
When the opposition entered, the case worker slid into the seat almost across from me, perhaps one seat closer to the entrance, and the counsel for Children's Services pulled up a chair at the end of the table by the door. I was to find out later that he was the "big cheese", the lawyer called in by Children's Services to deal with their most difficult cases and that he only tended to make occasional appearances during the "sticky bits". That this man became my routine opponent, I was told, spoke volumes about Children's Services desire to get what they wanted from this case. This, and the fact that, not one but, two CS lawyers were in this court case. Yet, to this day, still not knowing for sure where my grandson is, I am left speculating what and/or who was driving the actions of Children's Services.<br />
<br />
As the discussion began between the two lawyers, as instructed, I patiently played the spectator, but it quickly became apparent that that the lawyer for Children's Services had rolled up his sleeves and was determined to block my bid to have my visitations return to my home. Then the case worker began to speak, and as she spoke, as I related to my friends, "Pinocchio's nose grew longer and longer". Now, she was claiming that she had made not one, but three consecutive phone calls to me on that particular day and that I had slammed the phone down on her ear not once but three times, all the while averting my gaze as she said this.<br />
<br />
I am sitting across from her hearing this new extension to her lie and I am watching myself because I know that all the while I am being closely scrutinized by the other lawyer. I remain calm though I am totally blown away by the boldness of this lie. This is not right. And I am thinking that when people are doing wrong they should not be allowed to feel comfortable in their wrongness. Yet, I also know, at all costs, I must compose myself and be civil.<br />
<br />
Any human response, no matter how justified, would be used against me, and I knew, even though it was true, that I could not directly accuse her of lying. When the worker had finished speaking , I gathered my courage and all the serenity that I could muster. I gazed across the expanse of the table and looked this woman directly in the eye, not angrily because I knew that that would be detected and used against me, but with the look that spoke what both my heart and her heart already knew, that we both knew the truth, the real truth. And I said to her calmly, with conviction, "You made one and only one phone call to me that day and the only thing that you wanted to know was if I knew this person that I spoke to. When you found this out, you ended the conversation. I did not hang up on you. And I do not lie.", with the emphasis on the I.<br />
<br />
I am sure there must have been silence for at least a few seconds after I said this. And the Children Services lawyer did take note, and he did respond by telling us that he wanted a few minutes of private conversation with the case worker in the hall. I cannot recall if I spoke with my lawyer as I waited there, but I remember feeling venerable. Truth was on my side, but I have come to learn that truth seems to have little meaning when you are dealing with this system.<br />
<br />
Finally, after what must have seemed like forever, the doorway to the hall opened and the opposition returned to their seats. The case worker, that I would now and forever refer to as "Little Miss Liar" was dabbing her reddened eyes. Taking note, and wanting to emphasis this case worker's condition, my lawyer made comment, suggesting that the case worker might be suffering from allergies. "No," she replied, "I don't have allergies".<br />
<br />
From this I was to deduce that, if given time, this worker could come up with a lie, but that she was not able to do so on the spur of the moment, even if an excuse was handed to her. I felt that this weakness was important to note especially if we went to trial. Indeed, I was to find out later from another lawyer that this particular case worker had a reputation of lying but when she was on the stand, confronted with the lie, she did have a habit of recanting.<br />
<br />
There was a noticeable change in the demeanor of the counsel for Children's Services, and this lawyer, giving no explanation, now declared that I would get my home visitations back. However, despite the fact that I had never done anything wrong, my home visitations would be returned on a gradual basis. The first week only one of my three weekly visits would be in my home, the second week, two, and then finally on the third week all three visits would be returned to my home.<br />
<br />
I do not know what touched this man's heart that day. I believe that when he heard me speak he discerned who was the liar and who was the truth-teller, and that day he did the right thing by giving me back my home visitations. However, by not admitting that an injustice had been done and only allowing my visits back on a graduated basis, it was apparent that this lawyer was attempting to save face for the department and that it was the "best interest" of the Children's Services Department, not my grandson, which was being served.<br />
<br />
The lack of action against those who had done wrong within the Children's Services Department, only further encouraged their inappropriate behavior. After this, that particular driver only wrote up my visitations in the most negative light, skewing every word and every action, and adding embellishments from her imagination whenever it pleased her. My only saving grace was that this transposition was blatant and apparent when one compared her written reports before and after this incident and it was also apparent that her attitude towards me varied from that of the other drivers who brought my grandson for his visits.<br />
<br />
In the end, I have often wondered about this innocent stranger who walked into my life for only a brief moment and then walked out again, never knowing what disturbance and pain was left in his wake.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-70864744442901679842008-06-01T20:26:00.005-04:002010-06-19T14:00:08.199-04:00A 18 Rebirth - Response to Assessment<div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc0000;">Rebirth - Response to Assessment
<br /><span style="color:#cc6600;">Chapter 18</span></strong> </div><p>
<br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663300;"><strong>You may write me down in history </strong></span></em>
<br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663300;"><strong>With your bitter, twisted lies,</strong></span></em>
<br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663300;"><strong>You may trod me in the very dirt</strong></span></em>
<br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663300;"><strong>But still, like dust, I'll rise.</strong></span></em>
<br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663300;"><strong>
<br />Does my sassiness upset you?
<br />Why are you beset with gloom?
<br />'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
<br />Pumping in my living room.
<br />
<br />Just like moons and like suns,
<br />With the certainty of tides,
<br />Just like hopes springing high,
<br />Still I'll rise.
<br />
<br />Did you want to see me broken?
<br />Bowed head and lowered eyes?
<br />Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
<br />Weakened by my soulful cries?
<br />
<br />Does my haughtiness offend you?
<br />Don't you take it awful hard
<br />'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
<br />Diggin' in my own backyard.
<br />
<br />You may shoot me with your words,
<br />You may cut me with your eyes,
<br />You may kill me with your hatefulness,
<br />But still, like air, I'll rise. . . .
<br />
<br />Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise
<br />Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise
<br />Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
<br />I rise
<br />I rise
<br />I rise.
<br />
<br />- Maya Angelou ("Still I Rise" )</strong></span></em>
<br /></span></em>
<br />I was naive and I was at a loss to understand the reason for this injustice. My mind was spinning, and my stomach and my heart were heavy. And I remember one of my friends, reacting to the statement in the assessment that accused me of "faking good", incredulously stating "But you are a good person!"
<br />
<br />There was something intensely evil and wrong about this assessment with its 100% inaccurate representation of my responses to the numerous questions posed to me during the interviewing process. I was determined that I would gather my strength and rise up and fight against this foe rather than allow this injustice to stand. They were attempting to defeat me with lying words and I was not going to let these words stand unchallenged. I was determined to respond, in detail, to this assessment line by line.
<br />
<br />Considering this was an assessment of 27 pages, this was a project of enormous magnitude. Determined to make this more than a "I didn't say that, I said this . . ." document, I planned to include affidavits to back my statements from a number of people which I specified throughout my response.
<br />
<br />Meanwhile, my uncle, now in Alberta, stood solidly by my side, and still very much connected with this case became my co-editor. My response to this assessment was to be complete and accurate, and would consume every bit of my energy for months to come. In the end, my response was twice the length of the original assessment, but this was necessary because, wanting to clarify exactly what I was responding to, I lifted quotes directly out of the assessment, and as mentioned earlier, there was not once that my responses had been accurately relayed.
<br />
<br />To facilitate this new relationship with my uncle, I rushed out to buy a fax machine so that we could send the various edits back and forth to each other. I felt it very strange that I should have such technology in my home, after all I was not a business person like my uncle, but then my situation was unnatural, leastwise in a civil western civilization, my situation should be considered unnatural.
<br />
<br />Unfortunately, as I have researched the subject of injustice concerning the courts and Children's Services, I have come to realize the "naturalness" of this situation not only in this province but across this country as well. The "natural" is only believed to be "unnatural" because it is a shame that has been secreted away from all but the victimized. It is time for this shame, that has been allowed to naturalize, to be exposed.
<br />
<br />During the horror of my ordeal, I was exceedingly thankful for the support and encouragement that I received from my uncle, my uncle by marriage, who maintained a close and meaningful relationship with his own grandson. Though he, himself, was being challenged with difficult circumstances in his own family, he sacrificed long laborious hours helping me in this case and for this I will be forever grateful. Shortly after my case began, one of his brothers developed brain cancer and his family seemed to be doing everything in their power to keep a spark of existence alive in him. My uncle’s family, a family of affluence had more options than the average, and from what my uncle relayed to me they clung onto every option that promised to extend this man’s life. I often wondered about the soundness of these decisions for both this man and his family. How difficult it must be to let go of a loved one in your family, and how much more difficult it must be if circumstances afford the availability of additional options to prolong life. These were trying times for my uncle yet he graciously gave of his time to me.
<br />
<br />But then fate continued to grind by uncle down. Soon after the death of this brother, another brother developed skin cancer on a large portion of his back. This brother eventually received an extensive skin graph. After this, his elderly mother began to do poorly and she eventually came to live with my uncle so that he and my aunt could watch over her and tend to her needs. </p><p>Both my aunt and uncle are "good people", but eventually our relationship was suddenly and mysteriously strained. As it turned out, this mystery was just one more peculiar dynamic of my bizarre "unnatural" case.
<br />
<br />Together, my uncle and I counseled my lawyer as to our expectations of her. First and foremost, we expected her to work diligently on completing the affidavits that I required to support my statements in my response to the assessment. It was important that the lies of this assessment be smashed as soon as possible. As drafts of the response with indicated affidavits were completed, they were immediately handed over to the lawyer so that she could efficiently complete the affidavit interviews as soon as possible. The initial plan was to file the response and the affidavits together as a single unit.
<br />
<br />On a second front, my uncle and I wanted to explore the option of having another assessment done. My lawyer, though indicating that this was a positive move, did little to help me procure an appropriate professional person. This is a process that a lawyer working in family law should be familiar with, and a job which the lawyer should be doing for a client on their behalf . Instead, my lawyer left me to muddle through as best as I could to find an appropriate psychiatrist who was able to do this for me. And muddle I did. Halifax is a small city and as I phoned and spoke with a number of psychologist, the dynamics of this professional community slowly crystallized. Being a small city, the people in the profession tended to know each other. Most psychologists were not willing to do assessments, especially if it is meant to go up against another assessments that was done by someone else in the community. Other psychologists were backlogged and would not be able to do the assessment for months and they told me that the assessment would have to be done over a period of time far longer than my original "quickie" assessment. Only one psychologist was eager to take on the assessment and the probing questions that she fired at me led me to believe that she was personally close to the psychologist who was responsible for my original assessment. Needles to say I was not trusting this person!
<br />
<br />Eventually, my lawyer suggested that a psychologist ---------- miles away might be available but the schedule of appointments that I would have to maintain at such a distance was impossible for me: I was working full time, I had my thrice weekly visitations with my grandson, and I did not have a car and did not drive.
<br />
<br />Meanwhile, my lawyer relentlessly dragged her toes on my requests for the affidavits. Wanting my response filed as soon as possible, I had it filed immediately upon completion in draft form with the accompanying affidavits pending. Again, and again both I and my uncle, verbally and in writing, requested that this work be done as soon as possible, my uncle often spending considerable time clarifying our instructions to her via long distance phone calls. But all this lawyer did was dither and doddle, eventually becoming rude and telling me that she was busy.
<br />
<br />In the end, out of nowhere, she suddenly tried to argue that these affidavits were not relevant and would be a waste of time gathering. These were not irrelevant. They were extremely important to my defense. In the six months this lawyer worked for me, she only managed to finish 3 of the 13 affidavits that she had been instructed to gather.
<br />
<br />THIS CHAPTER NOT FINISHED
<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-44320988289125440202008-05-31T06:03:00.002-04:002008-06-01T20:26:14.874-04:00A 17. Like a Silent Lamb to the Slaughter<div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc0000;">Like a Silent Lamb to the Slaughter</span></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="color:#996633;">Chapter 17</span></strong></div><div align="center"><strong></strong></div><div align="center"><em><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">Right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant." - Martin Luther King</span></strong></em></div><p><br />With nervous expectation, I stepped from the cab in front of the dark Victorian home, now converted for use by a legal firm, located on the corner of a major thoroughfare and a quaint community street. It was only an hour before our scheduled court hearing, and I was to meet my lawyer to review, for the first time, the results of the assessment. I had been warned the timeframe for the release of the assessment before court would be tight, but this was cutting it close, and though I expected a positive report, a ominous feeling hung heavy in the air which I struggled to dismiss as I ascended the front porch steps. Hearing the hollow sound of ancient wood beneath my feet, I crossed the porch, turned the dented brass knob, and pushed open the door.<br /><br />Upon my entrance, the receptionist phoned my lawyer who promptly descended from a narrow winding stairway near the front door. The constricted nature of this passageway was an indication that this was most likely the servant stairs, a remnant of earlier days still familiar in some of the older homes in Halifax. Clutched in her hands was the all important document. </p><p>"It is not good" were the only words she expressed as she stretched the 23 page document towards me. And the exhausted slumbering lamb that had crumpled into a deep sleep was suddenly jolted into an awareness of the realty of the surrounding danger. I was left alone on a bench in the open hallway that embraced the receptionist's office to digest this document by myself. I recall feeling abandoned, open, vulnerable and uncomfortable. What a place to read such a traumatic document! In hind sight, realizing now that my own lawyers were never working for me, perhaps it was hoped that I would display some inappropriate manifestation of emotion that could be witnessed by others.<br /><br />Realizing that the relevant conclusions, the bottom line, would be at the end, I immediately flipped to the last page of the document.<br /><br />I was stunned. The sense of agony, pain, and the fear of my grandson being given to strangers, never to see his family again, flooded my brain. How could such a conclusion have been reached? My first assumption was that there must have been some sort of misrepresentation of the test results from the 3 tests given me. After all, there was some very strange questions in those tests like “I have been around the world several times this week - True or False” or “I have been hearing voices - True or False”, etc. Then as I quickly scanned the entire document I was dumbfounded as I realized that not some but every statement I made during my many interviews during the assessment process was misrepresented.<br /><br />Now I was a reasonable person, and even with such an important assessment, I could fathom one, two, or even three misunderstandings, but this was beyond comprehension! None, absolutely none, of my responses were correctly reproduced in this document. How could they, why would they so blatantly misrepresent me? But there they were. The lies, one after the other, splashed across the pages of this document. Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! As I skimmed through the pages, each lie left its emotional blow and my heart was on the ground bleeding and wounded. No one, anywhere, at any time, had done such a vicious things against me before, and most incredulously the worst impressions of myself came from statements that they claimed I had made, myself!<br /><br />One example of the misrepresentations that filled this document was my alleged response to them asking me how I felt about the fact that my daughter and I had not spoken with each other since my grandson had been taken into care. In the assessment, they stated that my answer to them had been that “it was the best thing for her” - period. With nothing more than this, one was left with the impression that I didn’t care about my daughter. But this was only the smallest sliver of my actual answer, and taken out of context, the accurate meaning of my response had been flipped around 180 degrees.<br /><br />My answer, in its entirety, told a different story: I had stated that, previous to this, whenever my daughter and I had any falling out, she had always stayed in communication with me, and that this was the first time that this communication had discontinued. I went on to explain that my daughter never accepted responsibility for her actions, that she always tended to find a way to blame me for everything and that maybe, just maybe, this might turn out to be the best thing for her, because, no longer having me around to blame for everything, she might be forced to reflect upon herself and her own responsibilities, and maybe - just maybe - this might help her.<br />I was astounded that the authors of this assessment felt they could lie so boldly! How could anyone justify misrepresenting every statement I had said. Indeed, insanity was there but it did not lay with me! That feeling of shock, that would become so familiar, enveloped my body, and with it came the paralyzing feeling of helplessness. This was insane! Surely, I was reading the report of another person! This reality, my present reality, was sick and disturbing, and it seemed to float helplessly in a heavy numbing soup of unreality. I was trapped in a nightmare with no one to wake me up!<br /><br />Eventually, my lawyer reappeared out of the darkness at the bottom of the stairway, calling me up to her office. As I followed her, up this winding narrow stairway, reminiscent of a castle tower staircase, the steps groaned and squeaked beneath my feet. Upon reaching the dimly lit landing, we turned abruptly to the right, following the banister that overlooked the stairway to the end of the hall. Here we entered her office, a room of frugal proportions, barely large enough to contain her desk, and a small cluttered bookshelf. As she squeezed behind her desk I settled into the remaining wooden chair perched near the door.<br /><br />As I sat there listening to her, I can't say that I remember a single word she said. As she chattered on, I allowed myself to think about the discomfort of having to enter a court knowing that everyone there would have read the damning words in this document spoken against me. Would people believe this document? Would people believe me? These were professional people who wrote this document. Who am I next to them? Why would anyone believe me? How could such a thing happen? How can such a thing be true? So many questions were snapping through my mind. And then I thought, I am no one special. If they have been bold enough to use such deceitful tactics against me, surely this could not be the first time. But as this thought floated through my brain it seemed surreal. How could such things be true? This is Canada! This is Canada! Things like this are not suppose to happen in Canada!<br /><br />In a few minutes, I would be whisked to the courthouse where I would stand before the justice of the court, a man who I respected. In respecting this justice, I felt shame and embarrassment that I would stand before this person knowing that he would have read this document that claimed me to be narcissistically self absorbed, and not worthy to raise my grandson. But, surely, I thought, this justice, whom I believed to be a good and honest person, in all his years on the bench, must have had enough previous experience with assessments to have at least some suspicions and concerns about their integrity. Maybe, I thought, when he hears the statements made against me, it will add to his accumulated knowledge, and my case might contribute to lifting the veil of ignorance surrounding this wrong. Naively I believed that the injustice would be so apparent that the justice would surely intervene in some way. Needless to say, I was still very ignorant of judicial procedure and I wrongly assumed that justices had more pre-trial power than they actually do.<br /><br />It was then that I pulled in the strength of my spiritual faith. I would stand before this human judge knowing that he had read this document that brutally dammed me, but I knew that my God, the judge who knows all things, who knows my heart, my soul, and my mind, like no other human being possibly could, knew the person that I was.<br /><br />Secure in this knowledge, I determined that I could stand before this human judge, for I had no reason to be humiliated. As my lawyer rambled on, I prayed: "God, You know the truth and in the end You are the only one who needs to know the truth. I can walk into that court and I can stand before all these lies because You know the truth. I stand before You as my judge and I submit myself into your hands"<br /><br />When I walked into that court with this document speaking against me it was apparent that I was being dismissed by Children's Services like yesterdays newspaper, insignificantly thrown off to the sideline. The speech of their lawyer were nonchalant, like it was the norm, old hat to them. But, this was most significant to me and though my grandson was too young to realize it, it was most significant to him. Though, for the time being, I would still be allowed access to my grandson, they had cut me off at the knees. My hope for unsupervised access was now severely hampered, and more importantly, my bid to bring my grandson home had been strangled by this deceitful document.<br /><br />I am sure many people assume that out legal system is civilized and appropriate. I used to think so. But these are the kinds of assumptions made by persons who have not experienced our legal system first hand. As a person represented by legal counsel, I did not have the ability to say anything in my own defense during pre-trial hearings unless the justice addressed me specifically - this is an extreme rarity. Time and time again I was frustrated as I was forced to sit dumbly by my lawyers. In these circumstances, not having the ability to speak for myself, I was at the mercy of my own lawyers, the very people who were suppose to be defending me. In time, I came to accept the fact that these lawyers were unfaithful and unimpassioned with my case. All I was to them, was coins jingling in their pockets, nothing more.<br /><br />Though I had never believed those dehumanizing jokes about lawyers before, I now passionately believed them all, thinking myself quite the fool for being so naïve. Alas, I had been raised on Perry Mason, noble Perry Mason.<br /><br />However, it does grieve my soul that I was wrong about lawyers. I wish I had experienced lawyers to be noble, really caring about truth and justice. But as I witnessed one person who was self-representing in court recently say, “ This is a court of law, not a court of truth.” He was right, truth, unfortunately, has no room in our courts today.<br /><br />However, though the justice had only seen this document hours before court, it was apparent that he had done his homework. In reading through the assessment, he was concerned that there were a number of people (people who did not even know me, people who only repeated lies told them by my daughter) brought forth from the other side that contributed information for my assessment against me, yet only three people I had brought forward were included in this assessment. About this, the justice was concerned enough that he ordered the professionals responsible for this assessment to immediately give a written explanation for such methodology.<br /><br />Their reply was incredulous: they felt no need to speak to the people I had brought forth because they assumed all they would do was support me. Does this make any logical sense? This was suppose to be an unbiased assessment. They had the ethical obligation to hear both sides of the story.<br /><br />As it turned out, 2 of the 3 people, put forth by me, who were spoken to by the assessors were so concerned that they had been misrepresented in the assessment that one, herself, pushed to get the original copy made from her telephone interview and wrote a note to the court concerning this. The other person filed an affidavit voicing her concern about the way her interview had been done. In her affidavit she stating that she was disturbed by the assessors blatant push to get only negative information about me and that she was so concerned that they were dismissing what she did have to say about me that she found herself repeating the statements she had made.<br /><br />After court I went home to study this document in detail. Upon inspection it became apparent that the assessment procedure was never fully explained to me. In fact, the information I was told was totally misleading, and many important details of the process did not become apparent to me until I actually read the report.<br /><br />This assessment was mind boggling! As soon as I got home, I faxed the assessment to my uncle in Alberta and phoning him spoke with him at great length. Surely, I exclaimed, to have everything - absolutely everything - I said turned upside down, is evidence of deliberate misrepresentation. Concurring, my uncle pointed out that bias in the assessment was apparent to him by the "complete lack of anything positive" said about me. I remember being struck by this. What he said was true, but it took me some time to digest this. This was a significant observation. For this assessment to ring true shouldn’t there be some recognition of some positive qualities in me. After all, I had no police record, I had never done drugs, I wasn’t an alcoholic, I was an educated person with a recognized academic accomplishments. I had graduated as highest B.A. aggregate, attained a B.Ed. and I had maintained a perfect GPA of 4.00 while earning my M.Ed. In addition, I had been an active member in the community: a brownie leader, a Sunday school teacher, and a teacher in my community conducting programs not only for children but also for parents and children together . </p><p>But the professionals conducting this assessment twisted everything against me, even my education. Though 2 educated women were signatories to this pretense of professional composition, they stated in my assessment,<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><em>_____ is a 45 year old woman who works full-time and goes to school on a part time basis. She is hopeful of advancing in her career after completion of her Masters degree. The amount of time and energy that ______ would have for [her grandson], who is a very active child, has been questioned by [unnamed] collaterals sources.</em></span> </blockquote><p></span><br />To me, this was insane! </p>16. Like a Silent Lamb to the SlaughterUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-88302644538964174462008-05-30T04:00:00.005-04:002008-05-30T05:01:30.933-04:00A 16 The Documents Speak For Themselves<div align="center"><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">The Documents Speak For Themselves<br /></span><span style="color:#cc9933;">Chapter 16</span></span></strong></div><br /><strong><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;color:#663300;"><em>He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it . . . . This falshood of tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions. - Letter to Peter Carr (August 19, 1785) - Thomas Jefferson</em></span></strong><br /><br /><br />Imprinted along the top of the paper is the stamp proclaiming this document to be<br />"Exhibit 'A' " , an affidavit of the social worker that would become known to me as "Little Miss Liar". "Sworn before me", it continued, "this 19th day of May A.D. ____, and then signed by "___. ___. A Barrister of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.<br /><br />This Barrister as it turned out was one of the lawyers for Children's Services, a wiry, stiff and steely, short-cropped red-head - or at least the faded hint of the red he once had when he was younger. His eyes were cold and blue, and I often watched him in the hallway before and after court, amazed that even there, outside of court, there was never any hint of defrost. His head was rigid, his back was hard. When I tried to penetrate this exterior to find even a hint of warmth, I found none. Instead, I sensed a heart that was frozen, and a mind that was numb, and whenever I looked at him, a chill ran through my soul. This was the product of a seared conscience, the walking dead, a heartless, mindless entity.<br /><br />I was new at this - the routine of getting a copy of the latest update of the<br /><div align="center"><br />PROVINCE OF NOVA SCOTIA<br />DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY SERVICES<br />FAMILY AND CHILDREN'S SERVICES<br />DARTMOUTH DISTRICT OFFICE<br />CASE RECORDING REPORT</div><p><br />only a day or two before court. It was only the second installment but I was already well acquainted with it's inaccuracies and unclear, ambiguous statements. I was astounded that social workers should be allowed to write in such a fashion. I knew my university professors would not tolerate such nebulous writing. It was beyond me how this could be allowed in a profession where so much is at stake, the future of a child, and the need for clarity should be paramount?<br /><br />I read through the numerous pages:<br /><br />20__/03/16 ASSESSMENT OF RISKS . . .<br /><br />20__/03/17 FOSTER PARENT CONSULTATION . . .<br />DROPPED OFF _______'S TOYS AND TAXI VOUCHERS FOR THE FOSTER MOTHER. ________ SMILED AND TOOK THE PUMPKIN TOY THAT HIS GRANDMOTHER HAD SENT FOR HIM . . .<br /><br />(I had bought this stuffed pumpkin on a trip to Alberta, and, for some reason, my grandson had taken a particular liking to this fuzzy-faced veggie. Not yet granted access to my grandson and hoping this toy would form some kind of memory link between him and I, I slept with this pumpkin for several nights so that my scent would be captured in the plush. Through this, I hoped that he would smell his Grammie - that he would be able to know that I knew where he was, that I had not forgotten him and that I loved him still.)<br /><br />20__/03/17 TELEPHONE CALL . . .<br />4:00 RECEIVED PHONE CALL FROM [GRANDMOTHER -me]. SHE ASKED WORKER WHAT WAS GOING ON WITH COURT NEXT WEEK. WORKER ASKED HOW SHE KNEW ABOUT IT. SHE ADVISED THAT SHE HAD CALLED THE FAMILY COURT ABOUT HER CUSTODY HEARING AND HAD BEEN ADVISED THERE IS A HEARING NEXT WEEK.<br /><br />(while inquiring about my custody case, I had inadvertently been told that Children's Services was moving ahead with a case involving my grandson.)<br /><br />WORKER ADVISED HER THAT SHE WOULD BE SERVED A NOTICE OF HEARING,<br /><br />(I never did receive this !)<br /><br />ADVISED THAT SHE SEEK LEGAL COUNSEL IN NOVA SCOTIA. SHE ADVISED THAT SHE COULD NOT AFFORD IT. WORKER ADVISED THAT SHE COULD APPLY TO BE MADE A PARTY TO THE PROCEEDING AND THE AGENCY WOULD MOST LIKELY NOT OPPOSE HER. ADVISED THAT (MOTHER OF CHILD) MAY OPPOSE HER BEING MADE A PARTY TO THE PROCEEDING.<br /><br />(As you read what follows you will see that Children's Service's was determined that my daughter be present to oppose me)<br /><br />[Granmother -me] ASKED WHEN SHE WOULD GET ACCESS WITH _______. ADVISED HER THAT IF SHE WERE MADE A PARTY ACCESS WOULD BE ARRANGED. SHE ADVISED THAT SHE IS OFF ON WEDNESDAY AND MONDAY MORNINGS.<br /><br />20__/03/20 CASE AIDE/ACCESS WORKER REPORT<br /><br />20__/03/21 ATTEMPTED CONTACT<br /><br />2000/03/21 TELEPHONE CALL<br />4:30 [GRANDMOTHER -ME] HAD LEFT VOICE MAIL FOR WORKER TODAY REQUESTING ACCESS WITH [GRANDSON] AND FOR HER UNCLE TO ATTEND ACCESS AS WELL. </p><p>WORKER LEFT MESSAGE ON HER ANSWERING MACHINE ADVISING THAT IF SHE WAS APPROVED AS A PARTY ON THURSDAY THERE WOULD BE A VISIT FRIDAY 9:30-10:30 AM. ADVISED THAT THIS IS HER QUALITY TIME WITH [ GRANDSON ] AND IF [GRANDSON] DOES NOT KNOW THIS UNCLE THERE WOULD BE NO POINT VALUE (sic) FOR [MY GRANDSON] IN THE UNCLE ATTENDING ACCESS. . .<br /><br />20__/03/21 ASSESSMENT OF RISK . . .<br /><br />20__/03/22 SUBSTANTIATE INTAKE . . .<br /><br />20__/03/23 WORKER/CLIENT CONTACT<br /><br />10: 25 RECEIVED PHONE CALL FROM [MOTHER OF _______]. SHE ADVISED THAT SHE DOES NOT WANT TO ATTEND COURT TODAY AND SHE IS NOT GETTING A LAWYER. WORKER RECOMMENDED THAT IF SHE WANTS TO HAVE A SAY IN WHERE _________ ENDS UP LIVING SHE WOULD HAVE TO ATTEND COURT AND A LAWYER SHOULD REPRESENT HER.<br /><br />[MOTHER OF _________] ADVISED THAT SHE WAS AT A FRIENDS IN DARTMOUTH AND HAD NO WAY TO GET TO COURT. AGREED THAT I WOULD APPROVE A CAB, GIVE HER A VOUCHER AT COURT FOR RETURN TRIP AND SHE WOULD ATTEND COURT.<br />CAB ARRANGED TO PICK HER UP AT [BLANKED OUT]<br /><br />(Gee, I wondered, where was my taxi cab? Why was she afforded such special treatment? - she the person who wanted to give up my grandson to the system.)<br /><br />20__/03/24 COLLATERAL CONTACTS<br />20__/04/04 COLLATERAL CONTACTS<br />20__/04/04 WORKER/CLIENT CONTACT . . .<br /><br />12:45 RETURNED CALL TO [MOTHER OF _______] AT [BLANKED OUT] SHE HAD LEFT A VOICE MAIL REQUESTING THAT I CALL HER ON MARCH 28/00 (WORKER ON VACATION) . . .<br /><br />WORKER ASKED [MOTHER OF _________] IF SHE INTENDS TO GO TO COURT ON THURSDAY. SHE ADVISED SHE DID NOT. WORKER ENCOURAGED HER TO GO AND OBTAIN LEGAL COUNSEL. ADVISED [MOTHER OF __________] THAT A NEW WORKER, KARY. IS TAKING OVER THE CASE AND AGREED THAT WE WOULD MEET HER TOMORROW AT 3 PM AT SWISS CHALET. WORKER TO CONFIRM APPOINTMENT TIME.<br /><br />20__/04/05 ATTEMPTED CONTACT<br /><br />10: 00 PHONE CALL TO [MOTHER OF _______] AT HOME TO CONFIRM APPOINTMENT THIS AFTERNOON. NO ANSWER.<br /><br />2:15 PHONE CALL TO SWISS CHALET TO CONFIRM THIS AFTERNOONS APPOINTMENT WITH [MOTHER OF ________]. WAS ADVISED THAT SHE HAD GONE FOR LUNCH AND AMY (sic) NOT BE BACK UNTIL HER NEXT SHIFT AT 5 PM.<br /><br />3:00 WENT WITH WORKER KARY. TO MEET [MOTHER OF ______] AT SWISS CHALET. [MOTHER OF __________] WAS NOT AT WORK. KARY. TO CONTACT HER AT A LATER DATE.<br /><br />20__/04/05 WORKER/CLIENT CONTACT<br />WORKER INTRODUCED TO [GRANDMOTHER] BY ____________ DURING AN ACCESS VISIT. . .<br /><br />20__/04/05 WORKER/CLIENT CONTACT<br /><br />20__/04/05 ATTEMPTED CONTACT<br />WORKER ATTENDED SWISS CHALET WITH ____________ FOR THE PURPOSE OF THIS WORKER MEETING [MOTHER OF _______]. [MOTHER OF _______] WAS NOT AVAILABLE AT HER WORKPLACE.<br /><br />20__/04/06 COLLATERAL CONTACTS . . .<br /><br />20__/04/07 ATTEMPTED CONTACT . . .<br /><br />20__/04/07 CASE WORKER CHANGED . . .<br /><br />20__/04/07 TELEPHONE CALL . . .<br /><br />20__/04/10 COLLATERAL CONTACTS . . .<br /><br />20__/04/10 OTHER/ MISCELLANEOUS . . .<br /><br />20__/04/11 ATTEMPTED CONTACT<br /><br />10:00 phone call to (mother of child) at home. No answer. 12:30 phone call to [mother of _____] at home, no answer. Phone call to (mother of child) at work. She is not coming in until later. Worker had wanted to encourage her to attend court today.<br /><br />(Man, they were working hard at trying to get my daughter into court. They are working hard to bring someone into court to take my grandson into the system)<br /><br />20__/04/11 TELEPHONE CALL<br /><br />2:46 PM-PHONE MESSAGE FROM ________. TRIAL DATES SET FOR ____________ RE: PLACEMENT OF [MY GRANDSON] WITH GRANDMOTHER. DATES ARE MAY 29TH AND 30TH..<br /><br />20__/04/12 COLLATERAL CONTACTS<br /><br />(Despite the insanity of everything I had already read in this document, exactly half way through, on page 10, the strangest input was yet to come:)<br /><br />20__/04/12 FOSTER PARENT CONSULTATION<br /><br />10:20 phone call to foster mother. She advised that a cleaning lady who used to work in her building came for a visit the other day and advised that she recognized __________ (sic) from his grandmother's home as she cleans the building _______'s (sic) grandmother lives in. She made the comment to the foster mother that ________ is better off with the foster parent. The cleaning lady said that [ GRANDMOTHER] is right out to lunch. The foster mother did not discuss further with the cleaning lady.<br /><br />Worker asked how ________ was doing. Foster mother advised that he started biting his hands. He bit them so hard that they bled. She is not sure at this point if he is doing it because he is teething.<br /><br />(A wave of numbness swept through my brain, a heaviness invaded, and a stupefying, deadness took control. My eyes were stretched to capacity, as if trying to relieve the pressure building up in my head, while all the time searching the paper for words, some sort of words, that might clarify what was going on here! I knew this cleaning person well. She was a pleasant soft spoken woman. A person of truth and honesty - a serious Christian. She was a good friend of a friend of mine, also a person of integrity and a serious Christian. I knew she had not said these words so where did this lying statement emanate?<br /><br />And as for my grandson biting his hands to the point of bleeding! Why was what was so apparent to me, so illusive to them? My grandson was stressed by his ordeal ! He was ripped from his loving home, shifted back and forth for a two week period by his mother and then shunted into a foster home where during this time of high stress his bottle and pacifier had been immediately ripped away from him!<br /><br />What did they expect when even the soothing comfort of his sucking was denied him ? ! Don't social workers have a basic understanding of the needs of children under trauma? And is no basic knowledge of comforting traumatized children given to foster parents? In fact, the swift removal of his bottle and pacifier were touted as it they were some kind of high accomplishments on the part of the foster parents!<br /><br />Where was " the best interest of the child" in all of this? And when I spoke up against this stupidity - I was stunned - I was villainized for having the common sense that apparently none of these social workers had.<br /><br />As I searched this paper and read it over and over again, it was apparent that the two most likely culprits for this lie was either the social worker who inputted this data or the foster mom . The foster mom, I thought, being the less likely of the two for what possible motive could she have ? She didn't know me. She had never even seen me!<br /><br />But then, why, I asked, would the social worker concoct such a story? "What is going on here?" </p><p>My mind was bursting under the stain of puzzlement for I couldn't get my brain around this and nothing made any sense. But it was early in the game, this legal game that would go on and on and I was still too naive to even begin contemplating possible motives for such a fraudulent report.<br /><br />However, after recuperating from my initial shock, I endeavored to expose the lie: When the cleaning woman came to my apartment building, I invited her in, explaining what had been written in the documentation while I flipped through my files to find the offensive account. Upon finding the page, I pointed to the applicable paragraphs and I watched the shock spread across her face as she read it for herself. She was genuinely dumfounded and upset.<br /><br />Yes, she explained, she knew this foster mother and when she dropped by for a social visit, she was surprised to see and recognize my grandson, but she insisted, she had never made the statement attributed to her by the foster mother. In fact, she was more than eager to set the record straight and without hesitation, she agreed to meet with my lawyer, to draft an affidavit concerning this.<br /><br />Swiftly, an affidavit was written, signed and filed with the court. The lie had been stopped in its tracks - put to bed, the dragon slayed - or, at least, I thought it had. )<br /><br /><br /><br />The last input for this report was dated May 17, 20__. It would be July 21, 20__ two months later, before we returned to court, the ninth court appearance in this case, before I would be able to review the updated Case Recording Report by the Department of Community Services. When I received my copy, I prepared to flip through the report, to search for the bias and inaccuracies that I now expected to find. Well to put it succinctly - One flip and I was there. The second entry states:<br /><br />20__/05/23 FOSTER PARENT CONSULTATION<br /><br />CALL FROM FOSTER MOTHER WHO INDICATED THERE WAS AN ISSUE WITH THE CLEANING LADY AND WHAT HAD BEEN WRITTEN IN THE RECORDINGS BY _____ ______. ______'S GRANDMOTHER IS INDICATING THAT SHE WILL TAKE THE CLEANING LADY TO COURT IF THE MATTER IS NOT RESOLVED.<br /><br />(From this I understood that the foster mother was trying to make it look like I had, somehow, threatened the cleaning lady to get the affidavit she had filed speaking against the foster mother's words transcribed in the last report.<br /><br />What was going on? Why was this lie being so tenaciously perpetrated. What could the possible motive be? I flipped through 20 more pages till I reached the end of the latest report. Without doubt I found much more to be disturbed about in these pages, but there was no clarification to this particular mystery and I remained mystified.)<br /><br /><br />Then I began reading through other papers filed by the Department of Children's Services for this court appearance. I picked up a document stamped:<br /></p><div align="center"><br />SUPREME COURT<br />OF NOVA SCOTIA<br />JULY 19 20__<br />HALIFAX, N.S.<br />With the title<br />APPLICATION FOR DISPOSITION ORDER<br />AND NOTICE OF HEARING</div><div align="center"><br /><br />Stapled beneath this document was a second document entitled<br /><br />AGENCY PLAN FOR THE CHILD'S CARE</div><br />I read through page 1 . . . page 2 . . . page 3 . . . page 4 . . . page 5 . . . page 6 . . . page 7 . . . page 8 . . .and then I finally got to the last page - page 9.<br /><br />(b) Description of the arrangements made or being made for the child's<br />long-term stable placement -<br /><br />The Agency will seek placement of the child in an appropriate adoption home<br />provided by the Minister of Community Services. The possibility of the foster<br />home adopting _______ _______ is to be explored so that ______ ______<br />will have continuity in his placement.<br /><br />(What! This was a shocker but at least now the mystery had been demystified. At least now I had a motive for the lying statements persistently thrown out by the foster mother. The foster parents had obviously put in their bid for my grandson. This was incredible. First my instable former neighbors, Sher and Terry, had earlier declared to the DCS that they wanted to adopt my grandson and now the foster parents were doing the same.<br /><br />To me it was incredulous that foster parents should be allowed to voice such a desire while there is an active court case in progress over custody for a child by family members. To me this is a conflict of interest and should not be allowed. Surely "the best interest of the child" lies with keeping the child in the family, if possible. When foster parents are allowed to put in a bid while custody within the family is still before the court, it might prove too much of a temptation to make the easier call of just handing the child over to strangers instead of taking the time to sort out what needs to be sorted to place the child within the family. Indeed, this is what the DCS was pushing for. As a family member wanting a child to remain in the family, I think I should have the right to set my request before the court without non-family competing for the same.<br /><br />If all interested family members have made their request before the court and have gone to trial and have all been denied - only then do I see it appropriate for non-family to seek adoption.<br />Once again, the cleaning lady came forth to file a second affidavit. This time she was so upset that she and her husband were talking about possibly taking legal action against the foster mother for her slanderous statements.<br /><br />She went to my lawyer so that notes could be taken for a second affidavit, but she was never called back to sign the final affidavit. This woman constantly reminded me to get my lawyer to arrange the signing of this affidavit, but my second lawyer, a woman, was proving to be worse than my first.<br /><br />At this point, my best action lay with the gathering of a number of specific affidavits, but my lawyer lied, harassed, misdirected, and even threatened me when I pushed her for the gathering of these affidavits.<br /><br />When I hired my third and last lawyer, I request that particular unfinished affidavit be filed. He promised to do so but never did. In the end I came to believe that my lawyers were taking instruction - BUT NOT FROM ME! )<br /><br /><br /><em><span style="font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;color:#663300;"><strong>A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.<br />Don Corleone, in The Godfather - Mario Puzo</strong></span></em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-90177893723656841022008-04-03T02:38:00.013-04:002008-04-03T03:33:56.616-04:00A 15. Flashback # 4 Watchful and sensitive.<div align="center"><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">Flashback # 4<br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:180%;">Watchful and Sensitive</span></span> </span></strong></div><div align="center"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;"><strong>Chapter 15 </strong></span></div><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;"><strong><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:100%;color:#663300;"><em>I</em></span></strong></span><strong><span style="color:#663300;"> <em>wrote Your Name In The sand but The waves Washed It Away, Then I wrote It In The sky but the Wind Blew It Away, So I wrote It In My Heart and That's where It Will stay.</em></span></strong></div><div align="center"></div><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">I loved my daughter - She was my source of happiness and as a young child she seemed so caring and sensitive to others. But as she grew there were other signs, other behaviors that I overlooked. - Perhaps I shouldn’t have.</span><br /><br />My daughter was bright and extremely vocal. As a baby and toddler, she hit all her milestones early. She was walking more than proficiently at 9 months, completely bypassing the crawling stage. The first day I placed her on the toilet, strapped into a baby pottie insert, she was toilet trained.<br /><br />She spoke early and chattered incessantly. When we went for walks, I was amazed how she filled our steps with words, words and more words! It was like she didn’t need me. I was a body there to absorb the chatter but not meant to interact.<br /><br />She seemed an affectionate and caring child. Every morning, the first thing we did was hug and kiss each other and I would tell her I loved her. Because my parents were not tactile and had not verbally expressed love this way, and because I believed it was important for the security and emotional well-being of a child to do so, I bent over backwards to make sure my child had a rich and constant supply of this emotional expression: she was hugged and kissed and told she was loved several times a day.<br /><br />I recall when she was a toddler, only 2, taking her for one of her shots. She was in my arms and I was amazed as I saw her matter-of-factly watch the needle go into her arm - not a flinch, not a tear. Then, when the toddler behind her got the needle and began crying, she stretched out her arms to be allowed to comfort this child. I brought her close and she wrapped her arms around this child to comfort her.<br /><br />As a young child, she had an unusual compulsion to feel and stroke people. This could be embarrassing at times. When friends would visit, she would plop herself beside them and proceed to rub and stroke their arms. She would do the same with me, telling me how soft my skin was. She would even attempt to rub my legs in church !<br /><br />She, herself, was physically sensitive. From the time she could sit up, she was in the habit of taking her finger and meticulously opening her toes, and running her fingers between them. I thought this strange because she was bathed daily and was always clean. When she was older, she told me she was sensitive to the tiniest piece of dust that might get between her toes - that it bothered her.<br /><br />Later, when she suffered from allergies she would tell me that she would get itchy inside of her ears, where she could not scratch, and on the roof of her mouth. I had allergies as well, but my itching would be contained to my eyes. I could not even fathom getting itchy inside ones ears and on the roof of the mouth!<br /><br />At home, as a young child, in the house, she was comfortable walking around in her “birthday suit” and I even recall, one time, her removing her clothes in a friends yard and running around the house. I don’t recall her pulling on her clothes or complaining about them or showing any other signs of being sensitive to clothing. As a toddler, I often let her go shoeless - but this was my doing, having read articles that it was best for proper foot development to let children go shoeless as much as possible - But when she wore shoes, she had the best I could find, properly measured and fitted at the “Kiddie Kobler”.<br /><br />When she was older and into playing musical instrument, first flute, then clarinet, and then piano, I was to discover that she had a very sensitive ears, hearing sounds in the instruments her music teacher’s were not aware of until she brought it to their attention. Her music teacher’s always commented positively on this “gift”.<br /><br />This ear also displayed itself in other ways. She told me that from the inside of our apartment building, in the living room, the room farthest from the main road that crossed our street, she could hear when busses passed and she could tell which direction they were traveling. I could not even begin to even hear the buses in the apartment. We were located at the back of our building and the main road the buses ran on were some distance from the us.<br /><br />As a teen, my daughter always had the curtain in her room closed. At the time, I remember I thought she was just lazy and I used to get after her for this - but the curtains always remained drawn. Now, when I think about this, and I wonder if she was sensitive to the light. I don’t remember any other situations of light sensitivity, that I noticed, but, if she was so sensitive to sound, perhaps she was also sensitive to light.<br /><br />As a teen, I also remember her telling me about her fascination with watching people. For me this was different. Growing up I had always been shy and I did not watch people very much. At my worst, when I was very young, I had my head down to strangers and even hid behind my mother’s skirt. I have since learned the importance of watching people, especially when you are discussing important issues. But at that time, as a young mother I still did not do much watching.<br />One day my daughter told me about her activities when she went with a bunch of her friends to an amusement park that had various enjoyments including water slides. She informed me she would rather park herself along a pathway where numerous people passed by and just watch them instead of engaging with her friends. At the time, I recall I thought this rather strange for a young person out with her friends, but I recall thinking about the value of such a trait. For example authors: I good writer would have to be a excellent observer of people to be able to incorporate various characters into their books.<br /><br />This was not me, and was certainly not my idea of a good time, but I supposed this was a harmless, and perhaps even a positive, pastime for my daughter.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-38910889961753510982008-02-07T04:11:00.004-04:002008-05-30T04:00:23.727-04:00A 14. Walking Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death<div align="center"><strong><span style="color:#6600cc;">Demetri Manos - if you see this - I would like you to contact me</span></strong> <strong><span style="color:#6600cc;">please - leave a comment - I will get it - BUT I will not post it </span></strong></div><div align="center"><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc0000;">Walking Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death</span></strong></div><div align="center"><br /><span style="color:#cc6600;"><strong>Chapter 14</strong></span></div><p><br /><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663300;"><strong>Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Psalm 23: 4-5 (King James Version - Bible)<br /></strong></span><br /><br />Like a lamb to the slaughter, I began my walk through the valley of the shadow of darkness. I sensed the smell of death but I had been pacified by the naive words of my uncle and the deceitful words of my lawyer.<br /><br />"Have no fear, the assessment must be professional and unbiased", I was told by these two men who eagerly guided me forward.<br /><br />"Bu . . . bu . . but, I bleated who are these people? I haven't chosen them, Children's Services has chosen them. It doesn't make sense that the very people who are working against me should be able to dictate who I must submit to in an assessment and I have no say?"<br /><br />But my words fell on deaf ears. Though this caution made so much sense to me , it did not seem to make the slightest sense to these two men who were suppose to be helping me. It was almost as if my very questioning of such an illustrious system, reflected poorly on myself.<br /><br />The words were pounded into my head, "These are professionals. Of course they will perform their task professionally. They are not allowed to be biased, and the sooner you submit to this assessment, the soon you will have your grandson back. It will only be a matter of weeks and he will be back with you" These were the enticing tender morsels that were strewn along the dark and rocky pathway leading to the slaughter, and I ruminated on them as I slowly treaded forward.<br /><br />I forgive my uncle. How could he, a business man from western Canada, have any notion of the corruption so notoriously imbedded in Nova Scotia. At this point, I wasn't even aware that such corruption existed in my province. But my lawyer, he should have known better - And I was later to realize that he did know better. He was a family court lawyer. He knew the system. </p><p align="left">He would have been well aware of the notorious abuses of the assessments anyone who challenges Children’s Services are forced into. At the very least, as my lawyer, if he had been doing his job watching out for my best interests, he should have advised me before proceeding, but he did nothing to prepare me for the process.<br /><br />In the meantime, I was having other concerns about this lawyer: he seemed to have consistent problems with his memory. In one of my communications to my uncle I remember expressing that 98% of my stress came from having to deal with the ineptness of this lawyer.<br /><br />Still naive about Children's Services, I questioned the case worker about my lawyer, and then, without saying anything about my specific concerns, she informed me that seeing him in court, he seemed to be a good enough lawyer, but that it appeared to her that he had a poor memory.<br /><br />With this confirmation, I decided that I did not want to continue with this lawyer and I immediately began searching for a new one. But, much later, after this court case had concluded, I stumbled across documentation that would reveal not a poor memory but an extreme conflict of interest ! (I will speak on this later) This document was proof that this man had no right being on my case. His bumbling, his incompetence, and his apparent lack of memory, I was to finally realize were all meant to mess up my case.<br /><br />But, at this point in time, I was still naïve about the lawyers, the justices, the whole justices system. I assumed I had the misfortune to stumble on a solitary inept lawyer and I assumed my next lawyer would be better.<br /><br />Ridding myself of lawyer number one and taking on lawyer number two, took place just as I was beginning the assessment process, and for a time I was not represented by legal counsel. During my first interview, the assessor stuck a number of consent papers under my nose pressing me to put my signature to them, immediately. This, in itself, was inappropriate, but I also did not want the assessors to know that I was in a vulnerable position - without a lawyer. I wanted to delayed signing of these papers until I was able to consult someone I trusted.<br /><br />But unbeknownst to me, my slaughter had been swiftly planned and I was meant to be swiftly executed with this wicked, corrupt assessment. I was working a full-time job, eagerly soaking up the preciously few allotments of supervised visitation thrice weekly with my grandson, as well as attending a number of meetings with a variety of lawyers as I searched for a legal replacement, whilst still juggling my current lawyer.<br /><br />When I did finally hire a new lawyer, I required additional time acquainting her with my case. How disappointed and perplexed I was to find out that my second lawyer was as blasé about the assessments as my first.<br /><br />For weeks, I was compelled to surrender every spare moment to this assessment process, consisting of hours of intense verbal interrogation, culminating in what I refer to as a final 5 hour marathon. I remembered this day well. I had taken a bus from work, making a pit stop at a restaurant next to the assessment services for lunch. The restaurant was busy and the service was slow. I had ordered a shrimp pasta but the shrimp was inadequately cooked, and, not having time to reorder, I ate the pasta and left the shrimp on my plate, giving the waitress only a swift explanation as I quickly paid the bill and dashed out the door.<br /><br />The first part of this marathon began with the usual interrogation with a Social worker, Linda McEachron, but near the end an older woman, Dr Ruth Carter came into the room. Then this second person participated in this final interview/interrogation. When this interview was finally completed I was escorted by the doctor to another room where I was to be administered three different written tests. After a brief explanation, as to how I was to fill out the forms for these tests, I was left alone in the room to complete them. These tests consisted of a number of multiple choice and true/ false questions, with a few complete the sentence statements at the end.<br /><br />I recall being concerned that a number of the statements on the form were very ambiguous. Every once in a while, the doctor would come in and ask how things were going and if I had any questions. When I raised my concerns and we conversed as to the meaning of a number of the statements, I remember, my saying to this doctor that from my training as a teacher, specifically the training that I received in forming clear questions or statements for examination purposes, I found many of these statements severely lacking. As she clarified to me her understanding of the statements, I indicated to her that I would write these clarification on the forms so that there would not be any misunderstanding as to my meaning when the forms were interpreted.<br /><br />As I worked on the last page, I was physically exhausted, so much so that when the doctor poked her head in for the last time, my exhaustion was so obvious to her that she set down at the table and verbally asked me the last two or three “complete the sentence'“ statements filling them in in her own handwriting. Feeling totally wiped-out and exhausted, she led me to the front foyer. It was then that I realized that the entire building was deserted. It was past office hours and everyone had already gone home. My head felt light and spacey and I was totally zonked. As a university student I was used to 3 hour exams but this ordeal had been way beyond anything I had ever experienced before.<br /><br />But the assessment was now completed, I had answered all questions honestly and as completely as possible. I left that building spent and exhausted but I left believing that it would now only be a matter of time before any concerns about me would be dispelled and my grandson would be allowed to come home.<br /><br />And the tired lamb lay down to rest dreaming of those promised morsels . . . but while she slept, worn and weary, unbeknownst to her, the darkness thickened like an incoming fog as it wrapped its cold and gloomy fingers around her.<br /><br /></p><p align="center"><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">If you're going through hell, keep going.- Winston Churchill</span></strong></p><p align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;"></span></strong></p><p align="center"></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-36037430480552873472007-12-30T03:58:00.002-04:002008-04-02T22:48:24.122-04:00A 13 The Wind Blew and My Heart Broke<div align="center"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">The Wind Blew and My Heart Broke</span></strong> </span></span></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;">Chapter 13</span></strong></div><p><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="color:#663300;"><strong>He who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals his thoughts to man, he who turns dawn to darkness, and treads the high places of the earth— the LORD God Almighty is his name. - Amos 4:13, The Bible </strong></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="color:#663300;"><strong><br /><br /></strong><span style="color:#000000;">Was</span> </span></span>it only a chance breeze that blew this paper of yesterdays memories against the bottom concrete stairs of my apartment building? Was it an unexplainable fluke that I stopped to bend over to pick up and examine this nondescript paper? It had never been my habit to do so, but as I returned home from work on this late sunny afternoon I did stop to scan this fateful paper at my feet. </p><p>To my surprise I noted that it was a paper my daughter had received for participating in a folk dance as a primary student. I remembered that day well. She was cute as a button in a sky blue dress with a trim of pink and yellow along the bodice and hem. I remembered her shining face and her broad smile as she deftly careened across the floor with her partner. Those were happier days and with cherished warmth I remembered that particular memory. </p><p>How strange that this paper should be outside in front of me now. Was it possible that it had been in the storage room and some other tenant removing items from their storage area had somehow gotten this caught up with their belongings. But this didn’t seem likely because all my belongings were locked in a cubby hole of a storage area and I didn’t recall anything being loose or hanging out of this compartment. </p><p>Puzzled I took the paper into my apartment and set it down on the coffee table.<br /><br />Busy with changing out of my work clothes and getting supper, I didn’t think about this paper again until several hours later. While sitting on my couch, contemplating this mystery, I decided to take the garbage out to the large industrial dumpster utilized by my apartment building. Then, while I was still in my apartment, it suddenly and strangely came to my mind that I should look into the dumpster when I took the garbage out. This thought had come from somewhere outside me and I thought it extremely strange in its compulsion.<br /><br />Well, I thought, it won’t hurt to take a peek when I’m out there. So off I went down the hall, out the door and down those steps into the dark night air with my make-do garbage bags, small white grocery bags filled to the brim and knotted by the handles. I remember walking across the street lifting up the heavy top of the container and peering into the blackness, as the pungent odor of garbage enter my nostrils. There perched on the top were 2 wooden containers that I recognized right away as belonging to my daughter. They were long thin boxes, about 2 feet long, just wide enough to hold CDs. I had them made especially for her with sunflowers, a favorite motif of hers, painted along the side.<br /><br />My heart sank. What was this? These didn’t belong in the garbage! As I continued to search, finding other items belonging to my daughter, my heart sank even farther. Many months previous, during the two week period when my daughter had taken my grandson, she had been living with a male friend in the next apartment building. I could only suspect that she had left all this stuff behind and that he had now thrown it out. But this person knew I was here in the next apartment building. We had always been on speaking terms. After my daughter had left his apartment, I had even given him a much-loved dining room table of mine that I had switched for a smaller model. Why didn’t he phoned me to tell me about these items before throwing them out the way he did?<br /><br />Dragging in some of my finds, I went into the apartment building and knocked on my friend’s door. The wind had been knocked out of my emotional sails and I needed support. I told her about the things I was finding in the garbage. I remember being surprised that she wasn’t able to help me, she was waiting for company, but she did offer me a flashlight and some large garbage bags. Devastated I returned, alone to my quest, flashlight in tow.<br /><br />Some of the items I found were loose, others were in bags. Wanting to be sure that nothing had been missed, I jumped into the dumpster, lifting the smelly bags one at a time, poking holes in any that hinted at secreting away items other than the regular garbage. Suddenly out of the darkness, my friend’s friends arrived to help, three of them, a man, his wife and his daughter. I really didn’t know them then and I was a bit startled to see them. Not able to discern my daughter’s belongings from the rest of the garbage, they could not do much more than hold the flashlight for me, as I rummaged around in the smelly darkness, or take items, as I handed them out, but I appreciated their presence for its emotional support.<br /><br />I took out everything from the dumpster that seemed to be connected to my daughter. Amongst the treasures I found were baby photos of my first grandson who had been adopted out, his wrist band from the hospital, and letters from the adoptive parents reporting his progress, as well as photo of my second grandson. I remember finding some of these photos at the very bottom of the dumpster, lifting them out dripping with garbage juice. I was devastated that such sentimentally important items had just been thrown in the garbage. And I was shocked to realize that if I had not found that piece of paper blown up against the steps earlier in the day, and if I had not been mysteriously drawn to look into the dumpster when I had, all these precious memories would have been buried forever in some garbage dump.<br /><br />After I managed to drag everything I found into my apartment, I was emotionally spent, but I had to tend to as much as I could right away. First, I quickly washed the smelly garbage juice off of whatever I could, running tap water over the effected photos, and laying them out to dry. I sorted through everything, making sure that all the sentimental treasures remained in my apartment. The rest, I bagged or boxed, and I went down to my friend, who was the superintendent to get the keys to put this into the storage room.<br /><br />I was emotionally exhausted, feeling empty - totally empty - and I remember just staring ahead as I told my friend all the items that I had found and my shock at finding them in the garbage. Then my friend helped me get the bags and boxes into the elevator and as we descended into the basement I pressed against the back of the elevator, and slowly sank to the floor, telling her that I wouldn’t wish this terrible experience on anyone.<br /><br />The next day, I phoned my daughter’s ex-roommate asking for an explanation. In answer, he told me that my daughter had left all these items behind when she moved out, that, at one point, he had been able to contact, and she had told him she would come and get everything - but then, she never showed up. After that, he left several messages on her phone - but she never responded. </p><p>As it turned out, he was moving out that very week-end and he felt he now had no alternative, but to throw everything out. At this response, I did chastise him for not phoning me first, but what was done was done and it was now water under the bridge.<br /><br />I was shocked that my daughter would have left such precious things behind. Was this evidence of her serious mental state? Did she remember the importance of the items she had left behind or was her mental state so bad that she didn’t remember or didn’t care? I don’t know, I don’t think I’ll ever know.<br /><br />Some weeks later, I went with a friend to the local Salvation Army that was located close to my apartment. This was something we seldom did, in fact I have never been back since, and that would be 3 ½ years now. But we decided to go for a lark, for something to do. Imagine my shock when I went into the store and saw a number of my grandson’s baby clothes and even some of her clothes as well. </p><p>Amongst the items I found dispersed throughout the racks of the store were a turquoise hand-knit sweater that I had sewn new heart shaped buttons onto and a brand-name long sleeve forest-green t-shirt belonging to my daughter. It was difficult not to feel compelled to go through the store and retrieve and buy all these items. It felt as if parts of my family had been put up for sale in this very public place. But of course it would have made no sense buying these baby clothes because my grandson would have long since outgrown them. How had these items gotten here? Did my daughter’s roommate bring them here when he was clearing out his apartment? I suppose I will never know this either.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">But I am grateful for that wind that blew that paper across my path that day. Without it I would never have found or been able to retrieve those precious memories from that dumpster that night. It was an emotionally hard and difficult night, but the salvation of those treasures were worth every ach of my heart.</span> </p><p></p><p align="left"><strong><span style="color:#663300;">We enjoy warmth because we have been cold. We appreciate light because we have been in darkness. By the same token, we can experience joy because we have known sadness. </span></strong><strong><span style="color:#663300;"></span></strong><strong><span style="color:#663300;">- David Weatherford </span></strong></p><strong><span style="color:#663300;"><p align="left"><br /></span></strong></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-61735936136201825352007-10-22T02:10:00.001-04:002008-04-02T22:44:20.343-04:00A 12. Fashback #3 - Innocence Shattered<div align="left">Do not miss the NEW SISTER LINK !- Scroll down to the left </div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc0000;"><a href="http://iamthewordthecomforter.blogspot.com/">I AM, The Word, and The Comforter</a></span></strong></div><div align="center"><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Fashback #3</span></strong><br /><span style="font-size:180%;color:#cc0000;"><strong>Innocence Shattered</strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;"><strong>Chapter 12</strong></span></div><div align="center"></div><p><br /><strong><span style="color:#663333;"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#660000;">Me for Me.</span></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">I crash into everything that once was</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">Earth-shattering memories overwhelm </span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">my already wrought soul.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">Immersed amongst my painful past, </span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">I crumble beneath all that I have denied.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">I have avoided the reality of what I have been through, </span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">for so long,</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">That I’m not sure that I will be able to function and cope- </span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">all at once.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">The demons from my past creep upon me</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">when I least expect it,</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">When I’m feeling most vulnerable,</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">I get swallowed into chest heaving tears.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">I’m invisibly shaken, hiding all of the hollowness</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">That my soul possesses</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">Within my “everything is okay” smile.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">I have locked away so much.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">Its buried somewhere beneath my heart.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">Everything seems safer there.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">My life is a <span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:130%;">twisted</span> </span>sort of <em><span style="font-size:130%;">lost</span></em>.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">Facing my childhood,</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">Attempting to regain some</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">Sort of control..</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">Has stripped me of who I am,</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">And forced me to look at</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">Myself in the mirror</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">And <span style="font-size:100%;">learn</span> to love me for me.</span></strong> </p><p><span style="color:#663333;"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;">- Cassandra - a person who was abused as a young girl</span></strong> </span><a href="http://overcomingandconquering.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html">http://overcomingandconquering.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html</a><br /><br />My daughter, my one and only child who developed beneath my heart. I conceived you with your father with the intension of raising you at home, but when your father left us on our own, I was proud and I felt I needed to be independent - I needed to go to work as soon a possible. But I had the good fortune to have contact with a social worker who understood the value of a mother raising her own children. When she heard my initial steely determination to go to work as soon as possible, she arranged for me to meet another single mother who had made this decision - her son was then 4 years old.<br /><br />What I saw frightened me: I saw a mother who had not bonded with her son, whose days were busy with comings and goings, who had very little time to spend with her child. I saw neither a happy child nor a happy mother. With this shock therapy, I immediately realized that I did not want this for you, and, in my heart I knew I did not want this for me.<br /><br />As a child, I remember seeing pictures in the LIFE magazines of tiny little tots, barely able to walk, lined up like little soldiers in daycares and nurseries in China and Russia. I remember being shocked by these pictures. In those days, day-cares were a foreign concept only implemented in communist countries, where the state controlled their people from cradle to grave.<br /><br />This was NOT a North American aspiration ! Family was seen as the basis of our society, and the raising of children within the family unit was a sacred concept. This is the Canada I grew up in - I know things are different now and the young mothers of today do not even remember when there was no day-care and most women stayed home to raise their children.<br /><br />When I had my daughter, times were a-changing. Daycares were now thriving in Canada and the society of women were split, between us and them: the women who went out to work and the few who still chose to remain at home to raise their children. There was a rally cry from the vocal woman libbers of the day pressing all women, everywhere, to get a job. If you didn’t, there was something wrong with you - you were somehow the enemy of the rest of the women who were fighting to open this “brave new world”. It did not matter how young your children or how many, you were to leave your babes-in-arms just as soon as you could and go out and work. And the rest of us were despised and looked down upon - And this hurt. It hurt that we, as women, were devalued by other women because we made a choice to personally raise our families.<br /><br />For the first time, neighborhoods that once throbbed with the life of laughing, calling, chattering children, hard at the work of play, were silent and empty. When I grew up, we ran the yards, the fields, the streets with our play. The roads, then, were safe havens for hopscotch, skipping, “war”, dodge ball, bike riding, roller skating etc, because during the day the men had taken all the cars to work and in the evenings they were all parked in the driveways. We were not the consumer society we are today - always shopping.<br /><br />And I remember the playgrounds, then - bursting to capacity. Go to a public playground today - Most are deserted . </p><p>We have stopped having children and the few we have are locked away for most of the day within the four walls of some daycare or hidden behind the gates and fences of these institutions we pay to raise our youngest children. And the older children have forgotten how to play. They have forgotten how to play spontaneously and the traditional games and skipping songs that were once handed down from child to child have vanished. Even the traditional rhymes and stories that were handed down from generation to generation have all but disappeared. Now our children learn the games and songs and stories the adults in the daycares and schools teach them. And all of these stem from a commercial source that makes its money selling new songs, new games, new story books etc . </p><p>But I chose to be an outcast to raise you. A social outcaste, because I was a single mother, and an outcaste amongst women because I chose to be a stay-at-home mother for you. I did not want a stranger raising you, imparting their values to you. I wanted to raise you with mine.<br /></p><div align="center"><br />--------------------------------------------</div><div align="left"><br />And then you were three, cute as a button and only three. Up until then, I had only left you with the family of the man I was going out with, a family I had come to know well over the years. Two of the younger sisters, high school students, looked after you when we went out in the evenings. And occasionally his mother looked after you during the daytime. Otherwise, you were always with me. </div><div align="left"><br />It was around this time that I began going to a mid-week prayer meeting, an informal gather of believers who gathered to talk and share scripture and songs, at a church in Halifax. Another woman who lived in my apartment building went with me while her 14 year old son looked after my daughter. Her son was neat and well kempt, quiet and polite and every week my boyfriend drove us to the church and later picked us up. </div><div align="left"><br />Meanwhile my boyfriend, a licensed mechanic, began befriending this young man, left fatherless when his parents divorced when he was youngster. A love for tinkering with cars drew these two together.</div><div align="left"><br />I cannot recall now how long I went to these prayer meetings when one night, when my daughter was asleep in the bedroom, there was a knock at my door. When I opened the door I was surprised to see my neighbor with a police officer. As they walked in, it was apparent my neighbor was upset - she was trembling and obviously distraught. The officer informed me that another officer was presently with her son. Earlier they had taken a statement from him and now, because my neighbor was illiterate and could not read this for herself, they wanted someone, not a police officer, to read the statement for her. Puzzled and perplexed, I agreed to do so. </div><div align="left"><br />As I began to read, and the narrative unfolded, my friend, cried and I attempted to comfort her as I labored to the end of the statement, juggling between reading, comforting and contenting with my own shock. Her son was confessing to sexually abusing a little girl he had been babysitting just down the hall from me. This woman’s grief was maxed and my compassion was focused on this poor woman who was grieved to the bottom of her soul. </div><div align="left"><br />After I finished, the police officer began to tell us what they were doing concerning charges against this young 14 year old youth. We were told he would be sent into treatment, and with the permission of the mother of the child who was abused, the charges would be held over him, but not laid, as long as he continued in treatment. However, if he stopped treatment before the specialists had finished, the charges would be laid against him.</div><div align="left"><br />At a certain point, the police officer went, leaving us both his card, and now I was left alone to comfort this broken woman. I cannot remember how long the evening was, but I do recall that all my energy had been directed towards this woman, attempting to comfort and console her.<br />When finally she stood to leave, I walked her to the door. It was that very moment, as the door was closing behind her, when I was finally able to break from the emotional turmoil of what had just transpired, that my mind, finally released from the choas of the evening that had enveloped me, instantaneously and abruptly made the connection - O my God, this person had babysat my daughter as well. </div><div align="left"><br />One might think this would have been the first thing, I should have thought of when I read this young man’s statement. I can only understand that I was in shock, reading the statement for the police office while at the same time trying to contend with and comfort the grief-stricken mother.</div><div align="left"><br />Immediately, I woke my daughter. And then being careful not to lead her thoughts, she told me, in some detail, how he had attempted to penetrate her, how it had hurt and how she had pleaded with him to stop. </div><div align="left"><br />Now I was the grief-stricken mother. And I remember hugging my precious daughter, kissing her and telling her I loved her, as I always did, several times every day. I lay in bed with her nestled in my arms until she went to sleep. Then I slipped out, and phoned the officer who had left his card. </div><div align="left"><br />I don’t remember how long we spoke, but I was told they would arrange for a doctor at the hospital to examine my daughter and speak with her the next day. They would send a police car to drive us to this appointment. </div><div align="left"><br />I can only tell you, I was devastated, but, at the same time, I was also aware of a peace and a comfort that I knew come from this new-found God of mine. When I went to the hospital with my daughter, a nurse commented on my composure during this trying time, and I remember telling her from whence this calm came from. </div><div align="left"><br />I did not hate this young man. And I also agreed to allow the charges to be held over him to force treatment. I felt this was best for everyone: the boy and any future children he might be in contact with. </div><div align="left"><br />I continued to comfort the mother as her son went through months of treatment. Oftentimes, I recall, she would come to my apartment in tears after a particularly strenuous session. But I was her friend and I did what I could to comforted her.</div><div align="left"><br />In the end, I broke up with my boyfriend over this. My primary focus was my daughter. I had no objection to my boyfriend continuing to mentor this young man, but I asked him to tell this boy not to run up to him in the parking lot when he came or left if my daughter was with him. But my boyfriend just didn’t get it. He refused to set the boundaries for this young man. I remember we had a HUGE argument over this and, as a result, I abruptly ended the relationship. My daughter and her well being came first! </div><div align="left"><br />I remember his family, particularly his mother, were disappointed - they had expected us to marry. But there had been other things - he was a loving, giving man BUT he just was never able to get his priorities straight.</div><div align="left"><br />To this day, I remember the exact words of the doctor who saw my daughter “ If she was any older, I would put her in therapy, but because she is so young she will forget this.” </div><div align="left"><br />They didn’t know any better then. At that time, the public was not being educated on child abuse. The research on the long terms affects of abuse were not known, and they obviously were ignorant on how this could effect even a very young child. And, most importantly, they didn’t know my daughter. Even at 3, she had a phenomenal memory. I knew she would not forget. </div><div align="left"><br />It was approximately 1 year later that the first public education advertisements concerning child abuse began on TV. It was the NO-GO-TELL campaign educating children to say “NO” then to run away and tell someone.</div><div align="left"><br />My heart breaks, and I still feel the sting of tears welling up in my eyes when I remember the image of my 4 year old daughter standing right in front of the television screen watching this advertisement. With the back of her head to me, her eyes mesmerized on the screen, she said “ They didn’t have this when it happened to me.”</div><div align="left"><br />My precious innocent baby, what I wouldn’t do to be able to go back in time and take this experience away from you - to rescue you, to keep you safe ! But I cannot do this and my pain is more than I can bare. </div><div align="left"><br />The doctor did tell me that my daughter might suddenly bubble up details from her experience - And she did - many, many years later - You see, she never forgot. </div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#660000;">never ending battle.<br /></span>anger envelopes my wretched soul</strong></span></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">my body shuddering in incessant fear</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">Im losing all control.</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">I cringe at the thought of</span></strong></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;"><strong>hearing my voice-for its been <span style="font-size:130%;">taken. <em>stolen</em>.</span></strong><span style="font-size:130%;"> <strong><em>lost for too long</em>.</strong></span></span></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">Ive been stripped of my vocal cords,</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">torn of my baby-like innocence..left with nothing but a hollow shell</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">of who I was supposed to be.</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;"></span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">I struggle through the minutes,</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">the hours and the days,</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">I fight this never ending battle,</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">in the hopes that one day</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">I will feel whole again.</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">Tattered and broken, I stand alone</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">Unsure of which way Im to go,</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">I feel trapped within my past,</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">within the memories, within my old house,</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">with my _____ on top of me.</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;"></span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">I can’t catch my breath, I’m choking</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">on my five year old screaming voice,</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">the one that no one heard.</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">the one that was <span style="font-size:130%;">smashed</span> as a little girl.</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;"></span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">the voice,</span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">that Im <span style="font-size:130%;"><em>fighting</em> </span>to find again. </span></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#663333;">- Cassandra - a person who was abused as a young girl</span></strong> <a href="http://overcomingandconquering.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html">http://overcomingandconquering.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html</a> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-70916036413961950622007-10-12T17:13:00.000-04:002008-02-06T18:52:33.594-04:00A 11. Swallowed into the System: the Nightmare Continues<div align="center"><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#cc0000;">Swallowed into the System: the Nightmare Continues</span></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="color:#cc6600;">Chapter # 11</span></strong></div><br />At the end of this two week period, Children Services moved in, their jaws opened wide and we all tumbled into our nightmare. Instead of returning my grandson to my home where he was loved and well looked after, he was taken into “care” and placed in a foster home. This, despite the fact that, within the first weeks of my grandson's “kidnapping”, as one woman I know phrases it, Children Services recognized in their own records that I was legally <strong>"parent"</strong> under the law according to the <em><strong>Adoption Act</strong></em>, because of the time he was in my sole care, and despite the claim of the <em><strong>Children and Family Services Act</strong></em> that all attempts to place children with family are suppose to be explored before placing children in foster homes with strangers.<br /><br />This action of placing my grandson in a foster home instead of returning him to me was sharply criticized by Dr Carol Pye, the psychologist who reviewed the assessment that I was later forced to submitted to. And no attempt was ever made to contact any relatives so that my grandson could be with family instead of strangers.<br /><br />Once my grandson was taken into custody, I was denied any access to him until the first court appearance - 6 weeks later! I was later to learn that the first court appearance, once a child is apprehended, according to the <em>Children and Family Services Act</em> is suppose to take place in five days - This did not happen with my grandson. It was six long weeks of worry and concern before I was able to go to court to request being added as a <em>"Third Party"</em> and request immediate access to my grandson.<br /><br />No legal action was ever taken against me - I was added as Third Party by request. The only thing I did was to dare to raise my hand to request custody of my grandson when it was apparent that Children Services was determined to swallow him into the system.<br /><br />The legal action that brought this matter to court was against my daughter and the father for physical and emotional neglect over this two week period. This in itself, I was to find out later, was improper because removing a child from a family is only suppose to be done if the concern is ongoing and only after services are offered to help the family. Two weeks does not cut it, and I had already requested help for my daughter and Children Services had done nothing for her!<br /><br />Incredibly, Children Services took over the court time scheduled for MY custody and maintenance application for their own proceedings. Meanwhile, my uncle from out of province came to assist me. He was not a lawyer but in his line of work, as a consultant, he had acquired a good amount of practical court experience.<br /><br />Despite the fact that this court action was against both my daughter and the father, the father did not come to the first court appearance and my daughter appeared without council. <strong>This would be the only court appearance my daughter would attended for over a year! My question is: how is it possible to have a court action against you go on for a year and no one in the system compels you to appear?<br /></strong><br />My daughter had now decided to give my grandson up for adoption and she did not want either me or the father to have custody. Though the father had informed Children Services that he would not give his formal permission to have ______adopted out, he still had not decided on any particular action and thus had not come to this first court appearance. As a recognized legal “parent I was also contacted to give my permission to have my grandson adopted out . Of course, my answer was no. My daughter may not have bonded with this child, but I had! I loved him and he was family.<br /><br />On that first day in court, I was without legal counsel but the justice (the correct term for the judge in the Supreme Court - Family Division of Nova Scotia) allowed my uncle to speak on my behalf. In my uncle's presentation, he informed the court that I had already implemented a court action for custody and maintenance and that I was seeking the amalgamation of these two court actions. He also stated that I was seeking immediate access to my grandson as well as recognition as “Third Party”. This “Third Party” status was significant because having this status granted meant I could actively participate in the court proceedings and that I was privy to all documents involving this case.<br /><br />This is no small feat when one is dealing with Children Services cases because though the public can access the court documentation of any other court cases in Nova Scotia, they are barred from accessing the records of Children Services court cases - unless they are a party to the proceedings.<br /><br />This denial of access to Children Services records, I have come to know, is not for the protection of the child, as they would have you believe. Rather, it is to protect the system that habitually works outside the law.<br /><br />The justice immediately responded in the affirmative to both requests, I would be permitted to apply for “Third Party” status and I was granted immediate access to my grandson. However, the justice explained my original court action would be temporarily placed aside so that I would be able to pick up my action, depending on the outcome of this Children Services case. This option would later prove to be very significant to me.<br /><br />In response, my daughter, determined to block my access to my grandson, popped up and persistently argued with the justice against my access. The justice was exceedingly patient with my daughter as she persistently repeated her argument stating that she did not want this, that she had an agreement with Children's Services concerning this, and that he, the judge, did not have the power to permit this. In a calm voice, the justice repeatedly responded that he did have this power while my daughter persisted in stating that he did not.<br /><br />As a watched this spectacle unfold, I was shocked at my daughters total disregard for this justice’s authority, but at the same time I realized that this action, exposed aspects of my daughter character to the court and I believed, in the long run, this might prove advantageous to me. I was naive to the fact that showing disrespect for the court has little to do with the outcome if Children Services is using you to get what they want.<br /><br />As my uncle and I discussed my options after this first court appearance, we decided to explore the possibility of getting support from Sher and Terry in my effort to get my grandson out of foster care and back home, in my custody, where he belonged. As a result, we arranged to meet this couple at their apartment on March 26, 2000.<br /><br />But this meeting turned out to be a bizarre and strange encounter. Sprinkled throughout this apartment, were numerous photos of my grandson. Some were individual photos of my grandson, but most were photos with Terry and _____, or Sher and _____, or her son and ______ or all of them together with ______!<br /><br />This, I noted was a definite change from when they lived in the apartment across the hallway from me. In that apartment, I recalled only one photo of my grandson on display. Here was what my uncle described amounted to a shrine. In an affidavit filed almost five months later my uncle would state , “that with Terry and Sher's apartment full of _______'s pictures and his other memorabilia, it appeared that ______ was already considered a family member. I considered this obsession with ______ to be dangerous and unrealistic for a common law couple to have placed so much attention on _______."<br /><br />But the worst was yet to come. Before we even broached the subject of supporting me, troubling words tumbled from their lips. First of all, they wanted to make it adamantly clear that they never considered themselves friends of Natasha. This was stated in such venomous tones by Terry and affirmed so vigorously by Sher, I was shocked and the sense of an evil cold knife ripped into the depth of my soul.<br /><br />Such a statement, and expressed so emphatically, totally took me off guard. Everything that I had seen and knew of their relationship with my daughter, spoke to me of friendship. Yet here they were disowning my daughter with utter disdain and contempt! A chill run down my spine, and I had to ask myself, “If this was not friendship on their part, then what was it?” And the only answer I could fathom was that that this couple had been fawning friendship with my daughter to get close to my grandson. And the realization of this sent a chill, even colder than the last, through me.<br /><br />My uncle and I did not respond but allowed this couple to continue to babble on, and as they babbled they spoke of their desire to adopt my grandson. It was apparent that they assumed my approval as they glibly chatted on that they would allow me to continue to see my grandson if they were successful.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-68048158710026165822007-10-01T04:18:00.001-04:002008-04-02T23:01:19.040-04:00A 10. Flashback # 2 - My Comforter<div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc0000;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color:#000000;">Flashback # 2</span><br /></span><span style="font-size:180%;">My Comforter</span></span></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc0000;"><span style="font-size:100%;color:#cc6600;">Chapter 10</span> </span></strong></div><br /><em><span style="color:#663300;"><strong>For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. - The Bible - <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah%2029:%2011-13;&version=31;"><span style="color:#6600cc;">Jeremiah 29: 11-13</span></a><br /></strong></span></em><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">My sweet, beautiful daughter. My source of total happiness. How I loved you! I breathed in - and there was joy! And I breathed out - and there was happiness! Never crying, always happy, always smiling and aware - so aware - so awake - so observant ! You breathed in the world while I breathed in joy. And I thanked a God I did not know for such a blessing.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">For the first 6 months of her life, her only nourishment came from me, and when solids were slowly introduced, I wanted to let her decide when she wanted to wean. I had no problems or hang-ups with breastfeeding. I believed it was a normal, natural and loving experience to share with a baby and the breastfeeding books promised a reward of even closer bonding for doing what was natural and right. What did I have to lose? - Besides my heart - And this precious little-one already had that.<br /><br />She never cried for hunger, I always anticipated and the milk was always warm and ready to go. She nestled in my arms as she suckled and I loved her.<br /><br />I remember when I went out visiting, she was always with me. When she would fall asleep, contented and happy in my arms, people often would say, “you can lay her down here or here” But this made not sense to me - It was obvious that she was content in my arms and I was content to hear her gentle dozing breaths while I gazed into the her angelic content and innocent face.<br /><br />“Thank-you no,” I would say, “We are both happy right where we are.”<br /><br />I did not understand. Why would I want to put her down? It reminded me of the many mothers in the hospital when I gave birth. They would have the babies in their cots at the end of their beds - untouched and unheld - most of the day. I did not understand this either. Isn’t there suppose to be a instantaneous bonding between mother and child? Isn’t it suppose to be instinctive? I was instinctively drawn to love and hold my daughter. Wasn’t this normal? And if this was normal then why was I not seeing the same reflected in others? I did not understand .<br /></span><div align="center"><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#663300;">***************</span></strong></div><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">We had baby walkers then, a tray with wheels! Unfortunately because some parents did not use these wisely, resulting in children falling down staircases and having terrible accidents, these walkers are no longer allowed to be legally sold in this country. This is a shame, because, wisely used, these were a wonderful mobility aid for very young children.<br /><br />So my daughter’s curiosity would not be stifled and to allow her maximum mobility, I baby-proofed my whole living area within arms reach of the baby walker. Because of this she had free-rein to scuttle around on her feet wherever she wanted to go. So, before she was even able to walk, she had a freedom most young children never experience - And she loved it!<br /><br />Now one might think, early mobility in such a walker might delay her walking skills - But this was NOT the case. I remember the day she learned to pull herself up to stand in the crib - She beamed with such pride at this accomplishment! And then, when I would put her down to crawl, she would immediately head for anything she could use to pull herself up with. Once standing, she would make insistent gruntings accompanied by a persistent waving of her hand until I placed another item beside the first so that she could remain standing but move on a little farther. And so she would repeat herself until she had managed to have me construct a circle of items that allowed her to make the full circuit of the room and then she would continue - round and round or back and forth, stopping every once in a while to proudly survey “her” circular construction until she decided to stop to play with a toy on the floor. But essentially, she refused to crawl, preferring an upward position for mobility.<br /><br />By 9 months, my daughter was walking on her own and when she began to talk she could really chatter. I remember walking with her outdoors. She was just ahead of me, incessantly chatting away, oblivious to whether I was really listening to her or not and just happy to be engaged in this one-sided verbal discourse.<br /></span><div align="center"><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#663300;">*********************</span></strong></div><p><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">For more than two years after your birth, I remained emotionally attached to your father and despite the overwhelming love and joy I had raising you, the pain of the rejection I could not understand began to draw a shadow over my life and my feeling. </span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;">Your father, originally from New Brunswick, from a potato farming family, came down from Alberta to see us for 2 days shortly after you were born. I could not understand how he could just leave us - leave you! A baby grows and changes so quickly. He was going to miss all those important milestones. I could not understand.<br />And then he would write - very short notes and sometimes he would phone. At one point, he said he wanted me to come out West. He was going to marry me off the plane and we would honeymoon in Hawaii. This was coming from a man who had done nothing to help me - or his child. Well, I might be emotionally attached but I wasn’t stupid! So I agreed, at his expense, to go out and see him for a visit. My mother lived in the same city, Calgary, and I would stay with her.<br /><br />Oh the plans he had. He was going to take me to this exotic garden on some urban rooftop and he was going to take me on a trip to the Rockies. But, as it turned out, this was all talk. It was as if the moment he saw me, he got cold feet again (he never did marry). He refused to take me to any of the places he promised .<br /><br />You were only 7 months old and he seemed to be very much attached to you. He would rock you and hold you and walk with you in his arms. He would help you take steps as he held your arms. We didn’t fight, he just did not want to commit. I could not understand.<br /><br />So once again I was rebuked and I went back home.<br /><br />But I remained emotionally attached to your father. I had a child with him - a beautiful child - YOU ! I just could not understand how a man could turn his back on such love and such a wonderful child. I was sad and dejected and powerless to free myself from the emotional chains that bound me to him. Chains that I knew were now attempting to drag me down into the darkness.<br /><br />You were 2 when I began a serious search for God - I did not even know if He even existed but I was sincere in this quest, reading my Bible daily and praying “<em><strong>If</strong></em> you really exist . . . ” And when I finished reading I asked “ <strong><em>If</em></strong> this is true, give me the faith I need to believe”.<br /><br />Then I remember one day, standing in the middle of my living room, being particularly burdened by my emotional chain and I cried out to God to remove it, to take it from me, telling Him that I was giving it to Him, that I didn’t want it any more.<br /><br />All I can do is tell you what happened: This emotional tie that was causing me such pain was GONE ! - LIFTED ! - IMMEDIATELY ! - never to bother me again ! The very moment I asked it was gone, and I knew it was gone and at that very moment I knew that I knew that I knew - God <em>was</em> real!<br /><br />Later, as I continued to read the Bible, I got to the <strong>Gospel of John</strong>. As I read, I was surprised to learn things I had never been told in all my many years going to Sunday School. I knew there was suppose to be God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost/Spirit: the Trinity. But no one ever told me anything about this Holy Spirit. But now I was reading in my Bible (a Bible I obtained when it was left unspoken-for in my place of employment 3 years out of high school) that Jesus, Himself, claimed this Holy Spirit, also referred to as <strong><em>The Comforter</em></strong>, was very important.<br /><br />From what I was reading, it was obvious that Jesus wanted us to know about the Holy Spirit and how to have this part of the Trinity working directly in our lives. Why did no one ever tell me about this? How could I have gone to Sunday School for years with perfect attendance and have no one tell me this? I did not understand.<br /><br />But God had lifted this shackle from me and I now knew HE WAS REAL, and here was Jesus saying all I had to do was ask for this Holy Spirit - "Just ask" He said (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2011:9-13;&version=31;"><strong><span style="color:#3333ff;">Luke 11:9-13</span></strong></a>) - So I did. And once again my request was answered IMMEDIATELY - and, this time, DRAMATICALLY as well ! The details of this, I will not relate because everyone’s first encounter with the Holy Spirit is different and I don’t believe we should be running after an experience. Run after God, seek Him with your whole heart and then He will give you your own personal, glorious experience!<br /><br />This continuing encounter with my God has changed me and made me a different person. I can love when previously there could be no love. I have empathy for those who abuse me and my family. I do not hate - I pray, from the heart, for those who wrong me. God has also given me the ability and the emotional strength to fight for social justice, though at times it can be very frustrating .<br /><br />But please understand, I do not boast in myself. I am human. I am a work in progress - There is nothing within myself to boast of. Instead I boast of God who is continually at work within me and I thank Him for the changes He has wrought in my mind and in my thinking. In doing so, He has released my burdens and broken my chains many times over.<br /></span><br /><strong><span style="color:#663300;"><em>Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.<br />Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.<br />Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.<br />Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:<br />He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.<br />Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.<br />Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.<br />For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.<br />A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found.<br />But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace.<br />The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them; but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming.<br />The wicked draw the sword and bend the bow to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose ways are upright.<br />But their swords will pierce their own hearts, and their bows will be broken.<br />Better the little that the righteous have than the wealth of many wicked; for the power of the wicked will be broken, but the LORD upholds the righteous.<br />The days of the blameless are known to the LORD, and their inheritance will endure forever.<br />In times of disaster they will not wither; in days of famine they will enjoy plenty.<br />But the wicked will perish: The LORD's enemies will be like the beauty of the fields, they will vanish—vanish like smoke.</em> -The Bible - <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2037:1-%2020%20;&version=31;"><span style="color:#3333ff;">Psalm 37:1- 20</span></a></span></strong><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2037:1-%2020%20;&version=31;"> </a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-37698309240965986522007-09-20T00:58:00.000-04:002007-10-01T05:01:02.759-04:009. Sher and Terry<div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#cc0000;">Sher and Terry<br /></span><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;">Chapter<br />9</span></strong></div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;"><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:100%;color:#660000;"><em>I </em></span></span></strong><strong><span style="color:#660000;"><em>believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.- Martin Luther King</em></span> </div><div align="left"><br /></strong><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Two unmarried identical twin teens, Sher and Shauna, pregnant at the same time. I cannot begin to imagine the thoughts and feelings that must have been going through the mind of their mother during such trying circumstances. But the impact from the actions of this mother would stretch its destructive tentacles across time, space, and families into my home more than 19 years later. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">What I know of this woman’s story was collected from conversational fragments with my daughter who had befriended one of the twins, Sher, who lived across the hallway in my apartment building with her common law husband Terry and her 13 year old son from her previous marriage. Sher was a quiet, soft-spoken, petit woman, red-haired and freckly. Terry was a large,“ teddy bear” type of man, well groomed, with graying hair, and soft-spoken as well. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">From my daughter’s conversations with this woman, she gleaned a story of deepest tragedy, a story that deserve a publication of its own. According to this woman, her first child, a newborn son, was fraudulently stolen from her when the Children’s Aid Society conspired with her mother to trick her into signing away her child for adoption. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Only recently, did another piece of the puzzle come together when I was informed that this grandmother used to be a case worker for Children’s Aid. Needless to say, this event caused a permanent rift between her and her mother and it also rent apart the usual close relationship between twins because, unlike her, the other twin, Shauna, was allowed to keep her child. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Just before my grandson was born, Sher had attempted to contact her, now grown, son. However, her attempts had been blocked by the hostility of the adoptive parents and her birth son was refusing to speak with her on the phone. To me, this woman's history and her recent unsuccessful attempt at reconciliation with the son she had lost as a newborn, explained this woman's unusual interest and fixation on my newborn grandson. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">For the first nine months of my grandson's life, my daughter lived with me in my home. Originally, my daughter was not working and she was suppose to be home looking after _____. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">From my daughter’s conversations to me, as well as her numerous visitations to this couple’s apartment when I was home, I believed my daughter was forging a close relationship with this couple who lived across the hall. But they were her friends and, at this point, I had not even conversed with them. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Because my daughter was having problems coping with the responsibility of motherhood, on occasion, I had been forced to bring my grandson to work. I knew she wasn’t bonding with her child and I had attempted, to no avail, to get help from Children’s Services, but I thought that this occasional respite during the week-days, as well as my assistance on the week-ends was enough. When my grandson was home with my daughter, I believed she was looking after him. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">It was not until my daughter was removed from my home by the police that I began to piece together a story of a mother who spent very little time with her child. According to the neighbors, as soon as I left for work, my daughter would knock on this couple's door and leave _____ with them, and when she was seen with my grandson, she was detached and uncaring. I was horrified that only now were my neighbors telling me their concerns and only now was I beginning to realize the depth of my daughter’s dysfunction. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">In hindsight, I recall memories of my daughter sitting on the front steps of our apartment building smoking while my grandson was left in the stroller between the two glass doors of the front entrance. I remember thinking this strange and speaking to her on this. Her response was that she could still see him and she did not want to be smoking around him. And then, I remember the time my daughter had let this couple have my grandson for an overnight. There had been no need for this on my daughter's part, I had been home, as was my daughter, and either one of us could have been looking after him, but this had been a request from this couple. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">I was very uncomfortable about the arrangement and I did confront my daughter about my feelings, but she insisted there was nothing wrong with this.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">As it happened, the very week-end my daughter was removed from my house by the police, Sher took her son and left her husband. Even though I had doubts about this couple, I was concerned that my grandson, in one full swoop, had, now, lost two significant people in his life, Sher and his mother, and I did not think it in his best interest to deprive him of his relationship with Terry. So now, with my daughter gone, I, for the first time, began to established a relationship with Terry. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Originally I made short visits to Terry’s apartment with ______ and it was immediately apparent that there was an established bond between him and my grandson. ______ shone in his presence and I could see that already there was established unique routine of behavior and response between them. Feeling that ______ was happy and safe with Terry, we eventually settled into a routine where Terry would have ______ for one hour a day. This was a lot less than Terry was used to, but this was the amount of time that I was comfortable with. During this hour, I was able to get a few chores done and I also prided myself on my ability to get the bus to the mall, with a predetermined errand in mind, and to be back within the hour on the next returning bus. It was good to have this break that I could depend upon but I never extended the visitation time beyond the predetermined hour. I felt comfortable with an hour but nothing more. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Meanwhile Terry was having problems with his health, a rare environmental sensitivity syndrome, that would come and go, occasionally flaring up and slowly disabling him to the point that he would be restricted to a wheelchair. At the time, he was slowly on the downslide and his energy was waning so I think, in the end, especially without Sher not being there, he was content with this limited arrangement as well. When I took my grandson over for his visit, I always supplied his diapers, food, and a bottle, and there was always a change of clothes in the event of some messy spill or spit up. By the end of the second month, this visitation routine was well established and seemed to be working well. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Meanwhile _______ was going to a sitter for three days during the weekday, including one evening while I attended university courses. I brought him to work with me twice a week and then of course I looked after him on the weekends. Every day, except the day of my university class, he had his hourly visit with Terry.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Though the police had put an undertaking against my daughter that was meant to prevent her from contacting me, because I felt that it was important for her to maintain contact with her child, we both mutually disregarded this stipulation, and I allowed her access whenever she wanted. However, during the next three months, my daughter saw her son only 6 times. But during this time, she made arrangements for the father to see my grandson 3 times. My daughter’s visits were usually short, often times in my home, but she did take him out a few times. I distinctly remember her returning him to me while I was at work one day because she was exceedingly rude to me in front of other people and I recall these people being shocked by her manner.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">One evening I met my daughter at the entrance to her apartment building so that she could sign over the family allowance cheque to me. Here, she related to me that she had been suspended from her job for a week, and once more I heard a woeful story of victimization that, unfortunately had become a routine since her very first high school job. When these victimization stories began, I believed them. I was her mother and I remember feeling sympathetic, protective, and defensive for her. Of course I believed her. But over the years, she continued to get fired from every one of her jobs and there was always the same victimizations story. Eventually, I realized that I needed to begin questioning her stories. For some reason, she was unable to hold a job for any length of time and because she persisted in wrapped herself in these self-victimization stories, I had no idea what her actual problem was.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Halfway through the third month, Sher began visiting Terry at his apartment. It seemed that reconciliation was in process between this couple. I continued my grandson’s daily hour visits with Terry and, at times, when I took him over, Sher was visiting. This did not disturb me because I knew that my grandson had an established relationship with this woman as well. What did disturb me was that, during these visits, Sher would assertively knock at by door requesting my grandson beyond the agreed upon hour. I never allowed this, but Sher persisted, knocking long and loudly, to the point that I felt harassed. As a result, I eventually ignored her knocks. I was happy that this couple seemed to be working towards reconciliation, but it disturbed me greatly that whenever she visited Terry, she wanted my grandson. It did was not seem appropriate for reconciliation to take place around a child, especially a child that was not even their own, and not even family!</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">I was to find out that during these reconciliation encounters, this couple were formulating plans for my grandson’s first birthday. When they first informed me about this, they, quite bizarrely, expected me to just hand my grandson over to them for this celebration. I had not been consulted about this plan and neither was I invited. To say the least, this was extremely weird, but I made no comments and asked no questions. Though I had no intention of handing over ______ to these people, I said nothing because I was curious to observe the unfolding of this bizarre behavior. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Then one evening approaching the end of the third month, I returned from my university course to find a small note attached to my apartment door:</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">[Insert note verbatim here]</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Terry had moved out to live with Sher and still making the assumption of having ______ for this birthday party, the note stated that he would call to let me know when he would pick up my grandson. Terry had given me no forewarning of his intension to move, but, now, suddenly, he was gone! I was later to learn from the superintendent of the apartment building that Terry had been in extreme arrears with his rent and that he had sneaked out without the owner’s knowledge.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't there seem to be something strange about non-family members planning an unasked for, significant first birthday party, for a child without the primary caregiver? I was having serious concerns about this couple and the warning bells were now ringing loud and clear. These people were strange, and the relationship they perceived they had with my grandson was stranger still! </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">When this couple lived across the hall, their continued interest with my grandson made some sense, but, as non-family members moving across town, it made no sense that they expected me to freely hand over my infant grandson to them without my being present. If there had been an effort to forge a relationship with me and _______ together, I could have envisioned my going over to their place on occasion for a visit with ______. But their assumptions were deeply disturbing.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">By the middle of the third month, after my daughter was showing little interest for ______ and making no attempt to financially contribute towards him, despite the fact that she was then working and despite the fact that she had successfully harassed money from the father towards his expenses, I filed for legal custody. Endeavoring to force these parents to show some kind of habitual responsibility, I also filed for maintenance from both my daughter and the father. In hindsight, perhaps I should not have done this. Earlier, before my daughter had been removed from my home, she had wanted to sign my grandson over to me, but, at that time, she had also made it very clear that she would not relinquish legal custody. In fact, she had stated adamantly and succinctly, "If you ever go after custody, I will fight you on that!" </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Within two days of filing the papers for legal custody and maintenance, the consequences of that threat dramatically unfolded and the journey towards Children Services and the destruction of my family sped forward at an alarming rate. The jaws of this destructive agency gaped open. We were all about to tumble in, to be separated, chewed, and pulverized beyond all recognition. On this momentous evening, a knock sounded on my apartment door and I opened it to find my daughter in the hallway with a police officer beside her. The father was not apparent at the beginning, but he did appear later. I remember this police officer standing outside my doorway holding out my daughter's custody documents like he was displaying it to a crowd. "I have these papers. What papers do you have?", he declared. When I tried to explain that I was presently in the process of going after custody through the courts, I was told that since I did not presently have "a paper" giving me custody, that I had to hand my grandson over to my daughter.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">I was naive. I have always been a law abiding citizen, and I thought, if a policeman was making such a statement, it must be true, so reluctantly I handed my grandson over to my daughter in the hallway. But since that fateful mistake, I have learned that not only was this information given me untrue but that the police in the Halifax Regional Municipality are well aware of this untruth. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">First and foremost, without a warrant or court order, the police officer did not have the right to take my grandson from me, and, if I had stood my ground, they would not have physically taken him away from me. But I, not knowing any better, handed him over. Second, the police officer should have been unaware of the assault charges that the police department themselves had earlier laid against my daughter? But, in the stress of the moment, alone and believing, at the time, that I had no choice in this matter, I did not even think to bring up the matter of these charges. Lastly, when my grandson was taken, no attempt was made to assure that my grandson was being safely transported because it was later determined that he was taken away in a car without a car seat.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">During the next two weeks, I made every efforts to determine my grandson's whereabouts. From phone calls to a number of people, I was able to determine that he had been shuffled around to a number of different places and that during this time no one person, including his mother was with him. The Children's Services reports that I would soon become very familiar later verified these findings. However, during this two week period, I was able to see my grandson twice. The first time, I was a able to determine that he had been left with Sher and Terry and I asked to come and see him while he was there. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">This visit was short and difficult and was covered in Observations # 19 and 20 in the previous chapter. During this visit, I was told that my grandson had come to them dirty and unkempt. This broke my heart. He had always been clean, and well looked after, and with me, he had always been loved and cherished. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">My second visit, at my daughter’s apartment. Covered by observation # 21 in the previous chapter:</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-55915079176814150312007-09-20T00:03:00.000-04:002007-09-29T02:04:31.016-04:008. Two Weeks of Pain: The Research Continues<div align="center"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#cc0000;">Two Weeks of Pain: The Research Continues</span></strong> </span></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;">Chapter 8 </span></strong></div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;"><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:100%;color:#660000;"><em>All</em></span></span></strong><strong><span style="color:#660000;"><em><span style="color:#660000;"> </span>those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. - Roy Batty, Blade Runner</em></span></strong></div><div align="left"><br /><strong><span style="color:#660000;"><em>They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. - Psalms</em></span></strong></div><br />Over 21 observations, the main means of communication which I observed with _______ were smiling, eye contact, verbal utterances, and initiating play, communication, or interaction. Smiles were noted in 14 of 21 observations, eye contact in 11 of 21 observations, verbal utterances in 10 of 21 observations and initiating play, communication or interaction in 13 of 21 observations.<br />Reporting from a more quantitative point of view:<br /><br />Near the end of the observational period, _______ was absent for four days. The observation on the fourth day was that _______ grabbed hold of this researcher placed his lips on top of the researcher's sucking them into his mouth and hugged and hugged the researcher, not wanting to let go. Eventually the researcher had to break the lip lock.<br /><br />The next observation took place a week later. At this time, _______ just stared in the researcher's eyes. He would not smile. He did not react to hugs and kisses and the researcher telling him, "I love you". When the researcher held him, he pushed his little body away. After this, the child was no longer available for observation.<br /><br />In class, during our sharing time, I reported it this way so that people might note the differences in a more quantitative verses a more qualitative observation. In an isolated quantitative research environment the reasons for the changes might be overlooked. In qualitative research, the researcher could ask people connected with the research subject questions that might clarify the reasons for the change in the child's behavior.<br /><br />The facts were that _______ had been living with the grandmother since birth, that the grandmother was the child's primary caregiver because the mother was unable to care for the child. The mother had left the home, removed by the police, and the child was with the grandmother for three months.<br /><br />When the grandmother filed for custody, the mother suddenly removed the child from the grandmother's house. During the next two weeks the child was bounced from place to place with no one person, including the mother, staying with the child. During this time, the mother was denying the grandmother access.<br /><br />However, the grandmother was able to see the child for a short time during the fourth days and then for about five minutes a week after that. The study subject then disappeared because Children's Services took the child away from the mother three days after the last observation.<br /><br />When the child was first placed in care, the mother continued to refused the grandmother access.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 19:</strong><br />I have not seen _______ for four days. He is with people I know.<br /><br />_______ has been away with the paternal relatives for the weekend. On Monday, the parents took _______ to these people to be looked after for the day. After work I go to their home. When I come through the door, _______ is put in my arms. He immediately hugs me tight while placing his lips right over my lips. His lips remain on mine as he continues to hug me and I hug him. We continue to hug. Eventually, and reluctantly, I break the lip lock and tell him that I love him and I hug him in return. I say to these people, " He must love me. He must have missed me". I hug him some more as I walk around. Eventually he squirms and I let him down to run around and play.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 20</strong> (same visit as Observation #19):<br />I am holding _______ in my arms. _______ is smiling and "talking". It is time to leave. I put _______ down so that I can put my coat and boots on. _______ is walking around in front of me. I pick him up again and hug him. He is smiling. I know he thinks he is going with Grammie. But before I go out the door, the man takes _______. I suppose he does not want _______ to actually see me leave the apartment so he takes _______ from me and takes him into the bedroom. As he is walking down the hallway, _______ is looking over his shoulder at me. He is not smiling. He does not say anything, but his eyes are big and round. There is a look of alarm and panic on his face.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 21:</strong><br />I have not seen _______ for a week. He is with his mother at her apartment. I am dropping off some clothes while she is waiting for a cab:<br />I knock on the door. I give the mother the clothes. She puts _______ in my arms. I hug him. _______ does not hug me. He is quiet. I hug him and kiss him many times and call him "my Pookie" (my special name for him) He just stares in my face. We all walk down to the front foyer. The cab is there. I carry him down the stairs and hold him while the mother puts the things in the trunk. _______ does not hug me. His body is pulled away from me and he is just staring me in the eye. I talk to him but there is no response. He just stares at me. Finally the mother takes him, puts him in the car and he is gone. Abject pain.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">What I Learned</span></strong><br /><br />- To expect the unexpected - my research subject disappeared suddenly<br /><br />- Observations might have been more accurately obtained if I had used a tape recorder. When spontaneous observations happened when I was tired, I found it difficult to discipline myself to get up and write my observations as soon as they occurred.<br /><br />- I learned that it is important to base your research on something which you are truly interested in. When I first lost my research subject, I tried to observe the responses that bus drivers gave to people who were thanking the drivers as they left the bus. However, not being particularly interested, I found it hard to commit myself to regular observations. Eventually I decided to interview a couple who knew _______ to get their observations on _______'s communication skills. As it turned out, only the man would speak to me. _______'s absence had upset the woman too much and she was not willing to talk about _______ yet.<br /><br />- Part way through the observations, I realized that I had neglected to report _______'s modes<br />of communication in more routine activities such as eating. This was corrected.<br /><br />- I learned that _______'s scattering of books and toys after I picked them up was not meaningless. It had been an attempt to put the toys within easy reach. Though the stuffed toys still remained on the shelf and the assorted toys were still kept in a laundry basket on the floor, I found that when I kept his books on the floor beside the coffee table instead of on the coffee table that _______ would no longer scatter them around.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">Update after classes finished - (Visible observations of the trauma of separation):</span></strong><br /><br />- <strong>After being separated from</strong> _______ <strong>for 6 weeks</strong>, at the first court appearance, a judge overrode my daughters objections, and I was immediately granted access to my grandson, _______.<br /><br />- There has been 4 court dates in 4 weeks.<br /><br />- At my <strong>1st access visit</strong> with _______, he stared at me with penetrating eyes. He did not smile, he did not verbalize, and he did not interact with me.<br /><br />- At the <strong>second visit</strong>, _______ began to verbalize a bit more but he was still not smiling and though he was playing around me he was not interacting with me.<br /><br />- At the <strong>third visit</strong>, _______ was definitely interacting, and he was verbalizing more. He was only showing a hint of a smile for a split second a couple of times.<br /><br />- By the <strong>fourth visit</strong>, _______ was verbalizing, interacting and he was finally smiling!<br /><br />- By the <strong>5th, 6th, and 7th</strong> visit, _______ was allowing himself to bond with me again. As a result he has begun to react to my leaving. This is a bit difficult, but it is a good sign.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">Ending Statement:</span></strong><br /><br />When I began my observations I chose a topic which was interesting to me but which I though might be mundane to others. Little did I know that my grandson would suddenly be taken away and that I would be denied access to him for six weeks.<br /><br />As a result, I was able to observe the changes of my grandson through a very stressful ordeal. I had been the one constant in this child's life and suddenly he was taken away and I was gone. _______ was too young to have anybody try to explain the situation to him.<br /><br />When I finally saw him, I believe this child was confused as well as angry at me because of my absence. His pain and rejection were most apparent the last time I saw him during the actual study time (observation #21) and the first time I saw him after the judge ordered access.<br /><br />Happy or sad, the mode of communication that was constant for _______ was his eye contact. As the man I interviewed about _______ said, "He speaks with his eyes".<br /><br />Indeed he speaks both happiness, and sadness - as well as confusion - with his eyes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-48350415867863063622007-09-19T23:52:00.000-04:002007-09-20T00:02:03.298-04:00Happier Days (11-13 months)<div align="center"><br /><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:180%;color:#cc0000;">Happier Days (11-13 months old)</span></strong></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;"><strong>Chapter 7</strong></span></div><br /><br /><span style="color:#663333;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><strong><em>If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.</em> - Rachel Carson </strong><br /><br /></span></span><span style="color:#663333;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><strong><em>Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children.-</em> Alex Haley</strong><br /></span></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Though my daughter was removed from my home by the police with an undertaking placed against her to have no contact with me, I felt I had an obligation towards my grandson to encouraged her to maintain a relationship with her child. For that reason I allowed contact to continue, encouraging her to visit her son whenever she wanted to. However, during the next 3 months, she chose to see him only 6 times, usually short visitations in my home. Once, she took him for an overnight visitation to his father.<br /></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">During this time my daughter was working full time but she gave no money, no clothes, no baby supplies - nothing - towards his support. However, feeling that the father should be assisting, she did press him to give me $200 for expenses which she promptly delivered to me.<br /><br />While my grandson was residing solely with me I began an observation assignment in one of my university psychology courses where we were asked to make 5 minute observations of a specific subject - I chose my grandson as my research subject.<br /><br />The following are my notes and observations at the beginning of my project. :<br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I observed the various ways that my grandson, _____, communicated. During the research period ______ was 11 to 13 months old. I chose this research because I was already interested in grandson's budding ability to communicate and I thought this experience would hone my observational abilities and insights on this particular subject. In addition, _______ had been living with me since he was born and I thought that observations on him would be relatively easy. Due to the nature of the observations, no particular time was set for five minute swatches. As a result, observations were spontaneously taken when _______ was actively communicating. Later, to add to my initial observation, I attempted to interviewed a couple who either separately or together had been with _______ on an almost daily basis.</span><br /></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong>My Observations:</strong><br />Observations showed that _______ was a very outgoing child who was not afraid to connect with people. In particular, _______ used direct eye contact a lot. It was not unusual for this child to walk right up to strangers, stand at their feet and just stare up at them until communication was established. [my grandson was an early walker, beginning at 9 months so that at the time of these observations he was not only a proficient walker he was also a very proficient soccer ball dribbler.] On the bus, _______ was often observed "playing the crowd" with his eyes and his smiles. I would suddenly look around and see all these people on the bus making eyes and communicating back at this little boy sitting in his stroller who was busy flopping his feet and expressing himself with his eyes.</span><br /><br />I observed that there were particular ways of communicating that _______ reserved for certain people he saw on a regular basis . For example, I observed _______ winking and blinking in a very expressive way to the babysitter. When I tried to get _______ to repeat this with me I could not, but I was told by the sitter that this was an action that he did repeatedly with her.<br /><br />Over 21 observations, the main means of communication which I observed with _______ were smiling, eye contact, verbal utterances, and initiating play, communication, or interaction. Smiles were noted in 14 of 21 observations, eye contact in 11 of 21 observations, verbal utterances in 10 of 21 observations and initiating play, communication or interaction in 13 of 21 observations.<br /><br /><blockquote><p><strong>Observation # 1:<br /></strong>_______ was playing with his toys in the living room. I was sitting on the couch without my socks on reading my papers for my university course. While I was reading, _______ came up to me with his small black plastic bowling ball and began biting my toes, my foot and my lower leg. Distracted from my reading I began to talk to him, noticed the ball he had with him and assuming that he wanted to play catch, I put down my papers and got down on the floor to roll the ball to him. _______ responded with "happy talk" and smiles as I set him on his bum and opened up his legs to a V position and began rolling the ball back and forth to him.<strong><br /><br />Observation # 2<br /></strong>When I go to pick up _______ from the sitters, as I am getting his snowsuit on him, I notice him making extreme animated faces at the sitter. He is staring at the sitter, blinking his eyes, and winking as well, in a very exaggerated way. The sitter is staring back at him, a big smile on her face but not surprised at his actions. I am completely surprised, he has never made such faces around me before and I am taken aback by the extreme degree of expressiveness.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 3:<br /></strong>I hear _______ crying in his crib in his room. He has woken up for the day. As I walk to his room I tell him, " I'm coming baby. Just a minute. I'm coming" When I open the door, _______ is standing at the end of the crib closest to the door whimpering. As I pick him up, I tell him, " I'm here. I love you sweetie." As I hold him close while walking down the hallway, _______ gives me seven firm pats on my back. I respond by hugging him and telling him that I love him. He is smiling and "talks" to me.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 4:<br /></strong>_______ has been playing with his toys on the living room floor as I rush back and forth and in and out picking up and straightening up. _______ gets up from his play and busily walks several times across the room waving his hand and "talking". Then he stands at the end of his barrier his voice getting louder and more demanding.</p><p>He stretches up on his toes several times grunting each time. </p><p>"Get your ball? Where's your ball?" I ask. </p><p>He continues his actions and grunting. I find the ball, give it to him and lift him across the barrier. Immediately, he walks to the door with the ball. He is quiet now and smiling looking at the door knob. I open the door and he walks out to dribble his much deflated soccer ball down the hallway.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 5:<br /></strong>I am sitting in the living room. I have just finished straightening up by putting most of the toys in the toy basket, the stuffed animals on the shelf and _______'s books on the coffee table. When _______ gets up from his nap I put him down on the living room floor. He is smiling. He goes to the basket and begins to empty the basket. He grabs the toys one by one and just throws them on the floor. When he has emptied most of the toys from the basket , he moves on to the stuffed animals on the shelf. Again, grabbing hold of them one at a time and just throwing them on the floor. With that done he then moves across the room to the books on the coffee table and scatters them on the floor. Now he finds a toy, a caterpillar which lights up and makes music when it is used, and begins interacting with it.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 6:<br /></strong>_______ walks into the bosses office. He stands in the middle of the floor and just stares at her. When she notices him, he smiles. She responds by telling him what a "cutie" he is. He walks around like a penguin, his hands close to his sides. More positive verbal response from the boss and the other person in the room. I just quietly watch his antics. The boss starts reading some papers on her desk. _______ hides behind a small open shelf door near the floor and quietly peeks out at the boss. He does this three times before she looks his way. She responds with delight that he is playing peek-a-boo with her. He continues to engage her in the peek-a-boo game several more time before she must return to the work on her desk.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 7:<br /></strong>_______ walks to his spring horse. He circles the horse three times. He leans against the saddle from the far side and looks directly at me. Keeping his gaze on me he raises himself on his toes several times while leaning on the saddle. He does not make any noises. It is only these movements but I figure that he wants to ride on the horse so I get up and place him on the saddle. I place his hands on the handle by the horse's mouth and his feet on the crossbar. His mouth is beaming, his eyes are wide open. He still is not "talking". Standing from behind, I start bouncing the horse. There is still no verbal response so I need to look at his face to gauge his response His smile is now an open smile and his eyes are now beaming. I continue to bounce the horse for him. Then I try to show him how to bounce the horse by putting the pressure on his body to get the horse to bounce. I take my hands away and let him try a few feeble bounces on his own. Again, I bounce him for a bit. He starts leaning to one side and I am not sure if he has lost his balance a little or if he wants off so I straighten him up. But he leans to the side again. Thinking he wants off, I remove him. He is still happy. He moves to the front of the horse. We both pat the horse and I say, "Thank you horsey ". Happily he walks away and finds a toy to play with.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 8:<br /></strong>It is getting late and _______ still seems to have a lot of energy to burn so I take his slightly deflated soccer ball and tell him, "Come on let's go play with the ball". He smiles. We go out into the hallway and I put the ball down on the floor. But instead of dribbling the ball down the hallway like he usually does, he goes straight across the hallway and knocks on the neighbor's door. Then he stands there looking up at the doorknob. He knocks again. The neighbors open the door and he just walks right in with his little penguin walk. He sees a certain lady who has not been at the neighbor's for almost three months sitting on the couch and he runs off into her arms with his arms outstretched. I leave him for a little visit.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 9:<br /></strong>I go over to pick up _______ from the neighbor's across the hall. _______ is walking back and forth from the bedroom corridor to the living room, stopping every once in a while to smile and to take in the admiring comments made about him. The man brings out a sport water bottle for _______ and hands it to the woman. </p><p>_______ walks over to the woman. She tips the water bottle back. He drinks a bit and then gives a breathy "h" sound. She responds with smiles and a breathy "h". He drinks again. Another "h" from him followed by a "h" from her. She explains that this is his regular response when drinking from the sport water bottle. I am watching this thinking how cute he is. He takes a couple more sips followed by the breathy "h".<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 10:<br /></strong>I am laying down on the couch when _______ makes short demanding noises. _______ is beside the CD player looking at me. I get up and turn on the music. _______ is smiling, talking and interacting with the music by bouncing and dancing to the beat. Meanwhile I lay down on the floor beside him putting a blanket over me and a light blocking "sleep sock" over my eyes. He pulls off the blanket three times smiling and "talking" all the while. As I put on the blanket for the third time, I tell him that Grammie needs the blanket to keep her warm. Then _______ comes over and pulls my "sleep sock" from my eyes four times all the while smiling and laughing. This time, I sit up half way. _______ then takes off to play with his caterpillar, but about half a minute later, _______ brings the caterpillar over and starts to bang it around my head. I now sit up all the way. Meanwhile _______ gets his Eore shaped rattle, and stands up in front of me. He looks at me and shakes Eore. At this point I am well up and wide awake.<strong><br /><br />Observation # 11:<br /></strong>_______ is walking around whining. He has been fed. I check his diapers. They're fine. I pick him up in my arms and try to soothe him. He squiggles down from my lap and continues whining. Then _______ says, "mi, mi". "Milk?" I ask. Then ______'s "mi, mi" become more urgent and he starts crying. Meanwhile, I run to get the milk from the fridge. When he sees me coming with the bottle, _______'s cries are more persistent. I put him on my lap, put the bottle in his mouth and he quietly drinks the bottle half way down. Then he squiggles off my laps and goes to play with his toys.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 12:<br /></strong>_______ is whining. I look at the clock. It is close enough to lunch. I buckle him into the highchair and snap the table top on the chair. He snaps his mouth onto the first few spoonfuls offered. Then he begins to "talk" between spoonfuls. I talk back to him. Slowly, more and more time elapses between spoonfuls. Finally I offer a spoon and he initially keeps his mouth closed. Only after I play "airplane" modeling an open mouth does _______ open his mouth. I do this successfully with two more spoonfuls of food. Then I offer another spoonful, but now he turns his head. I offer it two more times, but the head remains turned. At this point, I tell him "All finished". I wash his hands and face, I unsnap the table top, and I unbuckle him. As I lift him out, I give him a hug then I put him down to play with his toys.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 13:<br /></strong>_______ has been playing with his toys. He comes over to me while I am sitting on the couch. He pulls on me while standing on his toes. I lift him up and he snuggles with me for five minutes. He smiles, he talks, he hugs me. Then he squiggles off the couch and returns to his toys.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 14:<br /></strong>I start to feed _______ his bottle but he gives me irritating noises. He starts to squiggle his body but he is not squiggling down. I readjust _______ in my arms so that he can see the television while he is drinking the bottle. Then he stops his irritating noises and his squiggling and peacefully drinks his bottle.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 15:<br /></strong>I am sitting on the couch reading while _______ is playing with his toys. _______ picks up a book from his pile by the coffee table. It is his favorite Brown Bear Brown Bear. </p><p>“Do you want Grammie to read you the book?” I ask.</p><p>_______ brings the book to me stretching it out towards me in his right hand. I lift him up onto my lap. _______ is smiling. </p><p>I read expressively, "I see a . . . ( We turn the page together as I name the animal and make the animal's sound) looking at me!"</p><p>_______ smiles as the animals are named. He looks at me often as I read and he touches the pictures. When I finish, I hug him and we review the animals as he flips through the pages backwards. Then he squiggles off my lap and returns to his toys.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 16:<br /></strong>_______ begins pacing back and forth making noises that follow the rhythm of a speech pattern. He is moving his hand forward and back like people who talk with their hands keeping rhythm to the speech patterns. He is looking intently into the air as if he is in serious conversation with someone I cannot see. I am sitting there amazed watching this. He does not seem to notice my presence. The conversation is intense as he continues to pace back and forth for about three minutes. Eventually, he eyes a toy that catches his attention. The "conversation" ends and he sits down to play with his toys.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 17:<br /></strong>_______ goes to dribble his ball in the hallway. As he comes to the front foyer, he meets a neighbor. _______ walks right up to this person, and stands there smiling, looking directly at this person's face. </p><p>"You are a cutie" this person begins the conversation.</p><p>_______ walks around the foyer a couple of times. All the time this person is making admiring conversation about _______. _______ stops and makes eye contact several times. Then _______ picks up the ball and throws the it towards this person. The ball is then thrown back. _______ throws it again. Once again, the throw is returned before this person goes out the door. _______ follows this person to the glass doors. This person waves good-by. _______ waves good-by.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 18:<br /></strong>On the bus _______ is sitting in his stroller. I see various people smiling and squinting and making faces towards _______. I look at _______ in the stroller. He is smiling and actively engaged in making eye contact with the various people. He is flopping both his feet up and down as he sits in the stroller and his eyes are animated.<br /></p></blockquote></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-84109947034983491032007-09-04T04:07:00.000-04:002007-09-25T02:15:32.521-04:006. Flashback #1 - My Own Daughter<div align="center"><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Flashback #1 </span></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#cc0000;">My Own Daughter</span></strong> </div><div align="center"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;"><strong>Chapter 6</strong></span> </div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"></div><div align="left"><br /><strong><span style="color:#663333;"><em>Every child born into the world ia a new thought of God, an ever fresh and radiant possibility - Kate Douglas Wiggin</em></span></strong></div><span style="color:#663333;"><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;">Flesh</span> </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;">of my flesh and bone of my bone. You grew <em><strong>under </strong></em>my heart - and <em><strong>in</strong></em> my heart. You were a precious beautiful, delicate “china doll”. Just 6 pounds 8 ounces. You were small with fine features and your hands were dainty with slender fingers. It was those slender fingers that conjured up the image of a china doll, just like the fingers on the antique china doll I inherited from my grandmother - fine and dainty, delicate and fragile. I loved you the moment you were born!<br /><br />Your precious tiny baby fingers always moved with grace. Never - never - were they clutched in anger. For you were an unusual baby - You never cried.<br /><br />This lack of the typical bellowing verbiage of a newborn did not come from lethargy. Au contraire! It was apparent from the start that you were smart - a little sponge constantly and continually absorbing everything around you. During the day you were “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed”, happy and smiling.<br /><br />I had a theory that babies often cried just because they were bored so I made sure you were not bored. There was a mobile in your crib and another over your change table. There were pictures by the change table and during the day I would give you tours of the house allowing you to soak up every interesting morsel as I talked with you about what you were so intently examining, with your eyes and, later, with your fingers. When I scrubbed the floor, I put you in the auto swing and talked to you. And I changed the position of the swing constantly, so you would not get bored of the same view. And I bought a baby carrier- a new invention at the time - that I sent all the way to California for - and I strapped you to me, heart to heart and face to face.<br /><br />You never cried - And then I waited for you to get sleepy, or at least show your need for sleep by fussing - but you never did. All day long you were happy, smiling and content - content to not allow me the usual parental break during childhood naptime. And although I was never given this typical respite, how could I resent it. You were happy, smiling and you filled my heart with love.<br /><br />I breastfed you. In fact, you were not totally weaned until you were three. And I was sensitive to your subtle cues. You never cried for hunger, because I could read your signs and anticipated your hunger. And you never cried because of a wet or dirty diaper. I knew just when your diaper would be wet and when you would make a deposit, immediately replacing the soiled diaper with a freshly washed and ironed one.<br /><br />Another unusual thing about you - from the day I took you home from the hospital, you slept right through the night. I would put you to bed at 9 and you slept right through until 9 the next morning. Anticipating a wet diaper around midnite, I would lift you from the crib and place you on the change table. And because you got so used to these nocturnal changes, you often just slept through this routine.<br /><br />During the daytime changes you would hold up your bum for me to wipe by holding your feet in your hands. And you would look intently into my eyes and you would beam a smile that would melt my soul.<br /><br />But there was a vacancy - Your father, who had once declared undying love for me, who told me he wanted a house full of kids. Your father, who I was engaged to before you were even conceived - the man who deliberately and consciously begat you, was not there for you - or me. This man who I had loved so desperately had just gotten “cold feet”, and knowing I was pregnant, had just sent me away.<br /><br />You were such a precious soul, it hurt me that your father was not there for you, that he was missing these precious moments with you. But not once - not once - my darling did I ever regret having you.<br /><br />Disposable diapers were just becoming available but my income was limited so I used cloth. And because I had no washer, every night, after I put you to bed, I washed out those diapers in the bathtub by hand. And I remember, on my knees, pushing those diapers up and down through the water - LOVING YOU . And when I rinsed them and hung them to dry on the wooden clothes hanger, I remember LOVING YOU . And in the morning when I ironed all those diapers, I remember LOVING YOU .<br /><br />Though your father left me in this position, to raise you alone - Never once did I resent my situation. Indeed, I felt blest, having such a beautiful, precious, bright and loving baby. You were my joy, you were my heart. You gave me so much happiness!</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-44320985621701900202007-06-27T21:12:00.000-04:002007-09-19T23:59:11.349-04:00Happier Days (11-13 months)<div align="center"><br /><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:180%;color:#cc0000;">Happier Days (11-13 months old)</span></strong></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;"><strong>Chapter 6</strong></span></div><br /><br /><span style="color:#663333;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><strong><em>If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.</em> - Rachel Carson </strong><br /><br /></span></span><span style="color:#663333;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><strong><em>Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children.-</em> Alex Haley</strong><br /></span></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Though my daughter was removed from my home by the police with an undertaking placed against her to have no contact with me, I felt I had an obligation towards my grandson to encouraged her to maintain a relationship with her child. For that reason I allowed contact to continue, encouraging her to visit her son whenever she wanted to. However, during the next 3 months, she chose to see him only 6 times, usually short visitations in my home. Once, she took him for an overnight visitation to his father.<br /></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">During this time my daughter was working full time but she gave no money, no clothes, no baby supplies - nothing - towards his support. However, feeling that the father should be assisting, she did press him to give me $200 for expenses which she promptly delivered to me.<br /><br />While my grandson was residing solely with me I began an observation assignment in one of my university psychology courses where we were asked to make 5 minute observations of a specific subject - I chose my grandson as my research subject.<br /><br />The following are my notes and observations at the beginning of my project. :<br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I observed the various ways that my grandson, _____, communicated. During the research period ______ was 11 to 13 months old. I chose this research because I was already interested in grandson's budding ability to communicate and I thought this experience would hone my observational abilities and insights on this particular subject. In addition, _______ had been living with me since he was born and I thought that observations on him would be relatively easy. Due to the nature of the observations, no particular time was set for five minute swatches. As a result, observations were spontaneously taken when _______ was actively communicating. Later, to add to my initial observation, I attempted to interviewed a couple who either separately or together had been with _______ on an almost daily basis.</span><br /></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong>My Observations:</strong><br />Observations showed that _______ was a very outgoing child who was not afraid to connect with people. In particular, _______ used direct eye contact a lot. It was not unusual for this child to walk right up to strangers, stand at their feet and just stare up at them until communication was established. [my grandson was an early walker, beginning at 9 months so that at the time of these observations he was not only a proficient walker he was also a very proficient soccer ball dribbler.] On the bus, _______ was often observed "playing the crowd" with his eyes and his smiles. I would suddenly look around and see all these people on the bus making eyes and communicating back at this little boy sitting in his stroller who was busy flopping his feet and expressing himself with his eyes.</span><br /><br />I observed that there were particular ways of communicating that _______ reserved for certain people he saw on a regular basis . For example, I observed _______ winking and blinking in a very expressive way to the babysitter. When I tried to get _______ to repeat this with me I could not, but I was told by the sitter that this was an action that he did repeatedly with her.<br /><br />Over 21 observations, the main means of communication which I observed with _______ were smiling, eye contact, verbal utterances, and initiating play, communication, or interaction. Smiles were noted in 14 of 21 observations, eye contact in 11 of 21 observations, verbal utterances in 10 of 21 observations and initiating play, communication or interaction in 13 of 21 observations.<br /><br /><blockquote><p><strong>Observation # 1:<br /></strong>_______ was playing with his toys in the living room. I was sitting on the couch without my socks on reading my papers for my university course. While I was reading, _______ came up to me with his small black plastic bowling ball and began biting my toes, my foot and my lower leg. Distracted from my reading I began to talk to him, noticed the ball he had with him and assuming that he wanted to play catch, I put down my papers and got down on the floor to roll the ball to him. _______ responded with "happy talk" and smiles as I set him on his bum and opened up his legs to a V position and began rolling the ball back and forth to him.<strong><br /><br />Observation # 2<br /></strong>When I go to pick up _______ from the sitters, as I am getting his snowsuit on him, I notice him making extreme animated faces at the sitter. He is staring at the sitter, blinking his eyes, and winking as well, in a very exaggerated way. The sitter is staring back at him, a big smile on her face but not surprised at his actions. I am completely surprised, he has never made such faces around me before and I am taken aback by the extreme degree of expressiveness.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 3:<br /></strong>I hear _______ crying in his crib in his room. He has woken up for the day. As I walk to his room I tell him, " I'm coming baby. Just a minute. I'm coming" When I open the door, _______ is standing at the end of the crib closest to the door whimpering. As I pick him up, I tell him, " I'm here. I love you sweetie." As I hold him close while walking down the hallway, _______ gives me seven firm pats on my back. I respond by hugging him and telling him that I love him. He is smiling and "talks" to me.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 4:<br /></strong>_______ has been playing with his toys on the living room floor as I rush back and forth and in and out picking up and straightening up. _______ gets up from his play and busily walks several times across the room waving his hand and "talking". Then he stands at the end of his barrier his voice getting louder and more demanding.</p><p>He stretches up on his toes several times grunting each time. </p><p>"Get your ball? Where's your ball?" I ask. </p><p>He continues his actions and grunting. I find the ball, give it to him and lift him across the barrier. Immediately, he walks to the door with the ball. He is quiet now and smiling looking at the door knob. I open the door and he walks out to dribble his much deflated soccer ball down the hallway.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 5:<br /></strong>I am sitting in the living room. I have just finished straightening up by putting most of the toys in the toy basket, the stuffed animals on the shelf and _______'s books on the coffee table. When _______ gets up from his nap I put him down on the living room floor. He is smiling. He goes to the basket and begins to empty the basket. He grabs the toys one by one and just throws them on the floor. When he has emptied most of the toys from the basket , he moves on to the stuffed animals on the shelf. Again, grabbing hold of them one at a time and just throwing them on the floor. With that done he then moves across the room to the books on the coffee table and scatters them on the floor. Now he finds a toy, a caterpillar which lights up and makes music when it is used, and begins interacting with it.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 6:<br /></strong>_______ walks into the bosses office. He stands in the middle of the floor and just stares at her. When she notices him, he smiles. She responds by telling him what a "cutie" he is. He walks around like a penguin, his hands close to his sides. More positive verbal response from the boss and the other person in the room. I just quietly watch his antics. The boss starts reading some papers on her desk. _______ hides behind a small open shelf door near the floor and quietly peeks out at the boss. He does this three times before she looks his way. She responds with delight that he is playing peek-a-boo with her. He continues to engage her in the peek-a-boo game several more time before she must return to the work on her desk.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 7:<br /></strong>_______ walks to his spring horse. He circles the horse three times. He leans against the saddle from the far side and looks directly at me. Keeping his gaze on me he raises himself on his toes several times while leaning on the saddle. He does not make any noises. It is only these movements but I figure that he wants to ride on the horse so I get up and place him on the saddle. I place his hands on the handle by the horse's mouth and his feet on the crossbar. His mouth is beaming, his eyes are wide open. He still is not "talking". Standing from behind, I start bouncing the horse. There is still no verbal response so I need to look at his face to gauge his response His smile is now an open smile and his eyes are now beaming. I continue to bounce the horse for him. Then I try to show him how to bounce the horse by putting the pressure on his body to get the horse to bounce. I take my hands away and let him try a few feeble bounces on his own. Again, I bounce him for a bit. He starts leaning to one side and I am not sure if he has lost his balance a little or if he wants off so I straighten him up. But he leans to the side again. Thinking he wants off, I remove him. He is still happy. He moves to the front of the horse. We both pat the horse and I say, "Thank you horsey ". Happily he walks away and finds a toy to play with.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 8:<br /></strong>It is getting late and _______ still seems to have a lot of energy to burn so I take his slightly deflated soccer ball and tell him, "Come on let's go play with the ball". He smiles. We go out into the hallway and I put the ball down on the floor. But instead of dribbling the ball down the hallway like he usually does, he goes straight across the hallway and knocks on the neighbor's door. Then he stands there looking up at the doorknob. He knocks again. The neighbors open the door and he just walks right in with his little penguin walk. He sees a certain lady who has not been at the neighbor's for almost three months sitting on the couch and he runs off into her arms with his arms outstretched. I leave him for a little visit.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 9:<br /></strong>I go over to pick up _______ from the neighbor's across the hall. _______ is walking back and forth from the bedroom corridor to the living room, stopping every once in a while to smile and to take in the admiring comments made about him. The man brings out a sport water bottle for _______ and hands it to the woman. </p><p>_______ walks over to the woman. She tips the water bottle back. He drinks a bit and then gives a breathy "h" sound. She responds with smiles and a breathy "h". He drinks again. Another "h" from him followed by a "h" from her. She explains that this is his regular response when drinking from the sport water bottle. I am watching this thinking how cute he is. He takes a couple more sips followed by the breathy "h".<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 10:<br /></strong>I am laying down on the couch when _______ makes short demanding noises. _______ is beside the CD player looking at me. I get up and turn on the music. _______ is smiling, talking and interacting with the music by bouncing and dancing to the beat. Meanwhile I lay down on the floor beside him putting a blanket over me and a light blocking "sleep sock" over my eyes. He pulls off the blanket three times smiling and "talking" all the while. As I put on the blanket for the third time, I tell him that Grammie needs the blanket to keep her warm. Then _______ comes over and pulls my "sleep sock" from my eyes four times all the while smiling and laughing. This time, I sit up half way. _______ then takes off to play with his caterpillar, but about half a minute later, _______ brings the caterpillar over and starts to bang it around my head. I now sit up all the way. Meanwhile _______ gets his Eore shaped rattle, and stands up in front of me. He looks at me and shakes Eore. At this point I am well up and wide awake.<strong><br /><br />Observation # 11:<br /></strong>_______ is walking around whining. He has been fed. I check his diapers. They're fine. I pick him up in my arms and try to soothe him. He squiggles down from my lap and continues whining. Then _______ says, "mi, mi". "Milk?" I ask. Then ______'s "mi, mi" become more urgent and he starts crying. Meanwhile, I run to get the milk from the fridge. When he sees me coming with the bottle, _______'s cries are more persistent. I put him on my lap, put the bottle in his mouth and he quietly drinks the bottle half way down. Then he squiggles off my laps and goes to play with his toys.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 12:<br /></strong>_______ is whining. I look at the clock. It is close enough to lunch. I buckle him into the highchair and snap the table top on the chair. He snaps his mouth onto the first few spoonfuls offered. Then he begins to "talk" between spoonfuls. I talk back to him. Slowly, more and more time elapses between spoonfuls. Finally I offer a spoon and he initially keeps his mouth closed. Only after I play "airplane" modeling an open mouth does _______ open his mouth. I do this successfully with two more spoonfuls of food. Then I offer another spoonful, but now he turns his head. I offer it two more times, but the head remains turned. At this point, I tell him "All finished". I wash his hands and face, I unsnap the table top, and I unbuckle him. As I lift him out, I give him a hug then I put him down to play with his toys.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 13:<br /></strong>_______ has been playing with his toys. He comes over to me while I am sitting on the couch. He pulls on me while standing on his toes. I lift him up and he snuggles with me for five minutes. He smiles, he talks, he hugs me. Then he squiggles off the couch and returns to his toys.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 14:<br /></strong>I start to feed _______ his bottle but he gives me irritating noises. He starts to squiggle his body but he is not squiggling down. I readjust _______ in my arms so that he can see the television while he is drinking the bottle. Then he stops his irritating noises and his squiggling and peacefully drinks his bottle.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 15:<br /></strong>I am sitting on the couch reading while _______ is playing with his toys. _______ picks up a book from his pile by the coffee table. It is his favorite Brown Bear Brown Bear. </p><p>“Do you want Grammie to read you the book?” I ask.</p><p> _______ brings the book to me stretching it out towards me in his right hand. I lift him up onto my lap. _______ is smiling. </p><p>I read expressively, "I see a . . . ( We turn the page together as I name the animal and make the animal's sound) looking at me!"</p><p> _______ smiles as the animals are named. He looks at me often as I read and he touches the pictures. When I finish, I hug him and we review the animals as he flips through the pages backwards. Then he squiggles off my lap and returns to his toys.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 16:<br /></strong>_______ begins pacing back and forth making noises that follow the rhythm of a speech pattern. He is moving his hand forward and back like people who talk with their hands keeping rhythm to the speech patterns. He is looking intently into the air as if he is in serious conversation with someone I cannot see. I am sitting there amazed watching this. He does not seem to notice my presence. The conversation is intense as he continues to pace back and forth for about three minutes. Eventually, he eyes a toy that catches his attention. The "conversation" ends and he sits down to play with his toys.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 17:<br /></strong>_______ goes to dribble his ball in the hallway. As he comes to the front foyer, he meets a neighbor. _______ walks right up to this person, and stands there smiling, looking directly at this person's face. </p><p>"You are a cutie" this person begins the conversation.</p><p>_______ walks around the foyer a couple of times. All the time this person is making admiring conversation about _______. _______ stops and makes eye contact several times. Then _______ picks up the ball and throws the it towards this person. The ball is then thrown back. _______ throws it again. Once again, the throw is returned before this person goes out the door. _______ follows this person to the glass doors. This person waves good-by. _______ waves good-by.<br /><br /><strong>Observation # 18:<br /></strong>On the bus _______ is sitting in his stroller. I see various people smiling and squinting and making faces towards _______. I look at _______ in the stroller. He is smiling and actively engaged in making eye contact with the various people. He is flopping both his feet up and down as he sits in the stroller and his eyes are animated.<br /></p></blockquote></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-56295187496158592642007-06-25T03:22:00.000-04:002007-09-25T03:23:50.409-04:00Waking Up to Reality & An Explosive Parting<div align="center"><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;color:#cc6600;"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">Waking up to Reality & An Explosive Parting</span> </span></span></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;">Chapter 5</span></strong></div><strong><span style="color:#663333;"></span></strong><div align="left"><br /><strong><span style="color:#cc9933;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#663300;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><em>For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.</em> -James Baldwin </span></span></span></strong></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#663300;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">My</span> </span></span></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">grandson was born and just over 2 years later he was gone. During this timeframe there was so much love and many precious moments - but, because of this love, for both my grandson and my daughter, it was also filled with so much unbearable pain and many moments of shock and revelation.<br /><br />And though it is hard to relive the pain that streams so strongly to the surface in the telling, the pain and the insanity of it all must be <strong>told</strong> - It must be <strong>heard</strong> - It must be <strong>shared</strong> with those who <em><strong>do not know</strong></em> - who <strong><em>should know</em></strong> - who <strong><em>need to know</em></strong>. </span></div><p><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">One day, when my grandson would have been no older than 6 months old, out of nowhere, a statement, unbelievable to me, tumbled from my daughter's lips, "You can have him. I don't want him. Get what ever papers are needed and I will sign him over to you."<br /><br />This was one of those moments in your life that is framed, word for word, forever in your soul. You might not remember the sentence before or the sentence after. In fact, you might remember little else of the conversation or even the day, but those words, those few significant words are forever immortalized in your memory.<br /><br />I was shocked. I couldn't believe her words! Because her thinking was not even within my realm of imagining - I who was so maternal - I was not able to accept them. Instead, I tossed them aside and would not receive them. "My daughter is stressed. She doesn't really mean what she's saying, " I told myself.<br /><br />Though my daughter, before her first pregnancy, had already been diagnosed as being clinically depressed, she was doing nothing for her condition. She had given up on counseling and she was not taking her medication. At one point, she had shared with me that her doctor had requested that she inform her of any concerns she might have with her depression - but this frustrated me. She was not well and, in her unwellness, I was well aware that she was unable to gauge her own condition.<br /><br />One of her friends, another young person diagnosed with depression, confirmed to me that this was a typical pattern. She told me that depressed people might take medication for a while, but then, either believing themselves to be better or believing the medication ineffective, will take themselves off. Indeed, she confided to me that she often did this herself.<br /><br />I recall that once, in desperation, I attempted to phone my daughter's doctor to let her know that I was concerned about my daughter's behavior and that I did not believe she had the ability to gauge her condition herself. But I was unable to speak directly with this doctor, and all I could do was leave a message with the secretary and because my daughter was an adult, of course, the doctor never returned the call. I understand this doctor did make some inquiry to my daughter in response to my phone message, but, as expected, my daughter sloughed off my reasons for concern as being inaccurate, and per my expectation, nothing was done to help her.<br /><br />If only we had the wisdom of hind sight. Daily I perceived a decline in her temperament, and soon my home became an environment of discomfort, stress and even fear. In my total rejection of my daughter's words to abandon her baby, I was unable to make any connections with her declaration and her worsening behavior. Meanwhile, I believe now, my unbelief contributed to my daughter's mental anguish and pain and she responded by slipping further and further into a despair which manifested itself by an escalating rejection of her child and a mounting shortness and anger with me. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Many days when I was getting ready to go to work, it was apparent that my<br /><br />I racked my brains to find some direction for help. My daughter, apathetic in her illness, had no desire to seek assistance for herself, while her doctor, overwhelmed by the business of the medical profession, was content to absorb the stories of wellness espoused by my daughter, and my daughter's friends, companions in her illness, were lethargic to the seriousness of the situation. Seeking some new yet untapped source of help, I naively reached out to Children's Services. Surely, I thought, they would help. They cared about the well being of children and they would do everything in their power to help my daughter become a better mother. </span></p><p><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">So I phoned them and told them about my concern for my daughter and her lack of bonding to her baby. . . . .<br /><br />Oh, what a miserable naive creature I was! I implored them to come into my house and help my child and, in so doing, I opened the doorway to hell. The chronicle of the distressed woman that I had been privy to only months earlier did not jump up to warn me. But how could it? I had not believed it! How wretched is my state knowing now that I had been visited by a truthful foreboding tale of caution but had failed to heed it's warning! I sought help, but instead, the <strong>HEL-P</strong> I sought was corrupted into <strong>HEL-L</strong>. Pandora's box was opened, the demons were released, and now there was no way of shutting it.<br /><br />After several weeks, while I was at work, a caseworker from Children's Services finally came to visit my daughter in my home. Without consulting me or making any attempt to evaluate the resources within the family, or my importance in my grandson's life, the worker suggested that my daughter move out of the home and go on assistance.<br /><br />But this was on option that my daughter refused to even consider. She did not want to become dependent on the system. And knowing my daughter's inability to look after herself, let alone a baby, at the time, I believed this advice stemmed from a naive assumption of negative generalities. In hind sight, I now see that this was an initial attempt, by Children Services, to isolate my daughter from her family, putting her into a place of vulnerability within the system. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">With no help or any hope of solution, my daughter's aggravation and verbal rages intensified.<br /><br />Then, one day, in conversation with a friend, the reality of my daughter's behavior was impressed upon me. This friend informed me that it would only be a matter of time before the angry statements my daughter was bombarding me with concerning her child would eventually be diverted directly towards him.<br /><br />This was a devastating insight that I had not even contemplated before, but now, I did not have to be convinced because the truth of this wisdom stuck me with an intensity that both shocked and horrified me. I did not want my grandson exposed to such abuse and I knew the responsibility to act was mine: first, I needed to accept the truth about my daughter's limitations; then, I needed to respond to my daughter's wishes; and most importantly, I needed to protect my grandchild.<br /><br />My daughter was an adult, but my grandson was a baby and, as such, he was my first priority. Only now could I understand that my daughter's escalating negative behavior had been her way of telling me that she meant what she had said. She had been lashing out at me because I had not believed her, and she was wallowing in her frustration and despair over her inability to cope. As a result, I immediately phoned a lawyer for an emergency consultation.<br /><br />This lawyer, who I had had a certain amount of personal connection with, warned me not to get Children's Services involved in this situation. At the time, I did not understand the wisdom of this warning, but she was adamant, and I was ashamed to admit to her that I had already done so. Naively, I believed the involvement of Children's Services had been contained by my daughter's decision not to go on assistance. This lawyer also informed me that, especially considering my daughter's history of violent behavior, it was important that I got legal custody of my grandson. Without this, I was told, my daughter could negatively interject herself into the life of my grandson at any time.<br /><br />Agreeing that it was important that my grandson should have consistent security in his life, I returned home to discuss my legal consultation with my daughter. As I began this discussion with my daughter, she was open and receptive, even noticeably relieved, but when I told her that I was advised to obtain legal custody, she exploded. On this subject, my daughter made her thoughts very clear. "If you ever go after legal custody, I will fight you on it!" she exploded. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Once again I was confounded. Her eruption was decisive, not inviting further discussion, and I did not know what to do. Without help or direction, I now felt my best option was to bide my time.<br /><br />Having little interest in her son, my daughter insisted on getting a job leaving him with a sitter during the week and habitually leaving him with me for hours beyond her promised returns on the week- ends. Meanwhile, stories filtered to me from the neighbors concerning her lack of interaction with her son. With no help forthcoming for my daughter, I believed it would only be a matter of time before my daughter left my grandson with me. Meanwhile, in my home, I could keep a watch on both my child and my grandchild.<br /><br />But I underestimated the effect of my daughter's negativity in my home for it proved to be a force that was extremely unhealthy and destructive. Eventually, at my insistence, my daughter arranged to move out. I needed this separation from my daughter, but she arranged to get an apartment close by so that I would still be able to keep an eye on both her and my grandson.<br /><br />But then, at the last minute, only the day before she was to move, the verbal agreement between the superintendent and my daughter fell through. I was shocked and devastated! It was a separation which, at the time, was very much needed and now it was not going to happen. </span></p><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;"><p><br />Eventually my daughter’s behavior got so bad I had to remove her from my home. In truth, it was not a good scene, and since she insisted on taking my grandson with her, he left as well. But my daughter, after spending a few weeks with friends was unable to find a permanent respite and once again she returned to live with me.<br /><br />In time, I came to accept that the relationship that I had with my daughter, was no different than that of an abused wife. The cycle of abuse was the same: abuse followed by reconciliation, including promises of change; a period of tranquility referred to as the "honeymoon period"; followed once again by abuse, with the honeymoon periods getting progressively shorter while the abuse intensified. My daughter's power rested in her assurance of my concern for my grandson. I was also concerned for my daughter, though, at the time, in the mental state she was in, she would not have recognized or accepted this.<br /><br />One fateful evening, my daughter exploded both verbally and physically and I as forced to phone the police. From the words flowing out of her mouth to the police, I realized that our relationship had turned a fateful corner. </p><p>But in her flurry and anger, she did give a full confession to the police which they wrote down and she then signed.<br /><br />The police were calm and concerned. They told me that I did not have to tolerate my daughter's behavior any longer. In fact, they informed me that they were removing her from my household, laying assault and uttering death threat charges against her. In addition, they informed me they were placing an undertaking against her which meant that she was not permitted to communicate with me on any level. Meanwhile, the police directed, my grandson was to remain with me. </p><p>They were handling this as a domestic violence case, removing the responsibility from me. It was the <strong>CROWN</strong> that was laying the charges - It was the <strong>CROWN</strong> that would be taking her to court. This is the process in the Canadian law system, to protect family members from being bullied or manuipulated into not laying charges to begin with, or having them removed once they are laid. I had no say in these charges being laid. </p><p>This was not the separation between mother and daughter that I had envisioned. Earlier I had sought help for my daughter from Children Services and received nothing. Now extreme measures were being imposed upon my family. </p><p align="center"> </p><p align="center">*************<br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><em><span style="color:#663333;">You are the soft whisper in my soul, the ache in my heart. Your eyes are orbs of trust, and the touch of your tiny fingers are soft and gentle. You are the innocence of a tiny babe. You seek only to love and be loved - I am here. I love you. I will protect you -</span></em><span style="color:#663333;"> Me -the author of this book</span></span></strong></p><p>Now, my grandson, who had just turned nine months old, was my total responsibility. I worked full time while working on a Master level university course one evening a week. My friends were concerned about my work load, but I could honestly tell them that I was not overwhelmed. I had already been doing most of the care for my grandson, and my home, devoid of my angry daughter, was now immersed with an overwhelming sense of peace that I found both energizing and cathartic.<br /><br />For my grandson's sake, I wanted to maintain his routine as much as possible. Since my daughter had him with a well qualified private care-giver on a part-time basis, I decided to leave him with this sitter three times a week taking him to work with me twice a week. I also maintain the regular contact that had been established with the neighbors across the hallway - this was later to prove a fateful mistake.<br /><br />My grandson was a confident, happy, outgoing little fellow who smiled and spread joy wherever he went. I cherished every minute I had with him, and I loved him deeply. He was an early walker, by his ninth month he had begun this new skill and by his tenth month he was quite proficient at toddling around.<br /><br />At this time, I made a number of five minute observations of my grandson for a university course I was taking. Below is my summation of these observations:<br /><br /></p></span><blockquote><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Observations showed that ______ was a very outgoing child who was not<br />afraid to connect with people. In particular, ______ often used direct eye contact. It was not unusual for this child to walk right up to strangers, stand at<br />their feet and just stare up at them until communication was established. On the<br />bus, ______was often observed "playing the crowd" with his eyes and his smiles.<br />I would suddenly look around and see all these people on the bus making eyes and communicating back at this little boy sitting in his stroller who was busy<br />flopping his feet and expressing himself with his eyes.<br /><br />I observed that there were particular ways of communicating that ______<br />reserved for certain people he saw on a regular basis . For example, I observed<br />______ winking and blinking in a very expressive way to the babysitter. When I<br />tried to get ______to repeat this with me I could not, but I was told by the<br />sitter that this was an action that he did repeatedly with her.<br /></span></blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">I took my grandson to the sitter's the day of my university class and picked him up in the evening when my class concluded. Luckily my job had some flexibility in it's hours. Friday's were relegated as prep days but I had the option to spread this prep time over the weekend if I chose to do so. Taking advantage of this, I took my grandson to the sitters on this day, spending the time doing the necessary shopping for my program and opting to do the most demanding parts of my university assignment on this day. The other prep for my job was distributed through the weekend when my grandson napped or slept in the evening .</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-56931022696461286722007-04-18T03:16:00.000-04:002007-07-07T05:12:13.037-04:00Letter to My Heavenly Sweetheart<div align="center"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:180%;color:#cc0000;"><strong>Letter to My Heavenly Sweetheart</strong></span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;"><strong>Chapter 4</strong></span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="color:#663300;"><strong>Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body. - Elizabeth Stone</strong> </span></span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">My dearest grandson _______ :</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">On February 15, 1999, you were pushed out of your dark organic snugly into the dazzling brightness of this outer word. Suddenly your lungs, deprived of the warm fluids of the womb, imbibed the cool dryness of the air - and you were here - a miracle of God, and you were loved. We were at your birth, your mother and I, as well as one of your mother's friends. Another of your mother's friends, supposing she had time for a quick smoke, came in the room only minutes after your arrival. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Your mother was petit, a "skinny little thing" before she carried you. I often remember telling my friends that hugging her was like hugging a rack of bones, she was so thin. But she gained weight as she nourished your developing body and when I hugged her now there was substance on her back and for once she felt healthy. But this healthy body was a facade, not reflective of the spirit within. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">I think your mother tried to love you but she was overwhelmed. She was so needy herself, she had nothing to give to you. Her anger at the world left her without love to give to another. She was angry at me and everyone else in this world but I don't think she was angry at you. She just didn't know what to do with a baby. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">When she brought you home - to my home - your mother was restless and easily irritated. She complained of not being able to sleep and her irritation intensified. Your crib had been set up in her room but she was annoyed by even your tiniest nighttime noises, and when you cried she was not able to respond. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">I was concerned for you and your mother - Your mother needed her sleep and I wanted her to be rested so she could tend to you in the daytime while I was away at work. So I took you into my room, you slumbered with me in my bed, and I fed you and changed you through the night. At this point, I did not understand your mother - you were such a precious soul, how could she not want to hold you and love you the way I did? How could your mother, flesh of my flesh, not be drawn to you. It was difficult and it took time before I could even begin to understand, your mother's issues and accept her limitations.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">She called me at work so many times those first few weeks of your life begging me to come home to help her. At first, I did, but later I told her she needed to handle things on her own. I remember one day she called in a panic. You had eaten a trailing house plant - successfully chomping it down so that only a few broken and bedraggled sprigs survived, laying defeated in the scattered soil in the pot. I told your mother the name of the plant and instructed her to phone poison control immediately. And when your mother phoned back to tell me you would be alright, I was relieved but at the same time I felt so helpless chained to my job across the harbor from you and her. From this incident, I was forced to realize that, for you to have consumed the entire plant, you must have been left unattended, and perhaps hungry as well, for a considerable amount of time. I was concerned and my vigilance intensified.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Many mornings your mother hardly awoke. Often, I struggled to get her up to mix your pablum, to fed you before I went to work. But more often than not, she put you in the activity center, handed you a cookie and stomped off to her room slamming the door behind her. Accepting the fact that your mother was unable to function, I would quickly bundle you up, run off to the bus stop with you, and take you to work with me. Luckily, my boss was supportive and generous. She immediately had a crib assembled in my room and you became the youngest member of my preschool class. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">_______ Samuel _______ _______. Your mother chose your birth names, I don't know if these are your names now, but these were the names your mother chose, and I know she pondered considerably on their selection. Surely this is a reflection of her love for you! </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">His first name is to be spelled with "i" not "e", your mother insisted. This was the the Celtic spelling for "poet". She insisted on the Celtic spelling to reflect the Celtic roots on both sides of your family. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Your great- great grandfather, my father's father came from Scotland when he was 18, or so I was told. He was a short, dark Scotsman with a hawk nose who loved curling, the Regina Rough Riders football team, and collecting stamps. Though I have no personal memories of his curling, I do remember that when I was only six years old my grandfather injured his shoulder and his doctor demanded that he stop swinging the heavy curling stones. Around the same time, he retired, and I remember my lively cheerful grandfather abruptly changing into a sullen old man. As for the Regina Rough Riders, my grandfather was well known to the football team, the coach, and the team doctor and he religiously attended every Grey Cup Game no matter where it was being played across Canada. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Stamps collecting was also his passion. I recall him sitting on the putty colored carpet of his living room floor, pounding the metallic keys of a small green typewriter, with a flurry of "first day envelops" scattered around him. I recall thinking this a strange position to find ones grandfather in. Sprawled on the floor, like a child at serious play with his toys, he meticulously pounded out the exotic addresses of stamp collectors around the world on envelopes richly embossed with illustrations that either matched or complemented the illustration of the newly issued stamps. (In turn, these collectors sent him first day envelops from the corners of the globe.) Mixed within the exotic address were three mundane addresses, mine, my brother's and my sister's. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Addressing these many envelops on time for postal cancellation on the first day of issue was a big job for one elderly man, but it was a task that, despite my grandmother's constant nagging about the mess, my grandfather seemed to relish. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">His little green typewriter is the only memento I have of him. My grandmother gave it to me when he died and I guess now, in this time of computers, it has become quite a curiosity. How strange, typewriters that were once so common when I was growing up are now unknown, ancient technology to your generation.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Though I appreciated having my grandfather’s typewriter, I wish I had been given his red suspenders instead! Why those suspenders impressed upon my mind a closeness to him, I do not know, but somehow they did. I remember him puttering around his house and around his garden with these red suspenders, stretching them out as one stretches ones muscles after getting up from completing a job. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">But I did not ask my grandmother for those red suspenders. In those days, I was still very shy and I paid the consequences of my shyness: afraid to ask my grandmother for this memento, it is most likely that these suspenders, so precious to me, were bundled off with the rest of his clothes to the Salvation Army or some other organization to be picked over by strangers who could never know or appreciate their sentimental worth. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">I remember, at first, as your mother was deliberating over names for you, that your name sounded so foreign to me. When she settled on _____ Samuel, I teasingly threatened to call you "Sammy". </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">But I didn't. In fact when you first came home, "Our Song" quickly evolved. It was a song that emanated from my soul as I cradled you in my arms. This was to be our special song sung only by me, and no one else, I emphatically instructed, not even your mother, was to sing it to you:</span></div><div align="left"><br /><em><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;"><strong>I love you. I love you. I love you very much!<br />I love you. I love you. I love you very much!<br />You're my sweetheart from heaven, and your name is ______ .<br />I love you. I love you. I love you very much!</strong></span></em></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">For Valentine's day of your second year, I constructed a large homemade valentine with the inked phrases of "our song", cut from bright yellow paper pasted across the surface. I hung it on the wall over the sofa where it hangs still. Often you would stand on the couch and point to your name - yes, though you were only two years old, you knew exactly where your name was - and you, not quite able to pronounce your name would proudly say "__bi__" and I would "sing our song" to you. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">I never called you Sammy or Sam but I do remember going through an evolution of pet names for you. During your first months home as I tended to your needs and tried to cope with your mother, I affectionately named you "King Tut" and your mother "the Queen of Sheba". You were the boy-king who justifiably needed to be waited upon. And your mother was the queen who expected to be waited upon. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">"Pookie" and "Sweetie" were two other names I recall having for you. But when you were separated from me in that foster home, pet names seemed to become foreign to your ear. Sometimes you would point to yourself "correcting" me saying "__bi_. Me __bi_". And I would reply, "Yes I know you are _____ but you are still my Sweetie."</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Your second name, Samuel, "heard from God", was a surprise, as was your mother's consideration of other biblical names including Zechariah, and Ezekiel. This surprised me because your mother had become bitter against God, at times, adamantly professing that she no longer believed. Today I am sure she would continue to own this statement. Yet despite her many claims of disbelief, with no warning, your mother would suddenly share insights of miraculous encounters that confirmed a faith still battled for life within her. It seemed to me that her selection of the name Samuel, and her consideration of these other biblical names, suggest that your mother had not totally detached herself from a belief in God. Some day, I hope your mother will share with you her miraculous encounters. They are awesome and it baffles me how anyone can continues to run from such experiences. Maybe some day, she will stop running long enough to share these miracles with you. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Your third name was your father's surname. Though your mother was not on good terms with your father when you were born, she believed it was important that you have your father's name, not as a surname or a hyphenated last name but as a middle name. I thought this was noble of her. In this act, she set aside her personal anger and pain, and put your right to have a connection with your father, albeit a symbolic connection, first. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">At the time of this writing, I'm not even sure if I know where you are or who is bringing you up. All I know is it hurts to think of you now. I am a strong person, but when I allow myself to think of you, the tears flow. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Forgive me my little love, my Pookie, but as a survival mechanism, I've had to purge my memories of you from my daily mind. But I have never given up trying to find you. I loved you and I love you still. You were happy in this house, your first home, you smiled in this house and you were happy here. When you were taken to a foster home and had to leave my home after an access visit you sometimes would "hide", your face in a corner, or you would hide under the table, thinking in you child's mind that if you could not see that you could not be seen and taken away. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">This broke my heart because I was helpless to rescue you and I had to hand you over to people who had no reverence for the bond that existed between Grammie and grandson. My every movement, my every word to you was noted, scrutinized and more often than not misrepresented in the official case reports. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">What a relief it was when finally those awful people were gone and I could relax and be your Grammie free from those unfriendly eyes. But I was deceived - As the court sessions wound down, I was suppose to get regular weekly access and my lawyer assured me that I would remain an important influence in your life. But before the last court date, both you and your father disappeared and no one - lawyers, courts, or Children's Services took responsibility for your return. And ever since, I have been looking for you and I have been trying to get back into court. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Have you forgotten me my darling? I haven't forgotten you! I never will. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">All my love </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Grammie</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-84899021423903953032007-03-04T21:51:00.000-04:002007-07-07T05:11:45.333-04:00The Prodigal Daughter Returns<span style="color:#cc0000;"><div align="center"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:180%;"><strong>The Prodigal Daughter Returns</strong></span></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></strong></span></div><strong><div align="center"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;">Chapter 3</span></strong></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="color:#cc0000;"></div></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="color:#cc0000;"><div align="left"><br /><strong><span style="color:#663300;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>"Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home."-</em> Comedian Bill Cosby</span><br /></span><br /></strong></span></span></div><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000000;">Two years later, my</span> daughter became pregnant for the second time, and I allowed her back into my home. This time my daughter claimed that she wanted the child and I was prepared to help her. I wanted her to experience the inexpressible happiness of motherhood as I had - and I looked forward to being "Grammie".<br /><br />"Mom" to one and "Grammie" to another fit well with me - I did not expect to become "Mommy" to both. However, looking back, I should have known better. Like a whirling tornado, anger and destruction seemed to follow my daughter everywhere.<br /><br /></span></span><p></p><p align="center"><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;color:#663300;">* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *</span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">When my daughter broke up with her boyfriend she moved out of the apartment she shared with him and immediately moved in with her father who had only recently moved to town after a lifetime absence from his daughther's life. Unknowingly, she moved from the fryingpan into a more destructive flame.<br /><br />In the middle of the night, she phoned me. Her voice quaking and barely audible, I asked her to speak louder.<br /><br />"He’s my father! He’s my father!” she quaked as she told me that he had just made sexual advances towards her.<br /><br />I immediately instructed her to call a taxi.<br /><br />“But I don’t have any money,” she blurted.<br /><br />I remember being stunned, that this would even be an issue - perhaps she didn't think I had the cash on hand.<br /><br />“That doesn’t matter! I’ll pay for it! Just get that taxi and get here right now!” I implored.<br /><br />Needless to say I was devastated by this event and I was glad to have her safe at home with me again. But this sense of relief was short-lived because, unbelievably, within days of finding shelter in my home, she insisted on returning to her father’s.<br /><br />This was beyond my comprehension! We were getting along fine, so why would she want to return to this lion’s den? I felt totally helpless. What was I to do? She was legally an adult with freewill, I had no power to save her, and unlike the biblical Daniel, there would be no angelic presence within the lair - just the opposite!<br /><br />If I went to the police she would deny everything she had revealed to me. Under the circumstances, I thought the best I could do was to confront her father. If he knew that I was aware, maybe that would stop him from sexually approaching her again.<br /><br />And confront him I did. I arranged to meet him at a local coffee shop - such an innocuous location to speak of such guilty sins. When I faced him with the accusations, I expected at least some attempt at denial, but as I looked him in the eye, there was none and, to me, this was verification enough of his guilt.<br /><br />Because of my daughter’s insistence on returning to her father’s, this conversation was bizarre beyond belief, and the best that I could do was negotiate the placement of a lock on the inside of my daughter's bedroom door before she returned to her father. I was to find out later that this was never done.<br /><br />At the time, I believed my daughter's return to her father's house was an insanity driven by her love - hate connection with her father: in desperation, she wanted her father to prove himself to be a good and caring father; and, in anger, she insisted that he “owed” her and she wanted the opportunity to extract some form of material compensation from him for his years of neglect. This was a dangerous game, but one I had no power to stop.<br /><br />When my daughter returned to her father's, I was beside myself with worry for her, but the nightmare was about to deepen even more. Shortly after my daughter's return to her father's house, he announced that he would be moving to the States followed after another computer programming job. I was to find out later that he had a history of being fired and moving from job to job.<br /><br />“At last,” I thought “my daughter will be free of this Spangoli!”<br /><br />But imagine my surprise, when my daughter informed me that she was going with him! I was stunned. However, she assured me that she only intended to go for the trip, "the adventure" she said - she had never been to the States before. She assured me she would only stay a couple of weeks and then she would return home to Nova Scotia.<br /><br />I couldn’t even begin to understand my daughter's logic or judgment, but she would take no counsel from me. I did not want my daughter going on this trip with her father, but once again I found myself completely powerless. My daughter was determined to do what she wanted to do, despite the danger. She was an adult now and I had no say.<br /><br />By this time, my daughter had informed me of her pregnancy by her ex-boyfriend, though she had not divulged the news to her father. In fact, she had decided that there would be no need to tell him since she expected to return before her pregnancy became apparent. With fear and confusion I saw my daughter go off to the States, but soon, I thought, this insanity will be over.<br /><br />You can only imagine my horror when, two weeks later, my daughter phoned to inform me that she would be staying with her father after all. Again! It seemed never to stop! Once again, I was helpless to make a difference.<br /><br />Her father had enticed her to stay with him by promising to pay for a cosmetic course she so desperately wanted to take. But he had one lethal condition: she had to take the course in the States and remain with him. Considering the seriousness of the dysfunction that had transpired between my daughter and her father in Canada, how could I think she was anything but crazy to remain with him in the States. It continued to make no sense to me that she would chose to remained in this lion's den.<br /><br />It is difficult being the parent of a grown child who is on the pathway of self-destruction. The recourses that are open to you as the parent of a minor, limited though they might be, are totally absent as the parent of an adult. You are completely helpless and there is nothing you can do except wait to pick up the pieces - if indeed you are afforded that.<br /><br />In the States, my daughter found herself in the heart of the American Bible Belt, Charlotte, North Carolina. Many things were strange in this city: the lack of sidewalks, the heat, the heavy southern accent, and the racial segregation that she found still apparent in many of the commercial establishments. Yet surprisingly, despite her progressing pregnancy, she found the people supportive and kind, and a number of her new found southern friends held a baby shower for her. I am grateful to these people for their thoughtfulness, because I, her mother, neglected to give my own daughter a baby shower. The realization of this strikes me only now and I have no excuse. Two decades earlier, as a single mom, I had been given a baby shower and, at the time, I remember how much it had meant to me. I certainly regret that I failed to express my love for my daughter in this way.<br /><br />When my daughter was away, as usual when we were separated, we spoke with each other regularly on the phone. As she made friends, she was happier but the relationship with her father steadily worsened until she was crying, begging to come home. The cosmetic course which had been so important to her only months earlier now seemed to her, in her unhappiness, to be of no value at all.<br /><br />She sobbed and cried and her being pregnant and unemployed necessitated her coming back to live with me. I was her mother and I loved my daughter, but I had serious reservations of such a living arrangement. Only a few years earlier, I had removed her from my home for good reason. She had become, lazy, disrespectful, and even physically violent. My mind was torn. She was in need and I was her mother.<br /><br />We talked over several weeks and it was finally arranged that she would come and live with me, but we both agreed that the antagonistic relationship we had previously shared needed to change. With this in mind, it was finally concluded that she would come into my home as a house guest with the hope that this arrangement might encourage a more amiable mindset and more respectful behavior. As her mother, I wanted to believe a positive living arrangement was possible, and so the accord was struck - once more, my daughter would live under my roof.<br /><br />Shortly thereafter, my daughter arrived on my doorstep, driven back to Canada by her father. But no sooner did she cross the threshold, then the bristling began. As she stomped up and down the hallway, she announced her displeasure for being assigned the smaller bedroom. She expected the larger room, the room she had previously used when she had lived with me. When I attempted to explain to her that the larger room was, in fact, no bigger because I had moved in the wide computer desk, as well as two large bookcases, to allowed more space in the common living room, her bristling did not subside.<br /><br />The "Queen of Sheba" had arrived, and she made it known that she was not pleased . . . and the feeling of dread once again entered my home.<br /><br /></span><br /></p></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-54819839081328530322007-01-09T03:01:00.000-04:002007-07-07T05:10:55.821-04:00Painful Memories of My First Lost Sheep<div align="center"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:180%;color:#cc0000;"><strong>Painful Memories of My First Lost Sheep</strong></span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;"><strong>Chapter 2</strong></span></div><p><span style="font-size:130%;color:#993300;"><strong></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;color:#993300;"><strong></p><div align="center"><br /></strong></span><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><em>"Will you walk into my parlor?" said the spider to the fly--<br />"'Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy.<br />The way into my parlor is up a winding stair;<br />And I have many curious things, to show you when you're<br />there." </em></span></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><br /><em>"Oh, no, no," said the little fly; "to ask me is in vain;<br />For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again." </em></span></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><em></em></span></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><em></em></span></strong></div><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><div align="center"><br /><strong><em>"I'm sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high;<br />Will you not rest upon my little bed?" said the spider to the fly.<br />"There are pretty curtains drawn around; the sheets are fine and thin;<br />And if you like to rest awhile, I'll snugly tuck you in!"<br /><br />"Oh, no, no," said the little fly; "for I've often heard it said,<br />They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your<br />bed!" </em></strong></div><div align="center"><br /><strong><em>Said the </em></strong></span><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><strong><em>cunning spider to the fly--"Dear friend, what can I do<br />To prove the warm affection I've always felt for you?"<br />I have within my pantry, good store of all that's nice;<br />I'm sure you're very welcome - will you please to take a<br />slice?</em></strong></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><div align="center"><br /><strong><em>"Oh no</em></strong></span><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><strong><em>, no," said the little fly; "kind sir, that cannot be:<br />I've heard what's in your pantry, and I do not wish to<br />see!"</em></strong></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><div align="center"><br /><strong><em>"Sweet </em></strong></span><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><strong><em>creature!" said the spider, "you're witty and you're wise;<br />How handsome are your gauzy wings; how brilliant are your eyes!<br />I have a little looking-glass upon my parlor shelf;<br />If you'd step in one moment, dear, you shall behold<br />yourself."</em></strong></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><div align="center"><br /><strong><em>"I thank </em></strong></span><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><strong><em>you, gentle sir," she said, "for what you're pleased to say,<br />And, bidding you good morning now, I'll call another<br />day."</em></strong></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><div align="center"><br /><strong><em>The spider </em></strong></span><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><strong><em>turned him round about, and went into his den,<br />For well he knew the silly fly would soon come back again;<br />So he wove a subtle web in a little corner sly,<br />And set his table ready, to dine upon the<br />fly. </em></strong></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><div align="center"><br /><strong><em>Then h</em></strong></span><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><strong><em>e came out his door again, and merrily did sing--<br />"Come hither, hither, pretty fly, with the pearl and silver wing;<br />Your robes are green and purple--there's a crest upon your head!<br />Your eyes are like the diamond bright but mine are dull as<br />lead!" </em></strong></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><div align="center"><br /><strong><em>Alas! </em></strong></span><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><strong><em>alas! how very soon this silly little fly,<br />Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by.<br />With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew;<br />Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, her green and purple<br />hue-- </em></strong></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><div align="center"><br /><strong><em>Thinking </em></strong></span><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><strong><em>only of her crested head--poor foolish thing! At last,<br />Up jumped the cunning spider, and firmly held her fast!<br />He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den,<br />Within his little parlor--but she ne'er came out<br />again! </em></strong></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;color:#660000;"><div align="center"><br /><strong><em>And now</em></strong></span><span style="color:#660000;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong><em>, dear little children, who may this story read,<br />To idle, silly, flattering words, I pray you ne'er give heed;<br />Unto an evil counselor close heart, and ear and eye,<br />And take a lesson from this tale of the Spider and the<br />Fly. </em></strong></span></span><span style="color:#660000;"><span style="font-size:85%;"></div><div align="left"><br /><strong>-Mary Howitt -1829,</strong> <strong><em>The Spider and the Fly</em> </strong></span></span></div><div align="center"></div><p><span style="color:#cc6600;"><span style="color:#660000;"></span></p><p></span><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">I write this story as a cautionary tale and it is my hope that others will take heed and learn from my experience. Throughout my ordeal, it continually became evident that certain knowledge came too late to save or help me, and my only comfort comes from my resolve to pass this knowledge on to others who are in a position to benefit from it. For example, too late, I was the recipient of sage advise from a young mother whose own mother was a family court lawyer: "My mother was always very adamant to me that I should never give Children's Services any excuse to come into my life!"<br /><br />I concur with this statement. But my warning is not just a matter of opening the doorway - it goes beyond this. Stay clear of the doorway least you be tempted to push it open even a crack. These people are well trained in their communication skills. They speak a smooth line and would have you believe they care about you and your situation and that they are there to help you. Do not believe this! This doorway does not lead to help and healing. It leads only to lies and lunacy which will gradually focus into darkness, deception and despair! Look elsewhere for help - anywhere else!<br /><br />We live in a country where there are so few babies available for adoption or, if one believes the worst case scenarios, other fates unsavory to the mind. The rise in abortions and the acceptance of single parenthood has depleted the "baby market". As a result, babies and toddlers are at a premium and there are those who would use extreme deceiving methods to rip our children, especially those considered "cute" and/or "bright" from the arms of loving families who are then obliged to fight desperately against the system to retain them.<br /><br />Naively I opened that door as I sought help for my daughter. She, who had been loved and cuddled and nourished from my breast for more than 3 years, was not bonding with her own baby. I was at a loss to know what to do for her. I, who was so maternal, could not fathom the absence of this feeling, so instinctive in me, yet seemingly so foreign to her. I thought Children's Services might help my daughter by directing her to parenting classes or some sort of counseling.<br /><br />Three years earlier, my daughter's behavior, despite years of spotty government paid therapy, had become unbearable to the point that I removed her from my house. Soon after, she was diagnosed with clinical depression, and shortly after this she realized she was pregnant.<br /><br />Immediately, she began making arrangements for a private adoption for her first child. This action broke my heart and I was helpless to respond. I was a single mother, a full-time university student, and unemployed. I felt I had no options. From an employment point of view, I was finishing up a useless bachelor's degree but I was heading into my first year of a promising education degree that demanded more than the usual 5 credits during the first year.<br /><br />I recall, one day, leaving my Canadian Studies class during student presentations. Other classes that demanded my attention by conversation and note taking were bearable, but this class, that demanded only idle listening, was tormenting my soul! I rarely cry but as I set there, not able to listen, the sting of resisted tears flooded my vision as the thoughts of my daughter giving up this child, my grandchild, washed over me with an overwhelming sense of helplessness that threatened to drown me. Quickly I gathered my books and quietly I walked the hallway to the end where I pushed open the door - and when the door swung shut - I sunk to the floor with my back pressed up against my stairwell locker quietly releasing a torrent of tears.<br /><br />Despite my sadness, I was proud of my daughter. This was not easy for her, yet, somehow, she found the strength she needed to research and arrange a private adoption. For a month, before her child's birth my daughter was hospitalized and I visited her daily. I was there when this beautiful fair-haired, blue-eyed boy came into the world and we, my daughter and I, enjoyed a generous amount of time with this precious child before my daughter called in the adopting parents to admire their new son in a partially curtained cubicle at the end of the room. My daughter, conscious of the importance of bonding, had arranged to have the adopting parents waiting in the hallway during the birth. It was difficult to catch glimpses of this bonding process but my daughter was so brave and I was extremely proud of her.<br /><br />Later that day, wanting this child to benefit from the wholesome nourishment of the first milk, colostrum, my daughter attempted to pump her breasts. Though she gallantly struggled, and I tried to assist as best I could, the colostrum resisted. Eventually she gave up. Shortly after, one of my friends came to take pictures of this precious bundle and when my grandchild went to the nursery for the night, I followed to feed him his first bottle.<br /><br />As I cradled him gently in my arms, feeding him his bottle and as I paced the floor and rocked him slowly, I thought of him growing into childhood and later manhood. I remember thinking, “I will remember and cherish this memory feeding you your first bottle - but you will not. I love you and you will not remember this love. You are loved, you are my family, and it pains my heart to have you adopted out. ”<br /><br />Burdened by complications, my daughter remained hospitalized for another week, and throughout this time, at my daughter's request, the baby stayed with her in her room. Meanwhile, the adopting parents made daily visits with the baby at the hospital nursery, and according to my daughter, they would stop in to see her as well. By chance, I was never there when they came, but that suited me fine because I wanted to spend every precious minute I could with this child who would be gone all too soon.<br /><br />I cannot even begin to describe to you the feeling that runs through your soul knowing that this child, flesh of your flesh, will only be with be with you for a short time. Every minute ticks by - can one compare it to someone waiting on death row? You have no power and no options and the only way to keep sane is to submit to your fate.<br /><br />Both my daughter and I went to the gift store at the hospital, separately, to buy a gift for the baby. I bought for him a stuffed toy elephant, as big as he was and included a card that stated that, like an elephant, I would never forget him. My daughter bought a musical stuffed clown that played “her song”, a song she told me she hummed for the child all the time. To her, it was a miracle to find this same song in a toy being sold in the small hospital gift shop.<br /><br />Apparently, she had hummed this song to the child without thought of the words, that accompanied it, but as she chatted to me about this song and the good fortune at finding this musical toy, the realization of the words suddenly struck her:<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><em>You are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine<br />You make me happy when skies are gray<br />You’ll never know dear, how much I love you,<br />Please don’t take my Sunshine away </em><br /><br />Many were the tearstained days I spent with my daughter in that hospital. . .<br /><br />Just before my daughter was discharged from the hospital, the adopting parents came to take this child away for good. I remember my daughter had it all planned. Not wanting to be left alone in the empty room that she had shared with her baby for more than a week, she was packed and ready to go before the adopting family came.<br /><br />Though the baby and the doula, the birthing coach, were with us as we waited, I remember the room feeling so empty as we anticipated the removal of this precious child. In only a few short minutes my grandson would be gone and the room echoed the emptiness of my heart.<br /><br />It was so civilized but so sad. The "handing over ceremony" I called it. We all met, me, my daughter, and the adoptive parents, and socialized, while my grandson was passed from arm to loving arm. Pictures were taken of the birth family with the baby and the adopting family with the baby. I guess the congeniality ended there because I do not recall any pictures being taken of all of us together. The photos of the reddened tear stained faces of my daughter and I are witness to the sadness of this event. Then, at a certain point, determined by my daughter, without a word, with quiet dignity and resolve, she walked across the room and put her child into the arms of the adopting mother, and I knew the visit had come to an end. And my heart ached.<br /><br />Then a stranger, the lawyer for the adopting family, walked into the room and oversaw the signing of legal documents. I never knew his name. I never asked his name. I remember looking at this man and thinking how foreign he seemed. A lawyer. What did I know of lawyers, this important man in his serious dark suit with his important papers, signing away my grandson, without emotion - like some business deal? And I remember thinking, I would never see him again, as it was also not likely that I would see my grandson again, at least not while he was growing up.<br /><br />With the final pictures taken, and the papers signed, it was time for this ceremony to end. The adopting mother dressed my precious grandchild in a delicately knit outfit and tenderly strapped him into a portable car seat. Good-bys were said all around, and then, this tiny procession, this new family, accompanied by their lawyer, walked out the door and down the wide shiny-floored hospital hallway.<br /><br />They were gone and suddenly the room was empty - very empty - just as my daughter had predicted. Then, just as the heaviness of this reality was gripping our hearts, my daughter instructed us to grab our things and we immediately vacated the room. This had to be one of the most difficult moments in my life, but I was proud of my daughter - her foresight in planning for this moment, despite the unimaginable aching of her heart, made this painful experience more tolerable. And we walked out of that room leaving everything behind - or so I thought.<br /><br />But fate has a strange way of shaking you out of your smug notions of life. In a few short years, I would become immersed in the world of lawyers, and unbeknownst to me, I would cross paths with this same lawyer again in a most significant way. </span></span></p><p align="center"><strong><span style="color:#663300;">Before you were conceived I wanted you.<br />Before you were born I loved you.<br />Before you were here an hour I would die for you<br />This is the miracle of life.<br />- Maureen Hawkins </span></strong></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8865486425630569591.post-89315053642993546292006-11-30T15:00:00.000-04:002007-07-07T05:22:48.100-04:00Pervasive Corruption<div align="center"><br /><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">Pervasive Corruption<br /></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc6600;">Chapter 1</span></span></strong></div><p><br /><span style="color:#663300;"><strong>“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.” — Elvis Presley, American celebrity entertainer (1935-1977)</strong> </span><br /><br />Viewed from the air, on a cloudless summer’s day, this province, the province of Nova Scotia, is a site of splendor and awe. This fragrant, new Scotland, juts out into the Atlantic like an organic mat of emerald green surrounded by the rhythmic sparkle of a sapphire sea, and if you are fortunate, you may glimpse the white billows of a passing sailing ship gracefully slipping along the shoreline. No wonder this province has become the much sought after playground to the Hollywood stars.<br /><br />Yet, if you dare to come down from this heavenly perch, and dig into the cool bowels of our Nova Scotia soil, you will unearth an ugly history fashioned from the tears that spilled from the sorrowed eyes of our children, children who were caught in the web of organizations sanctioned by governments, that professed to act "in the best interest of the child", or worse still, organizations ignored by our government while our children cried. Dig deep and you will uncover the shame of our "<a href="http://www.canadiancrc.com/Butterbox_babies.htm">butter box babies</a>", newborns who were killed because they were deemed inappropriate for adoptions, or <a href="http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/children/Organizations/middlemore.html">Home Children</a> (<a href="http://www.orphantrainriders.com/HomeChild/HomeBack.html">another link</a>), children who were spirited away from other places and brought to our shore. And if you dare, dig deeper still and reveal the many more unvoiced, but whispered, stories of our past.<br /><br />Then, as your fingers recoil from the stench of this decaying earth, shake the dampness from your fingers and tread the surface of this present soil. Give ear to the many plaintive tragedies of today that are still in the process of being written. My story is but one of many. And do not turn away in disbelief as I did, for like me, you may be next.<br /><br />As I write these words, I feel like the weight of a thousand dreary demons are pulling on my neck, shackling my wrists and dragging on my ankles. And the ironic thing is that most of this weight emanates, not from my circumstances, horrifying as they are, but, from the numerous people who claimed, at one time or the other, to be helping me. Up until now, this weight has denied me the ability to write my story, but I believe, and I hope it to be true, that the writing of my story will be therapeutic for myself, helpful for others, and a useful weapon to wield against the demons - and the demons they are many, and their guises are deceptive.<br /><br />How innocent I was! How unknowing! How stupid! This made me ripe for victimization. This kind of mindset makes us all ripe for victimization. How can we recognize the pitfalls of an environment we have never known before? We all like to think we are worldly, and so the worlds that we do not know we make assumptions about: courts are places of law, justice, and truth; Children's Services seeks the truth to help families and protect children; and psychological assessment services exist to reveal the truth.<br /><br />Truth? These are all institutions that uphold and revere the truth . . . or do they? What if these assumptions are wrong? What if you are pulled into a nightmare where, in fact . . . you wake up to the truth - a truth that shatters your assumptions and sends you reeling?<br /><br />Before my personal journey of victimization I had little knowledge of these systems and no idea how interconnected they were in their corruption. Naively, I believed they were everything they purported to be. I believed Children's Services cared about individuals and families and that they made decisions in the best interest of the weakest members of our society. I thought the negative stereotype of lawyers was spawned by disgruntled criminals and individuals jealous of their elevated lifestyle. As for psychological assessments, I knew from my university studies that interpretations could vary, but I was naive to the deliberate use of inappropriate tests and the intentional misrepresentation of client data. How could I have been so deceived?<br /><br />It is wonderful to be confident in our social establishments but only if these establishments are deserving of our trust. If our institutions, and individuals within these institutions, are not deserving of this trust, this must be acknowledged and the flaws need to be publicly exposed. In doing so, it is hoped that people outside the circles of victimization, newly conscious of these serious blemishes, would be encouraged to add the strength of their voices to press for meaningful change. Else wise, people will continue to suffer, children will continue to lose valuable family connections, and individuals, unaware of the pitfalls of this "system", will continue to be drawn into the bottomless pit of victimization, alone in their struggles, and re-victimized by a lack of public support derived from ignorance and disbelief.<br /><br />I, myself, am guilty of continuing this victimization. Before I began my own journey, a woman shared with me her strange and remarkable story. As her narrative began to unfold, I felt sympathy and concern towards her. She was notably stressed and extremely agitated, and, initially, I kept my judgment in reserve. </p><p>However, when she began to tell me that individuals within Children's Services were manufacturing lies against her, I felt a sudden shifting within me - away from this woman. What I was hearing, to me, was unbelievable! Suddenly I found myself questioning her mental state. After all, I told myself, she had been through some immensely traumatic situations. Could this not account for her apparent loss of mental stability? Then, as she continued her story, I began to question the validity of everything she was telling me. </p><p><br />Little was I to know that I was about to be pulled into my own personal journey with this same government department. This journey was a rude awakening that opened my eyes to the truth of this woman's story. This woman was not crazy. I was not crazy. If anything was in need of that label it was the Children's Services Department and the "system" that perpetuates its dysfunction.<br /><br />My journey, like the many before me and the many still to follow, was, and continues to be, painful. It is a journey no person should have to endure. Yet I am grateful for the knowledge and the awareness I can now attest to. The scales have fallen from my eyes. I can see and now I believe. And what I see and what I have come to know, unlike Paul’s epiphany on the road to Damascus, is not good.<br /></p><div align="center"><br />**********************</div><br /><strong><span style="color:#993300;">"Lying can never save us from another lie." — Vaclav Havel, Czech poet and political activist, first president of post-Communist Republic (b. 1936)</span></strong><br /><br />Just the other day, the lawyers of Canada announced a campaign to attempt to turn their negative image around. They would like the public to believe that they stand for lofty ideals such as truth and justice. How dare they! Have they not done enough to torture my soul and the souls of so many other innocent victims. Have they not been deceitful enough in their secret corruptions? Must they now continue their deceitfulness by proclaiming standards of practice for which they have no truthful aspirations. In their hearts they know they cannot hide from themselves their compliant contribution to the corruption of not only the justice system but also other government departments, the Department of Children's Services, as well as the field of psychology.<br /><br />The media proclaimed this campaign could backfire. Where does the wisdom for such a statement originate? It originates from those who are well aware of the existence of this darkness. If darkness arises and calls itself good, it is only natural that an indignant backlash should spontaneously arise to expose the darkness. I know because that is how I felt - indignant.<br /><br />"How dare you campaign to manipulate the public's opinion of yourselves. Respect cannot be gained through a campaign. Be righteous, be honest, and defend your clients honorably. Then you will rightly earn the respect of the people. Do you not see that such a campaign is a continuation of the dishonest manipulation that has earned you the reputation you deserve!"Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2