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7:08:00 AM EDT
Feeling Sad
the Summer of Sam
IF we would stop worrying about other people and concentrate on our own relationship with God and others, we would have a better world.
-- John Shelby Spong
Tabby and Sammy
I wrote a wonderful entry, full of angst, an amusing anecdote, fifteen pictures, and a joke...and AOL ate it. Again. So now you are stuck with the recycled version of the entry, which will not feature the pictures and will undoubtably not be as satisfying an entry.
Sigh.
Today is the first day of the local school year.
Why would this affect this homeschooling family?
My house will be blessedly quiet until three fifteen, when it will fill with hungry school kids who are either (1) on their way home and just stopped in to say hi and eat or (2) have reached their destination--my house--where they will stay until bedtime. It is a time of "Hi, Mom, I'm home!!" except I am not really their mom. But I feed them and listen to their adventures at school and sometimes help with homework.
This has been the Summer Of Sam. Samantha's parents' drinking has escalated to truly alarming levels, enough so that Sammy and her little sister have been here more days than not. Twice in the past few weeks her mother has shown up over here, very drunk, apparently with a desire to hang out with me the same way her children do. The first time I was stunned and polite.
The second time I told her to not come over drunk. I put my hands on my hips and told her that since they have no kinfolk here that I would treat her as a Big Sister. I told her that her drinking has GOT to stop. Her children were crying and did not want to go home with her. She was ashamed and crying, too, but I have a little impatience with drunks, having had an alcoholic father. She blamed it on her husband's drinking. I told her that she cannot control HIS drinking but she can control her own.
Then I sat here down at the table, fed her, and stood over her to make sure she ate. She sobered up over several hours. Then she left with her children, although later on I found out they did not go home but sat on the back steps in the alley behind my house for hours. She had left a quart of beer back there, and was promptly drunk again.
Lord God. Help me learn what the right thing to do is.
I have no wish to be an enabler, but I cannot turn my back on these children either.
Sammy
Then there are the twins, whose mother is in prison for trafficking cocaine and whose father is an alcoholic. They live with their grandmother, who is a good woman, even if she is scared that I am an Unbeliever and Potentionally going to Hell. I worry about their lives as well. They are such good kids. I love having them over. They are a quieting influence on my Wild Child.
David is going to Kings Island today with his sisters and Tabby. I hope they have fun. I will not be accompanying them. Dave says it is too expensive for Shelby and me to go, and I hate it anyway.
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I am just glad these kids get to know what a real family is, and what it feels to be loved unconditionally. Margo
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It is always so sad to see what parents will put their chidren through...I am so glad that they have an adult like you to go to in their time of need!
http://blog.myspace.com/poptartcoco -
I always copy my entries and paste them in an email before submiting them just in case aol decides it's hungry. Those children are lucky to have a stable person in their life, even if it's only for a few hours a night.
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You have so much more patience than I do. I commend you for taking care of all of those kids. Everyone needs a safe haven. And like Lisa Jo said, you never know how one child will turn out due to your influence.
Traci
8/23/06 2:31 AM