"Childhood Memories"- Day 22

NC @ Christmas circa 1970, with my mother & cousin...

                                             

Day 12- "Memory"

My grandmother, mother, aunt, me, and my sister, circa 1974, picking peas at my grandmother's. Precious memories.

Day 10- "I Spy"

3 generations of strong women who don't get to spend enough time together...I see my mother's traditions, attitudes and expectations very alive in myself as a mother, and coming out in my daughter as she turns into an adult, and couldn't be happier. So blessed.

"One of Us"- Day 26

In working with a family the past two weeks I have been trying to help "Mom A" get linked with services via "Mom B"; it is proving to be a challenge and exemplifies all that is wrong with certain systems and protocols. "Mom A" pretty much trusts no one and has limited time given she is a bus driver with three children and a grandchild, and just lost her mother who was also living with them; the father of at least two of the children is incarcerated. She is not in a place to make calls and figure out what to do, but she is close with "Mom B" and trusts her, and has allowed her to reach out to me because Mom B trusts me. I in turn, with permission of Mom A, whom I've never met, reach out to the people who we are told will support students, and get kickback because none of the children go to our school any longer (irrelevant, they support cluster schools, and I'm not sorry the parent of former students trusts me over teachers where her children have been for four-five weeks). End result? Tell her she needs to call the counselor at one one of the schools. I told Mom B that this is what I was told, and she doesn't think Mom A will reach out...just getting Mom A to say please give my number to the appropriate people was a huge step. End result? It will be another family going without available and highly needed services all because of alleged protocol (you can't tell me the call couldn't have been made and they couldn't have filled out the paperwork together). Yet another reason I may not last until that 30 year retirement date, growing more disgusted by the day. In the meantime all I can do is give Mom A's son as much as I can, which will never meet the needs they have, as she doesn't know where they will live without her mother's income. I feel like I'm losing another one. At the end of the day they are a part of our community, whether they are still in our school or not, and she is a mother with hopes, dreams, fears and limitations, just like the rest of us. Sometimes the paperwork needs to be put aside until that much is remembered. 

"Crumple"- Day 21

Children should be able to trust their parents above all others.

Reality is that  is often not the case and it is not

Until tragedy occurs that we realize that 

Mom or dad is the enemy, hiding right there in plain sight.

Parents with problems- psychological, physical, economical, the list goes on,

Leaving us to ask ourselves as a society how could we allow children to 

Ever be at the heart of a search that started in the hands of their mother?

The other day I passed two teams on the side of a major highway, searching for these children in the brush and in a storm runoff pond. My heart literally crumpled & it literally took my breath away. I can't fathom how that family is feeling. At the same time it is hard not to be cognizant of the fact the mother is someone's daughter, who turned out to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia. How devastating do you think that diagnosis was, and what did they go through to get there? Where is  the fine line between someone is being treated and they can be relied on to take medication and raise children, and becoming judge and jury and deciding she cannot be alone with her children?How do we know whether she is playing the police as people accuse? Is she even capable in this mindset? Or does she know exactly what she did? Sadly it is a case that will most likely always have more questions than answers. How many more Jacob and Sarah's will have to know the love and pain of a mother who can't control that she can't be trusted?

Day 11- "Mother(hood)"

A picture says one thousand words, so a few pictures should say a whole lot!

Day 7- "(Self) Discovery"

So many mistakes as I 
Evolved into what I want to become
Living and loving every day for those around me,
Fills me with more serenity than I ever thought possible.

Do I regret the many times
I wasn't the best mother or role model?
Seeking things in all of the wrong places?
Can say that is a definite yes, but I cannot let it define me.
Only can look forward and live in the present, knowing I
Very lucky to have been handed a second chance.
Even more so to have been offered forgiveness along the way.
Really don't know that I deserved it sometimes,
Yet it allowed me to start forgiving myself and living for my family, which allows me to live for me.

Day 8- "Silent"

I think every mother knows that if you had known that it was the last time you would experience such a sweet silence you would have made it last longer.  I don't think I would have wanted to know, but there are days I would just love to make them small and and hold them so close again.  They are my heart and soul.