Troy

Will answers my hello with and even shorter, “Hey, Dad.”

“What’s going on?”, I ask not sure how the conversation is going to go.

“Nothing, just walking up the stairs to my apartment.”

“Just getting off work?”

“Yeah, I’m beat.”

“ Can hear it in your voice. Hey you were supposed to have a meeting with your boss yesterday, how did that go?”

“Oh, fine. We are being transferred to another store.”

“Awesome. You said ‘we’…”

“My girlfriend is being transferred over there too. Isn’t that right smoopie…” Will said clearly not talking to me.

“That is real good news. Let me say it back to you so I get it straight when I tell your Mom. You could have been let go because the store was closing, but instead, they relocated you so that you could keep working for them. Right?”

“Yeah.”

“That is awesome, Will!”

“And I got a five cent raise.”

“And a raise!?!??! You know there was a time I thought you weren’t worth a nickel.”

“Ha…” pause, “Ha…” pause, “Ha…” Will replied.

“You are coming down for the Sunday after Thanksgiving, Right?”

“Planning on it. I shouldn’t have to work. Hey, did I tell you I got a cat?”

“No, When did that happen.”

“Somebody around here was getting rid of it so we took it in. I named it ‘Pickles’.”

“Nice.”

“OK, Gotta go and shower. I smell like grease.”

“OK, Good to hear from you. Bye.”

You may have read a transcript of one of the best phone conversations I have ever had in my life…

In the beginning

You can say that the week of May 16-20, 2005 was a monumental week for our little family. The first day of work at my new dream job was May 16. While my degree, training and work experience prepared me to be the Coordinator for Information Services with the National Children’s Alliance, I never really expected to be selected as the best in the nation in what I do. I was hired to help all the Children’s Advocacy Centers in the Country with technical issues. I started my first day with such pride my big head would barely let me get into my car. One of my first responsibilities that day was to drive my new boss from the airport to our worksite. We hadn’t been in the car together five minutes before Della, my wife of twelve years called to announce that the doctor had confirmed her suspicions. She was pregnant! With the new boss sitting in the seat beside me I couldn’t hoot and holler like I wanted. To this day Della still makes fun of me for reservedly offering my ‘Congratulations’ to her in response to her blessed announcement.

Our life calmed down for a couple of days before on May 19, 2005 Della was featured in a two-page article in the New York Times. The story shared a good deal about Della’s childhood. How she had a less than idyllic upbringing and that finally at one of the low points in her early life a distant family member asked her to come live with them. After the move, Della continued to excel in academics and ultimately graduated at the top of her law school class. Her life took another turn after she had only started to settle into her new position with one of the more sought-after firms in town. She discovered that her young niece and nephew were having a less than idyllic childhood and needed a place to live. As was offered to her years before, at great personal sacrifice Della offered her home to these children. The article read like some kind of modern grim fairy tale. As a result of the article Della received many emails, calls and letters offering her support and encouragement for her life choices. While Will and Anna had been living with us for years when the article was published, reading the story from the reporter’s perspective and receiving affirmation from all over the world warmed our hearts.

If only that were the end the story.

While my dream job continued to be dreamy and the joys of parenting my newborn are immeasurable, the saga related to parenting Will is a real story that needs to be shared. Will came to live with us in 1998, when he was 11, and his last night here was in 2009. Will had a room in our house for a total of 11 years, and while it felt like we lived a lifetime in those first ten years, nothing could have prepared us for the final 12 months that were so tumultuous and required so much effort.

I am going to spoil the ending of the story for you. The plan ultimately did not work. Even with the Herculean efforts of us parents, the therapists, social services, the school personnel, other supportive family members and even Will himself he turned 18 under someone else’s roof.

Heartbreaking.

This book shares my perspective and experiences during those exhausting first 10 years. About a year before Will moved out, we put an intricate plan in place that was a last-ditched effort to keep our family together. A significant amount of this book is going to deal with that last year, that system and the high and low points of our last months with Will. While some of the history may not be exactly correct and I may have inserted my words into others mouths this is the story as I remember it. I think it is worth sharing. I think in this story there are many lessons that can be learned for the parents, children and professionals that deal with relative placement and intergenerational child-rearing practices.

I am going to start the story at the beginning, shortly after Will’s birth.

Chapter  1

Three days after Will was born Della and I went to the hospital to see him. We were standing there looking through the window into the nursery. There were two babies inside lying asleep in their clear plastic cribs. We found baby Will and did the usual cooing and pecking on the glass like you do at hospital nurseries or at aquariums. A small thin young woman in a hospital gown came up and stood beside us with her arms folded. She wore a very haggard expression.  Della and I are very social people and easily struck up a conversation with her.

“Aren’t they so cute?” Della asked.

“Oh they are precious.” She replied.

Della asked, “Is that baby yours?” as she pointed through the glass to the baby sleeping beside Will. The mother at first just nodded her head silently. This is where the afternoon started to get a little weird. We noticed a few things about the waspish woman that you don’t notice when you are just eyeing a stranger. She was younger than we first thought. Afterwards we decided she was somewhere between 13 and 15. Further, and more disturbing, she hardly had any white part of her eyes. Where her sclera should be shining white in her eye sockets, her eyes shined solid red. I have seen many, many horror movies in my day and I immediately wanted to protect my brain.

Finally the young zombie mommy said, “Oh, yes.” “I had him last night.” The young mother smiled and continued warmly, “I was in labor for 10 hours. Whew, it was hard!” Her whole body shuttered as her voice accentuated the word ‘hard’. She continued, “I am still sore where I didn’t know I had musctles.” I noticed she added a ‘t’ after the ‘c’ in ‘muscles’ and quickly attributed it to either her youth or her Appalachian accent – but who knows it could have been a misspeak due to something as simple a sheer exhaustion. “The doctor had me pushing so hard I burst all the blood vessels in my eyes.” She pointed to her eyes to draw our attention to them, (like she needed to). In my mind I remembered that the recently turned zombie often downplayed symptoms of their turning until the second before they attacked their first prey! I poised for any potential undead threat. Della, not as fearful of the undead, continued talking to her, “Sounds bad.” She offered sympathetically.

“It hurt worse than everybody told me about but, whew, me and the Lord got through it, alright. Look at that little thing.” She touched her finger against the glass and said, “It was the most wonderful thing I have ever done.”

Della and I talked about his later as we drove home. We hadn’t had our own kids at that time and laughed how something that bursts every blood vessel in your eyes could ever be a ‘most wonderful’ thing. We also in the smug way that accompanied our youth poo-pooed her idea that she and the Lord did anything together the night before. It took us having our own baby to acknowledge everyone that is present in the delivery room during a birth.

You thought our first visit with would be a little more about Will, right? Well, you’ll see something in this story that is going to emerge as a pattern when Will comes to live with us. Will was only doing what came natural to him during our first meeting. He only laid there. And while he was doing that, Della and I had the opportunity to learn something about ourselves.

Troy

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/audioPop.jsp?episodeId=120368&cmd=apop

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/audioPop.jsp?episodeId=120234&cmd=apop

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/audioPop.jsp?episodeId=118987&cmd=apop

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/audioPop.jsp?episodeId=117967&cmd=apop

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/audioPop.jsp?episodeId=117965&cmd=apop