I've been sitting here, thinking about a lot of things. For starters, I've been thinking about our girls. I believe we're damned lucky to have the daughters we have. Blessed, not lucky. God intended for us to be family, and now, for the past three years, we are.
I miss our grandkids. The last time I talked to them was interesting. I mistook Isaiah for his big sister, Alicia. They never sounded alike before, so I thought she was being silly, talking like her brother. Isaiah can't talk quite right, because he has cerebral palsy. Turns out, I was talking to him and didn't realize it until Tiffany told me, "Ummm, Dad, that was Isaiah you were talking to!"
That was a "D'oh!" moment.
Isaiah told me he loved me, and I told him, too, even though I called him Alicia. Alicia, however, gave me something very intersting to think about. She informed me, in her usual ebullient manner, that I am "The PooPoo Fairy". I have not one clue what a poopoo fairy is or what he does, and I don't think I WANT to know! It doesn't sound pretty to me.
Naomi is growing up too fast. She is 16 months old now, and I have only seen one picture of her. Our kids and grandkids live in California, unlike us Texans. I wish we could all be in one place. Sometimes, I ache to hold those beautiful children. I cry because I can't hug them, kiss them, and tell them how much they mean to me while they can actually see my face as I say it.
Our daughters...Tiffany and Elisabeth...I think we've got the greatest daughters alive! Well, my nieces run a close race. ;) Funny, I'm only turning 32 this month, so my nieces and nephews are in he same age bracket as my GRANDCHILDREN!!!! I wonder if that will screw up their heads? I sure hope not.
Tiffany runs a tight race in life. She is always being told to do things by people who are in charge of her children, yet when she does it, it's never ever good enough for them. I got so angry the other night that I hit the wall, and I was bawling like a baby - convinced that we're about to lose our grandchildren AND our daughter. I fear that she will kill herself if she loses the kidlets. She's already adopted Nathanael out, and she regrets that every day of her life. She misses him so badly, and there's nothing I can do about it, which sucks. Now, it looks like we're on the edge of having at least the older two who are still with her adopted out, too.
It all started when the kids' father; let's just call him Asshole, since his name really does begin with an "A"; beat the living shit out of Tiffany, right in front of Alicia and Isaiah. Since the children saw it, the police determined that they were in a dangerous position (I hate to say it, but I guess they were right), so CPS entered the picture. Since then, it has been almost two years of battles to get back and KEEP the children.
I wish we could take them in. We have bad pasts, and records with CPS from when we were younger, ourselves. I wasn't always the most patient person with children, though I must say that time (and aging too fast) have worn my impatience down some. Even if our records didn't count against us - I don't really know if they would, this far into the picture - we are low-income, and no judge would assign the children to live with us. Tiffany doesn't want them to live with us, though. She's afraid her mother will treat them as she treated Tiffany. There is living proof that my wife has overcome this....our other daughter, Elisabeth.
Elisabeth is 15 years old, and she is a kind, gentle, sensitive, intelligent, deep-thinking individual. She's also hard-headed as can be, which I hope serves her well in life. Mom was never physically tough with Elisabeth. There was some emotional detachment, for reasons I'd rather not go into. We've duked it out about that often enough, and Mom is getting better. Mom, by the way, in this case is my wife.
Tiffany was terrorized, beaten, and overall just made miserable. It's only natural that, with all she went through, she would be deathly afraid of the idea of her chief abuser taking in her own children. Things have changed quite a lot, because my spouse and I FORCE each other to look at ourselves as we really are. We're relentless with each other and ourselves, and that helps heal, cure, and solve things.
We've discussed the whole scenario of Tiffany's upbringing, for which I was, regrettably, not present, about a million times. Tiffany was 23 when I became her Dad. I went from being a single man with no one of my own to having a wife, two daughters, and four grandchildren! I wouldn't trade my family for anything in this world. I worked DAMNED HARD to earn them, and they cannot be removed from my life EVER!!!! I joke with them and tell them that they've got me for life, because I hooked on to them, like a leech. I grew on them like a fungus. And they won my heart enough for several lifetimes.
Thankfully, I realize how blessed I am. I know exactly what I have, because I spent my first almost-30 years without it. Twelve years in the adult world, all by myself, no one wanted me, at least not to keep. I grew so attached to other peoples' children, because I wanted a child so badly, yet I never could have one. Now, I have two of them. I think God looked down on me, intuited, in His usual fashion, that I would not be the most patient parent with a newborn baby, so He sent me one grown daughter, and one who is close enough to grown. And those four remarkable people who are my grandchildren.....Yes, I'm blessed, and I'm so thankful for that.
I miss my family. We will pull through all this, though.
Jack
Powered by ScribeFire.
