One of my sisters is dead.
Not my biological sister, not either of my sisters-in-law, but my sister nonetheless.
One of my RAD sisters, who understood the heartache of loving a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder. Understood the pain and the long road, the uncertainty and the suffering that seems to have no end.
One of my sisters, DEAD, presumably at the hands of her RAD daughter.
I didn't know her well. Had never, in fact, even met her. We were bound together only by a support group full of parents raising children with RAD....all sharing that invisible bond of friendship that comes from finding someone...finally...who understands.
This group of friends has supported me in ways that no one else could, giving me that calm understanding and sometimes needed advice; a safe place in which to vent the strongest of emotions.
Every frustration, every failure, every horrible day, every small victory.
Shared trials and triumphs.
Disappointment.
Anger.
Tears.
They pass no judgement, for they are also on the frontlines, living the same uncertainty as I.
And now one of us is dead.
Today this hits me incredibly hard. It has, after all, been only a few months since my own son threatened to kill me...and my husband...and our baby son. Sure, it's easy to pass those threats off as simply a way for our son to manipulate; an attempt to get his own way and force us into action. Such threats are usually just that. Manipulation attempts.
But sometimes they aren't. And then what?
I'm angry right now. Angry that no one seems to take us seriously...the hurting, stressed, vigilant, exhausted and abused parents of these emotionally impaired kids. 'If only we loved those poor kids enough. If only we were more structured as parents, or less structured, or more permissive, or less permissive, or more understanding, or more forgiving, or more this or more that. If only, if only, if only.'
So many people pass judgement and yet would be unable to stand up for a moment in the shoes of a RAD parent.
Yes, I'm angry.
Angry that there is so little help to be found for these traumatized kids.
Angry that so many mental health professionals have no training in attachment issues and don't understand RAD enough to make a difference.
Angry that we spent months making phone calls to everyone and anyone that would possibly listen, and yet our family, church family and close friends are the only ones that came to our aid.
Angry that our insurance (which is considered the best) won't pay for the only therapist in our area that specializes in adoption, attachment and RAD because the letters after his name aren't the "correct" letters.
Angry that the adoption medicaid that is supposed to pick up the cost of anything our child needs has also refused to pay for our therapist simply because the insurance company would pay for someone else...none of whom specialize in adoption related issues.
Angry that insurance refuses to pay a cent for residential treatment for our son's severe mental illness, or any mental illness for that matter, but would gladly pay if he was an alcoholic or a drug addict or had an eating disorder.
Angry that the adoption agency and the foster care system from which our son came have no resources or motivation or desire to help.
Angry that the state of Michigan was going to force us to bring our violent, threatening son home for in-home counseling before they would help in any way. They are more willing to put our five little children (and ourselves) in danger than to part with a single dollar.
Angry that even if the state of Michigan HAD agreed to fund treatment, it would not have been at a facility that specializes in RAD because they are all more than 200 miles away. No exceptions would be made.
Angry that the only option the state of Michigan gave us if it was truly too dangerous to bring him home for counseling was to "Let the Juvenile Courts have him." He is mentally ill and needs help, for crying out loud...not JAIL!
Angry that the only way to get him into a facility that could help him through the Juvenile Court system was to actually abandon our son to the courts, leaving us open to charges of neglect.
Angry that no one seems to take mental illness seriously until an entire first grade class is murdered, or the parent of a RAD child is found stabbed to death in her home.
And I'm angry that there is now one less person on the planet that understands what parents like us go through. One less, instead of one more. When what we desperately need are more.
It wasn't that many years ago when autistic children didn't get the help and intervention they needed, when insurance refused to pay for necessary, life-altering therapies, and when people didn't really understand what it meant to be autistic. It wasn't too many years ago when children with learning difficulties were labelled "retarded" and were given no extra help...no chances to succeed to the best of their abilities. Mercifully, these things are beginning to change.
How many systems will have to change, how many people will have to die, before children with mental illness get the help they need? When will the insurance companies and the state agencies begin to care about what is best for the families and not about the dollars involved? And all those parents...the ones in my support group, who are persevering through the worst...when will their concerns be taken seriously?
Today I am rattled. I hate to admit it, but whenever I hear a story like this, my heart skips a beat. It hits too close to home, because my family is walking a similar path as that of this poor woman who lost her life.
God, please don't ever let that shattered family be mine.
________________________________________________________________________
Sister, you truly had a Joyous Heart. Thank you for trying to make the world a better place and for all of your efforts on behalf of a traumatized child. Thank you also for your input and your many words of encouragement. You will be missed.
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Only By the Grace of God
For the briefest of moments, I was forced to wonder if one of my children might be dead.
There. I said it. The one thing that I've been thinking since Monday night, when a teenage boy pummeled into the back of our van, pushing us into the car ahead. The thing I almost dared not to voice, for fear that actually saying it out loud would somehow make it something that could have happened. That almost happened, even. But by the grace of God, didn't.
Only by the grace of God.
We (me and all five of my children) were running a projected five minutes late for my husband's annual Christmas Program. I was approaching an intersection, getting into the left turn lane, when the car in front of me stopped very suddenly, forcing me to slam on the brakes. I thought for a moment that we were going to hit him, but managed to stop the van with not a whole lot of extra space between us. Relief set in, but my silent prayer of thanks was cut short by the impact of a car slamming full-force into us from behind.
The moments that followed were some of the worst of my life. It was dark. My three oldest children, who were sitting in the backseat, were screaming wildly, and I had no idea how badly they had been injured. The baby, jarred awake by the blow, began screaming at the top of his lungs, too. And for the briefest of seconds, I thought that something dreadful might have happened to one of my children. There was confusion and terror and panic and sobbing, and when I cried out to them to find out if they were hurt, they insisted that they were.
Quickly, I scanned them over. I saw no blood, no protruding bones, and everyone was awake and alert. In fact, they were far more alert than usual, although understandably shaken. Somehow, I got everyone calmed down enough to tell me that they were not seriously injured...just bumped and bruised and whiplashed...and then my relief came down in torrents.
I was able to pull the van off the road into a parking lot (the same was not true for the car behind us, as it was missing its entire front end). I checked each of my five kids over inch by inch, hugged them to me one by one, and then sobbed out a prayer of thanksgiving to God for protecting us.
The next hour passed in a frenzy of cell phone calls, blinking lights, sirens, firefighters and police officers. I answered countless questions, rattled off birth dates, and shed a thousand tears. I was a bit in shock over what could have happened, yet even now I could go on and on with all the details I collected from the scene: who said what, how each person was feeling, who was crying, who came to help, whose phone number I misdialed in all the confusion, the damage our van sustained, the sorrow of the boy that hit us when he realized he'd put five children in harm's way.
But the truth is, none of that is very important.
What's important is that after anxiously waiting for a solid hour for his family to arrive at his program, with no way to be contacted and with no choice but to go on with the show, my panicked husband was able to look up and see all six of us coming toward him. We were all safe.
And over the last few days, both my husband and I have seen our lives and our children in a new light. We're cherishing the laughs and the ballerina twirls down the hall, the joking around at the dinner table, the brandishing of little swords, and the hugs and snuggles in between. When we're brushing little teeth, or wiping little bottoms, or teaching math lessons, or cleaning up after someone who didn't make it to the bathroom on time; when we're listening to children argue or fuss or even throw tantrums, and when we've been woken up yet again in the middle of the night, we've been acutely aware of the fact that we could have lost them. And we're thankful to be allowed to do even the most mundane of tasks for these precious, irreplaceable people- the children that we love.
A bit of humor, as I can't help but find humor in the ugliest of places:
While waiting for the police to arrive, a bystander picked something up from the ground outside and brought it to us. It was a picture of my husband that had been on the dashboard. He had not been properly restrained and had been thrown from the vehicle.
I remembered and relayed to my husband every emotional and story-telling fact of the accident scene in fabulous detail, except the one thing he wanted to know most of all: "What kind of cars were they?" What do you mean, what kind of cars? Ours is a van, the other two were cars. Two cars, one van. "But what kind of cars were they?" One was red and boxy, the other was tan (I think) and pretty crunchy.
Apparently this wasn't a good enough description.
There. I said it. The one thing that I've been thinking since Monday night, when a teenage boy pummeled into the back of our van, pushing us into the car ahead. The thing I almost dared not to voice, for fear that actually saying it out loud would somehow make it something that could have happened. That almost happened, even. But by the grace of God, didn't.
Only by the grace of God.
We (me and all five of my children) were running a projected five minutes late for my husband's annual Christmas Program. I was approaching an intersection, getting into the left turn lane, when the car in front of me stopped very suddenly, forcing me to slam on the brakes. I thought for a moment that we were going to hit him, but managed to stop the van with not a whole lot of extra space between us. Relief set in, but my silent prayer of thanks was cut short by the impact of a car slamming full-force into us from behind.
The moments that followed were some of the worst of my life. It was dark. My three oldest children, who were sitting in the backseat, were screaming wildly, and I had no idea how badly they had been injured. The baby, jarred awake by the blow, began screaming at the top of his lungs, too. And for the briefest of seconds, I thought that something dreadful might have happened to one of my children. There was confusion and terror and panic and sobbing, and when I cried out to them to find out if they were hurt, they insisted that they were.
Quickly, I scanned them over. I saw no blood, no protruding bones, and everyone was awake and alert. In fact, they were far more alert than usual, although understandably shaken. Somehow, I got everyone calmed down enough to tell me that they were not seriously injured...just bumped and bruised and whiplashed...and then my relief came down in torrents.
I was able to pull the van off the road into a parking lot (the same was not true for the car behind us, as it was missing its entire front end). I checked each of my five kids over inch by inch, hugged them to me one by one, and then sobbed out a prayer of thanksgiving to God for protecting us.
The next hour passed in a frenzy of cell phone calls, blinking lights, sirens, firefighters and police officers. I answered countless questions, rattled off birth dates, and shed a thousand tears. I was a bit in shock over what could have happened, yet even now I could go on and on with all the details I collected from the scene: who said what, how each person was feeling, who was crying, who came to help, whose phone number I misdialed in all the confusion, the damage our van sustained, the sorrow of the boy that hit us when he realized he'd put five children in harm's way.
But the truth is, none of that is very important.
What's important is that after anxiously waiting for a solid hour for his family to arrive at his program, with no way to be contacted and with no choice but to go on with the show, my panicked husband was able to look up and see all six of us coming toward him. We were all safe.
And over the last few days, both my husband and I have seen our lives and our children in a new light. We're cherishing the laughs and the ballerina twirls down the hall, the joking around at the dinner table, the brandishing of little swords, and the hugs and snuggles in between. When we're brushing little teeth, or wiping little bottoms, or teaching math lessons, or cleaning up after someone who didn't make it to the bathroom on time; when we're listening to children argue or fuss or even throw tantrums, and when we've been woken up yet again in the middle of the night, we've been acutely aware of the fact that we could have lost them. And we're thankful to be allowed to do even the most mundane of tasks for these precious, irreplaceable people- the children that we love.
A bit of humor, as I can't help but find humor in the ugliest of places:
While waiting for the police to arrive, a bystander picked something up from the ground outside and brought it to us. It was a picture of my husband that had been on the dashboard. He had not been properly restrained and had been thrown from the vehicle.
I remembered and relayed to my husband every emotional and story-telling fact of the accident scene in fabulous detail, except the one thing he wanted to know most of all: "What kind of cars were they?" What do you mean, what kind of cars? Ours is a van, the other two were cars. Two cars, one van. "But what kind of cars were they?" One was red and boxy, the other was tan (I think) and pretty crunchy.
Apparently this wasn't a good enough description.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
More or Less
Once upon a time, over seven years ago...before children, before a renewed commitment to the Lord, before the discovery of my purpose on the Earth...I was gathering up my things at the end of a workday, moments away from heading home. I was the manager of a small business, a portrait studio nestled inside a mostly-forgotten mall, and I was tying up a few loose ends at the front counter before leaving my studio in the hands of an employee.
It seems that mostly-forgotten malls are rarely forgotten by one group: the mall-walkers. For years, when business was slow, I couldn't help but notice every person that walked by over and over again, and these people (whether I came to know them or not) became permanent fixtures of my workplace. On this particular day, my attention was drawn by some commotion to the bit of mall outside my storefront, and I looked up in time to see a familiar middle-aged woman collapse to the ground. She had been carrying a pair of crutches, and my first thought was that she had fallen while using them and needed some assistance to get up.
I ran out into the mall, as did a few people from a neighboring store. When I got there, the woman was unresponsive, and it was evident that this was something far more serious than a fall. I yelled to my employee, who was standing at the front counter, and she immediately dialed 911.
Life sped up and played in slow motion all at the same time. No one knew what to do. It seemed like the woman was gasping, we thought she was, and we assumed that she was breathing. It was so hard to tell. No one was doing anything...everyone there was so young and in disbelief. I knelt down and I rubbed the woman's back, I whispered in her ear that Jesus loved her and that someone would be there to help her soon. I think I was crying. I felt totally helpless, but I just kept telling her that Jesus was with her and that everything would be okay.
The paramedics were there in moments. They took over. Told us to leave. Stunned, I went back to my studio. But I didn't leave. My heart...my soul...was still out in that mall with that poor woman lying on the ground, pleading with her to pull through as the paramedics pumped her chest with an almost violent urgency.
God and I didn't speak frequently enough back then, but He heard a lot from me that day. I called my parents and asked them to pray. I called my sister. As an afterthought, I decided I should probably call my husband, too, although he wasn't much of a pray-er then, either. Then I got down on my knees in Camera Room B and poured my heart out to God. (In the years that followed, as my then-life was being reshaped into my now-life, Camera Room B became witness to many of these prayer sessions, but it can be certain that at the time, it was caught entirely off-guard.)
Eventually, after half an hour or more of constant resuscitation attempts, the paramedics lifted the woman onto a gurney, still pumping oxygen into her body with a plastic "balloon" over her mouth and nose. I watched them wheel her away, and I knew.
The woman was dead.
I went home that night limp with the fatigue that comes from having fought hard and lost. I had spilled my emotions on the floor of Camera Room B, and yet I found that I had many more to spill in the days to come. My beloved Grandma Mac had passed away just months previously, and this fresh encounter with death tore the scab from my heart as mercilessly as an eagle plucks a fish from the sea.
Just days later, I came home late after closing the studio. As I walked through the door of my home, I witnessed yet another horrific death. A man had been impaled with a fence post, and a grotesque, blood saturated wound consumed his entire upper body. His chest heaved with the effort of each agonizing breath; the sounds of death gurgled from his throat. And although my husband flipped the TV off the moment he saw the horror on my face, the image of this dying man is forever imprinted on my mind.
And very suddenly, my eyes were opened.
Death is not entertainment.
Death is real. Pain and suffering are real. And real people who suffer from real pain can't change the channel or forget about it at the commercial break. Our culture would have us believe that we can, in our own lives, experience these "entertaining" things- death, tragedy, violence, divorce, casual sex- and go on living completely unscathed...unscarred...untouched.
Our culture lies.
We were created in the image of God, with the ability to feel. We were created to be in community, sharing in eachothers' joys, hurts and sorrows, full of compassion and sensitivity and love. We were created to connect deeply. We feel loss and horror and anger and betrayal and there are lasting scars when we make bad choices or when terrible things happen to us. What our culture of entertainment wants us to believe is simply not true.
So where do we draw the line? What's acceptable entertainment, and what isn't? Are there times when it's alright to watch people being killed or living immorally on-screen? What if it's obviously make-believe? What if it serves a purpose, such as to educate or inform? What if it isn't gratuitous? Is it okay for adults to watch things that children shouldn't? What if we're mature enough in our faith to truly not be influenced by what we watch?
I don't have this all figured out, so please don't assume that I think I do. There is one thing that's clear to me, though...one thing that I am certain of.
As our culture becomes more and more saturated with entertainment - movies, television, video games, internet - we are not becoming any more like Jesus.
We're becoming less like Him.
It seems that mostly-forgotten malls are rarely forgotten by one group: the mall-walkers. For years, when business was slow, I couldn't help but notice every person that walked by over and over again, and these people (whether I came to know them or not) became permanent fixtures of my workplace. On this particular day, my attention was drawn by some commotion to the bit of mall outside my storefront, and I looked up in time to see a familiar middle-aged woman collapse to the ground. She had been carrying a pair of crutches, and my first thought was that she had fallen while using them and needed some assistance to get up.
I ran out into the mall, as did a few people from a neighboring store. When I got there, the woman was unresponsive, and it was evident that this was something far more serious than a fall. I yelled to my employee, who was standing at the front counter, and she immediately dialed 911.
Life sped up and played in slow motion all at the same time. No one knew what to do. It seemed like the woman was gasping, we thought she was, and we assumed that she was breathing. It was so hard to tell. No one was doing anything...everyone there was so young and in disbelief. I knelt down and I rubbed the woman's back, I whispered in her ear that Jesus loved her and that someone would be there to help her soon. I think I was crying. I felt totally helpless, but I just kept telling her that Jesus was with her and that everything would be okay.
The paramedics were there in moments. They took over. Told us to leave. Stunned, I went back to my studio. But I didn't leave. My heart...my soul...was still out in that mall with that poor woman lying on the ground, pleading with her to pull through as the paramedics pumped her chest with an almost violent urgency.
God and I didn't speak frequently enough back then, but He heard a lot from me that day. I called my parents and asked them to pray. I called my sister. As an afterthought, I decided I should probably call my husband, too, although he wasn't much of a pray-er then, either. Then I got down on my knees in Camera Room B and poured my heart out to God. (In the years that followed, as my then-life was being reshaped into my now-life, Camera Room B became witness to many of these prayer sessions, but it can be certain that at the time, it was caught entirely off-guard.)
Eventually, after half an hour or more of constant resuscitation attempts, the paramedics lifted the woman onto a gurney, still pumping oxygen into her body with a plastic "balloon" over her mouth and nose. I watched them wheel her away, and I knew.
The woman was dead.
I went home that night limp with the fatigue that comes from having fought hard and lost. I had spilled my emotions on the floor of Camera Room B, and yet I found that I had many more to spill in the days to come. My beloved Grandma Mac had passed away just months previously, and this fresh encounter with death tore the scab from my heart as mercilessly as an eagle plucks a fish from the sea.
Just days later, I came home late after closing the studio. As I walked through the door of my home, I witnessed yet another horrific death. A man had been impaled with a fence post, and a grotesque, blood saturated wound consumed his entire upper body. His chest heaved with the effort of each agonizing breath; the sounds of death gurgled from his throat. And although my husband flipped the TV off the moment he saw the horror on my face, the image of this dying man is forever imprinted on my mind.
And very suddenly, my eyes were opened.
Death is not entertainment.
Death is real. Pain and suffering are real. And real people who suffer from real pain can't change the channel or forget about it at the commercial break. Our culture would have us believe that we can, in our own lives, experience these "entertaining" things- death, tragedy, violence, divorce, casual sex- and go on living completely unscathed...unscarred...untouched.
Our culture lies.
We were created in the image of God, with the ability to feel. We were created to be in community, sharing in eachothers' joys, hurts and sorrows, full of compassion and sensitivity and love. We were created to connect deeply. We feel loss and horror and anger and betrayal and there are lasting scars when we make bad choices or when terrible things happen to us. What our culture of entertainment wants us to believe is simply not true.
So where do we draw the line? What's acceptable entertainment, and what isn't? Are there times when it's alright to watch people being killed or living immorally on-screen? What if it's obviously make-believe? What if it serves a purpose, such as to educate or inform? What if it isn't gratuitous? Is it okay for adults to watch things that children shouldn't? What if we're mature enough in our faith to truly not be influenced by what we watch?
I don't have this all figured out, so please don't assume that I think I do. There is one thing that's clear to me, though...one thing that I am certain of.
As our culture becomes more and more saturated with entertainment - movies, television, video games, internet - we are not becoming any more like Jesus.
We're becoming less like Him.
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