Theater of the Soul

You know how I said in my last post that I would rather not re-establish contact with my former guardians? Yeah? Well, let me just tell you a little story about how the universe likes to fuck with me.

These ‘guardians’ of mine were fairly decent people. They were friends of my parents for many years. The woman, whom I’ll call N, was a bitch on wheels though…due in large part to what I now suspect was a bi-polar disorder. One day she was sweet as pie…the next, look-the-fuck-out. The husband, E, was very much a second father to me. I worshipped the ground he walked on for a long time. They had two sons, C and S, who were pretty much my little brothers.

These two boys are men now, and S has been married, had two sons of his own, and divorced his batshit crazy wife. I haven’t had contact with anyone in this family for well over 10 years now. The emotional rollercoaster that N keeps everyone in her life on just wasn’t my scene. I suspect she has some sort of bi-polar disorder, but I didn’t stick around to find out. About a month after my mother died, I moved out on my own. After I had my first son, I cut off all ties with her completely. As many of you can guess, I have a low tolerance for bullshit and being jerked around and I finally had my fill of her. She and E divorced shortly after I moved out, and she and the two boys moved a few hours south of here.

Anyways, so my pseudo-brother S, was given custody of his two children last year because, like I said, his wife is a friggin whacko. Young, irresponsible and dumber than a box of shit, but a nice girl nonetheless. S was a decent kid, the last I saw of him, which was about 10 years ago or so. A bit too obnoxious for his own good sometimes, but basically ok…or so I thought.

After my first son was born and I cut off ties with these people, I was a foster parent for about 8 years or so. I was going through some kind of “Mother Earth” stage apparently, because I was truly convinced that I could FIX everyone. I was also in my 20’s and susceptable to the cluelessness that most 20-somethings suffer from. I did the foster parent thing for those 8 years and, even after I figured out that I couldn’t cure everyone, I was still damn good at it. I got licensed as a Specialized Home, meaning that I would take the REALLY fucked up kids…those who had suffered extreme amounts of abuse/neglect all the way up to the teenagers who were one step away from juvenile hall. I also happened to work in our state’s version of juvenile hall at the time. Long story short, I burnt myself out. Too many tears, too many problems and one too many lost children. I made myself step back, told the social workers that I needed an extended break and just let my license lapse. It’s now 4 years later, and I’ve never once entertained the idea of going back to foster parenting.

You see where this is going, don’t you?

So, this morning, I’m sitting here with a cup of coffee…reading blogs and minding my own fucking business, when the phone rings. It’s one of the social workers I used to work with. After exchanging pleasantries, she got right to the issue at hand.

“I know you’ve let your license lapse,” she said, “but I’ve got a bit of a special case here and…well I wanted to…there’s no easy way to tell you this…”
“Tell me what?”
“I got a phone call last night from a worker at the [City Name] District Office and she specifically requested you for a family placement for two boys.” A family placement is when children are removed from their parent(s) and placed with other family members.
“A family placement?” I asked. “That’s funny…I have no family, much less any family with children.”
“You don’t have a brother named [S] with two young sons?”
“NoooooooOH MY GOD…Wait…WHAAAAT?”

The whole sordid story goes a little like this: apparently when S’s wife was planning on leaving him and moving back up here to her parent’s house, she planned on taking the children with her. Being the half-wit that she is, she told N about her plans to leave S and take the children home with her. There was a huge scene, after which S convinced her to leave and pick the kids up over the weekend. The dumbass LEFT HER CHILDREN and, as you can probably guess, S went to the court first thing the next morning and got emergency sole custody of the kids because their mother technically abandoned them. Okay fine. This was 6 months ago. The judge awarded my pseudo-brother physical custody of the kids and gave his wife visitation. The wife has been trying to fight to get the kids back, but since she’s got her own mental issues and has spent time in a mental hospital, she hasn’t gotten very far.

Fast forward to Thursday night. A girl that my pseudo-brother has apparently been dating/living with/whatever called the state police and sent them to his house for a welfare check on the children. I don’t know the full story of WHY she was in fear for the kids’ lives, but I’ll get the full story eventually I suppose. Anyways, when the cops showed up at his house, they found the children with pillowcases over their heads and tied to their beds and with various old bruises and injuries.

Isn’t THAT just fucking wonderful? I can’t even wrap my brain around this. Mind you, these pseudo-brothers of mine and even N and E are the LAST people I would think capable of this kind of dysfunction. Despite the drama that drove me away from them, it was just your average run-of-the-mill family drama…I would never in a million years think this kid capable of hurting his own two kids like this.

Anyways, social workers were called and the children have been placed in a temporary foster home while they work out what the long-term plan is. When the social worker in charge of the kids interviewed N as a potential family placement, they ruled her out within 10 seconds of her stating that she’d take the kids and run. That’s exactly the response I would have expected out of her but I’m more than a little shocked that she allowed her son to treat her grandchildren like this, but a lot of shit has apparently happened since the last time I had contact with these people. None of what I’m hearing sounds like the ’screwy but somewhat normal’ family that I was thrust into all those years ago. Apparently N had told the social worker in charge that ‘her daughter up north is a foster parent and will take them’. I laughed when I heard that.

I told my social worker a condensed version of my experience with this family and that I’d need a lot more information before I even consider taking the two boys. I half thought to myself that that sounds incredibly awful, but this isn’t an ordinary case. This could potentially open a can of worms that I SO don’t want anything to do with. Not to mention the fact that I don’t even KNOW these two kids. They’re not my nephews in any real sense of the word…I’ve never even laid eyes on them…and it doesn’t help when my social workers tells me that the social worker in charge of the kids described them as ‘half-feral’.

“Wait,” I said, “feral? As in FERAL feral? As in ‘raised-by-animals’ feral??”
“Not quite that bad, but neither of them are very well socialized. We’re still trying to get our facts straight, but I’d put them at a ’severely neglected’ level. The 8 year old is still in diapers. The 12 year old can barely write his name and seems to function at a 4-5 year old level. Neither of them were in school. Their manners are non-existant and they both scream to get what they want, but that’s all I know so far.”

After I can manage to say more than “Oh dear God”, I’ve got some phone calls to make.