From Feb 26, 2007
Two of my clients (brothers) had a successful discharge today. This means that their mother, whose custody they were taken from by the state, did everything she was supposed to do to complete her treatment plan to regain custody of them.
This was a rare case for me and sadly rare for many in this line of work. Rare because I had nothing but good feelings and absolutely no mixed emotions about sending them home. I'd met their mother, something I don't often like doing at all, got to know her and got the feeling from her that this was indeed a case in which, although certainly she'd made some drug-related mistakes, she was not only a pretty decent person but definitely a pretty good and capable mom.
Of the two, it was the older one I enjoyed more. He turned 16 while in our care and I'll refer to him as "The Baller"--mainly because he had to explain to me what this meant. Apparently this is African-American slang for, according to Wikipedia, someone who's made it and lives a pretty flashy, showy, luxurious lifestyle. I do not remember what conversation we were having which brought this up. He was probably easier because he'd just baaaarreeely met criteria for our level of care and consequently was easy to deal with therapeutically. Depression was his main burden but, he'd seemed to have established such a relationship with his foster mother, and she with their mother, that this was eliminated in pretty short order and my only task was to watch Smallville with him (oh yeah, that was a really tough one for me).
His foster mother, whom I shall refer to as "The Earthquake", deserves to be the sole topic of another blog. In short, she's...something of a force to be reckoned with and for her to have provided for him the environment needed to feel secure enough to show patience for the reunification process...that's a God thing. Which should surprise me none for she is a woman of great faith...it's just always had to be on her own terms.
"I'm always happy," the Baller told me in a recent session. It was in response to a remark I'd made about his disposition and his attitude when saying it was one of incredulity, implying as if I could be anything else...shee-ahht (which of course he would never say to me in that home). He conveniently forgot his fairly devastated mood when he was first placed with us, but I allowed it. Even while in his funks, his smart-ass antics were always good for a grin.
The two boys are of mixed African and western European ancestry. Their enviable light-mocha complexions and greyish-green eyes make for a somewhat surreal bewitching quality. The Baller normally wears his hair in cornrolls, but he once answered the door with his hair completely undone in a huge 'fro. His complete nonchalance about his appearance as he greeted me had me struggling to keep my reaction to a slight chuckle. In my first intake interview with him, he made no bones about how he felt one of his strengths to be his looks..."because I'm just so fine." I'll miss this kid, because he was fun.
His little brother was a different story. I'll call him "The Buck", because he would often look as a deer in headlights...not really scared so much as frozen and uncooperative (granted you don't really think of a deer as "uncooperative", but I've never really known of them to be "cooperative" per se, have you?). He turned 13 while he was with us. As hinted, I never really got anywhere with him. My rapport with him usually came after several card games of Speed and Nertz shared also with the Baller. He had a huge chip on his shoulder, in no small part due to the fact that the Baller was a huge pain in the ass for him, as in over-protective and domineering big brother.
"Why wouldn't he wanna' be like me?" the Baller asked in reference to the Buck, with his aforementioned nonplussed attitude, completely deadpan. However, even despite the the Baller's self-assuredness that he was not only an appropriate role model for his younger brother, but the only role model necessary (for anyone), the Buck was quite adamant that he "wanted to be his own man." The Baller could not seem to accept this, and though he never admitted it, I think he felt it of utmost importance to keep as much of a reign on his younger brother as he could for the duration of their stay in foster care. The more he tried of course, the more unruly the Buck would become. Understandable enough, and I tried my best to validate both of their feelings and motivations for their tension-inducing behavior but, I put the question to them, was there some other way they could show they cared?
The Baller's coping skills with the inherent frustrations of their situation were rather effective. The Buck on the other hand didn't even know how to begin and had little recourse but to allow that which is known as Attention Defecity Hyperactivity Disorder do the coping for him. The tensions mounted to the point that fists were swung and police were called. The Earthquake briefly felt she could no longer handle the Buck and gave the agency notice of termination to this effect. After a reportedly intense prayer in church the following Sunday however, she reconsidered. And after that, there really weren't too many more problems outside of normal teenage/parent squabbles.
The relationship between all three (and the Earthquake's own two teenage boys) in the foster home developed to the point that we always hope for. The Baller felt he could ease up on the Buck. This did wonders for the Buck of course. He actually opened up in our monthly January group meeting. When asked to draw a depiction of what he felt was a miracle, he drew guns...lots of guns. I confronted him on this demanding how this qualified as a miracle, to which he very calmly replied with a shrug, "These cure people."
Also helpful to him no doubt were a couple of medication changes (I actually had the privilege of making an honest to god drug-run for the Buck to save the Earthquake from being guilty of medical neglect earlier this month, yet another story). Certainly the Buck was still a tough crowd to warm up each new session, but I'll miss him too. He taught me a lot about this one Star Wars video game in which the characters were lego figures.
And so, a success story and a welcome one. A little bittersweet for me, sure. But the trade-off I'll take.
Holy crud, Satchel. You may not believe this, or maybe you will, but the house across the street seems to be burning and the firetrucks are on the scene. Yes, I will be looking for a new place once the lease is up. Gosh I hope you're not out of town again when I move this time. And if you are, will I actually tell you where I've moved to this time? Mwah-ha-ha-hah!
Safe trip brother. Love ya'
10:01 PM
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