Promises in the sky

Today was my first day back to work after a week off for doctor visits and vacation. It’s rare for me to take an entire week off where I truly disconnect from work, from email, from checking in, from staffing cases. This was one of those rare times where I for the most part did that, at least for a few days. But the truth is, the escape from work was interrupted on Tuesday afternoon, right before our ship left the port, by news of a decision made on the difficult trial I was involved in earlier this month. The ruling that was made wasn’t one that I had hoped for, or one that I agreed with, and is one that I worried a great deal about, and for quite a while after finding out the result, it was all I could do to hold it together instead of falling apart in front of my kids.

As hard as I tried to set down my worry and my angst, it kept coming back to me the rest of that afternoon and evening.

And then the following morning, as I stepped out on the balcony of our room with my coffee, I saw the brightest of the rainbows pictured here. And I soon realized it was not one rainbow but two. As I looked at the rainbows before me, I remembered God’s promise to Noah. 

And I remembered the moments spent at the beginning of one of the difficult days of the trial. Moments holding hands with my caseworker, tears streaming from both our eyes, my voice choked with tears as I prayed to God the following words: “Gracious God, you know our hearts, and you know the needs of these children. And God, we know that as much as we love these children, you love them that much more. And that as you hold us today, you hold them as well.” 

And seeing the rainbows before me, one for each of these precious babies, I knew without doubt that while I did not understand the decisions made for these children, that God had a plan for their lives bigger than any that any of us who care for them could ever imagine. And knowing that could allow me to let go of my fear and my worry and my questions of what I could have done better or differently.

I know that regardless of the outcome of the trial, God holds these precious children and God holds each of us. Each and every day. Even on those days where we think we are all alone. And some days, when we really need it, God sends a reminder of that promise. Made to us again, each and every morning. 

Why I Speak

I sat in a room in a church building the week before last with 22 other adults, both queer and allies, and marveled that in just six months, a group that started out with 8 of us making plans of how to form what is essentially a grown up version of a gay straight alliance has grown to be a group that has touched so many, has formed so many close and supportive relationships, has formed an incredible support group for our youth queer and allies, and is becoming the training ground for at least one if not two groups like it in other geographical areas.

We talked about our upcoming Ally training, the second we will host in just six months time. We talked about how we can serve as allies for each other, wherever we may be on the gender and sexuality spectrum. 

We talked about the struggles and questions and joys that we are experiencing in our lives, and for those of us who are parents of queer children, in the lives of our children.

I listened as queer adult after queer adult spoke of how even now some of their parents don’t fully support them. Of how grateful they were that they didn’t come out to their families as teenagers because they would have never gotten the support they needed at the time in life when they needed it the most. I wanted to mother and love every one of those adults in the way that they deserved to be mothered and loved, no matter their age or stage of life.

I sat there in absolute gratitude that I am part of a church that not only supports these amazing people but supports me in supporting my child.

I spent time this past Saturday night with a group of queer youth and adults and their ally families and friends as we ate together, swam together, laughed together, and loved one another, and spoke of things that most adults are hesitant to speak about with teenagers but which most teenagers so desperately need to know, but don’t have safe adults whom they can ask.

There are times that I wonder if I am too vocal in my support of LGBTQ+ rights. Times that I worry I may make people uncomfortable in my beliefs. I know for certain that I have made people question what they have always believed about God because what I believe and speak out about is so different than what they grew up believing. I pray that my beliefs never drive someone away from God but rather lead people to question for themselves who God is, and in that questioning, draw closer to the God who made them and loves them and is their biggest fan in this life.  

There are times I wonder if, as I continue to write and vocalize my strong beliefs, I will lose friends who do not agree with those beliefs, and as sad as that possibility makes me, I recognize that if I do, I do. That I must continue to speak my truth and accept that some friendships last for a season, and some for a lifetime, and it may be that sometimes people have to leave our lives to make room for new ones who need to come in.

Whenever I question whether I am making the right choice in my decision to be so vocal in my support of my queer child, I look at that queer child and I marvel at how confident he is in who he is, in how deeply he is loved, and in how perfectly created he was by God in all of who he is. And how that confidence allows him to love others so deeply, whether they support who he is or not.

Whenever I question whether I am making the right choice in my decision to be so vocal in my support of my queer friends, I look at those queer friends and I marvel at all that I have learned from them over these past months about love, commitment, forgiveness, and grace. And I am so very grateful to have each and every one of them in my life because they have made it so much richer just by being who God made them to be.

There is much I do not know about God. Much I will never know until I am at last standing face to face in God’s presence. But what I do know is this. God’s greatest commandments were to love God and to love each other. And if I make people uncomfortable in my pursuit of being obedient to those commandments, then I will gladly stand before God on my judgment day and answer to those actions. Because I believe the Jesus I know will be standing right beside me saying, “me too.”

Finding the gold

Typically when I have something in my head that I need to write, I am able to sit down at my computer and the words flow through my fingers and over the keyboard like water.

Some days the flow is like the deluge of rain from a sudden summer storm.

At other times it’s like light sprinkles that take time to turn into a steady rain.

Over this past week, the words have rested in my head and in my heart like in a dark storm cloud on the horizon, heavy with meaning and threatening in intensity, yet slow to release the cleansing flood that washes away the dust and releases the pressure that has been building up in the atmosphere.

So many thoughts and feelings have swirled through my head and settled uneasily into my heart over the past two weeks. Some I want to dwell on and revisit, some I want to leave without making their indelible impression upon my soul.

I’ve sat at my computer on more than one occasion to try to put the thoughts and feelings into words, as a way of processing what they mean, and, through saying them aloud, remove the power they hold over me. Each time, I have given up, in weariness and frustration. In sadness of being unable to do what usually comes so easily to me. To paint a picture with words of what dwells in my heart and in my mind.

Finally, last night, I saw this photo posted by a sweet co-worker who lived alongside me last week the experience that leaves me with so many of the feelings that trouble my soul. Feelings of frustration and anger. Feelings of injustice and aggravation. Feelings of being misunderstood and mistreated. Feelings of fear and apprehension about decisions made out of our control, and despite our best efforts, and our hardest and most heartfelt work.

What I felt last week, over the weekend, and this week has had a lot to do with hate and very little to do with love. Hate for the things that drugs do to people and the things it makes them do to others. Hate directed toward me for the stance I took and the steps I took to protect that stance. Hate directed at me because of the color of my skin, deriving from a hate developed from having received it too many times because of the color of theirs. Hate of a world where babies are broken beyond repair by parents rendered impatient and enraged by the effect of drugs and parental influence. Hate of a world where pre-teen boys are starved and left to die alone by parents too preoccupied with their own needs and desires and self-imposed obligations to worry about the needs of their special need child. Hate of a world where two loving friends cannot dance together in public because it isn’t safe to do so because of people’s closed minds and closed hearts.

But through it all, I keep playing back a conversation between my pastor and a colleague, told by her to a group of 23 people, not long ago strangers, bound together by a common desire to love and support one another in who God made them to be. She told of a visit to an elderly church member who, as they left, told them she loved them. Of the teary response of the colleague who questioned, “How can she love me when she just met me?” And the response of my pastor of “That’s how we do church.”

And in response to all the hate of the past 2 weeks, I strive to do church in that way. Each and every day. Inside those church walls and out.

To love those that I have just met.

To love those who choose to hate.

To love those who might not live the way I do, look the way I do, or love the way that I do.

To pour that love out onto the world like a drenching rain onto a parched and cracked earth.

And to find the gold instead of the dirt.

A heart for this world

I had another  attorney ask me awhile back if I needed therapy to deal with the things that I see in this job. I told him that my therapy was in writing.

Which is true.

It’s also in my friends.

In my family.

In my faith

In my amazing co-workers.

I do need therapy, honestly I think that everyone does, but it’s to deal with things that happened long before this job did.

We had a speaker one night in the seminary class I took this last semester. She made the statement: “You wouldn’t have a heart for this world without your heart having at some point been broken.”

That is true for many of the people I know who do the work that we do. They, like I, do have a heart for this world. Especially for those within it who are wounded, or hurting, or considered less than. We have a heart for the least of these. Because our hearts has been broken. We have been wounded. We have been the least of these. And for the past 20 years, I have worked with children who have been through the same.

Many of the attorneys that I work with have become jaded by the work that we do, by the people with which we work, by the things that we have seen. I get it. I really do. I’m not sure why that hasn’t happened to me. I’ve thought maybe it’s because I work with so many social workers in this line of work that they have rubbed off on me over the years. And that could be it, in part. But I think the quote above, sent to me by my chosen sister, is much of the reason.

And so, after a difficult week, and a difficult week to come, with stories of children who have been harmed and broken by those who should have loved them the most, I pray to still have that heart.

Let me never be hardened by this world.

Let me never become jaded by this work.

Let my heart never stop breaking for the things that break God’s.

Let me always love deeply.

Let me always care.

Let me always have a heart for this world.

Let me never stop fighting for the least of these.

Whatever my career, whatever my title, wherever my place.

Suffer the Little Children

9 months ago I stood over the hospital bed and held the hand of a child who would be removed from life support later that day.

2 months ago I watched his mother plead guilty to the actions which led to the serious bodily injury which ultimately led to his death, and four weeks ago, and again today, I watched the sentencing hearing which determined her fate in her role in his death.

I heard a therapist testify to the family counseling he provided to the family to deal with what they reported as Christopher’s mental illness and behavior.

I heard one police officer testify about how he found padlocks on the outside of Christopher’s bedroom door, and scratches on the inside, where he tried to get out. I heard another officer testify how his mother and father brought him to the police station the year before he died, asking how they could get rid of him.

I heard Christopher’s mother testify to using food deprivation as a means of behavior modification, continuing the deprivation even after realizing it was not an effective form of discipline. I would withhold meals but “no more than 3 times a day” she said. But she thought that was okay because she would only withhold food when he was bad. He could eat when he would behave. But this little boy with the mental illness and the behaviors caused by the severe abuse and neglect he had suffered for years? He didn’t know how to behave enough to keep himself alive.

I heard his grandfather testify of having seen Christopher three weeks before his death and being so concerned about his appearance that he told his daughter and son in law to get him to the doctor the next day, but  never following up to make sure they did. And that he hadn’t seen him for six months prior to then, because he wouldn’t allow him to come to his home because he threw things in his brand new pool. I listened to his bitterness at having the surviving children removed from the family, because of his and his wife’s failure to intervene, and how he didn’t know what more could be done to his daughter as “Y’all have already taken anything that mattered to her.” I heard him vilify Christopher saying “He could make somebody a raving lunatic if he so chose.”

I heard the medical examiner testify that what might have caused this child’s death was the head injury he received caused by blunt force trauma. Or it might have been caused by the seizures he suffered, that were left untreated, for hours on end, while he was left unresponsive by himself at home, while his father went back to work after his mother had left to take his siblings to their grandparents. Or it might have been caused by the starvation that caused him to be the smallest 12 year old she had ever seen, weighing only 38 pounds at his admittance to the hospital, and so emaciated that his knee joints were the widest parts of his legs, and lanugo covered his gaunt, shrunken body, with the muscle mass so depleted that he was just a collection of skin, bone, and organs.

As I sat there, I thought of the small boy that I stood over those months ago. I remembered my pain and my sadness and my musings of whether this child had ever been cherished or loved. And the more that I heard, the more I believed that he probably never had.

The judge sentenced Christopher’s mother to 50 years in prison. For starving to death, over several months’ time, this child she should have loved. This child she should have sacrificed everything for. This child she should have done everything in her power to protect and care for. This child she should have valued but instead reviled.

And I felt not a thing.

I thought that I would feel a sense of relief or closure.

What I felt instead was a great sense of emptiness.

At Christopher's death, yes.

But also at the misery that was his all too short, all too tortured life.

And the lives of his surviving siblings who, even now, are beginning to realize the magnitude of what they saw and experienced.

And I wondered, as I have wondered on more than one occasion in these last months, what was the purpose of this child’s existence.

What good came of his having lived.

What good came of his having died.

The wondering has yet to lead to an answer.

I wonder if it ever will.

Not the mom I thought I would be

When I was pregnant the first time, we chose not to find out the baby’s gender before birth. Although we didn’t officially know, we were both quite sure that the baby was a girl. And then the baby was born and instead of the little girl we had expected, we had a baby boy. And we were surprised.

And Aaron wasn’t just a boy, but a boy who didn’t sleep unless he was being held. And the combination of the exhaustion, and the postpartum hormones, and the surprise over him being a boy rather than a girl, all combined one day and I remember telling him, as I was changing his diaper, and he was screaming, and I was exhausted, and I was crying, “you are not what I expected.”

And he wasn’t.

And he hasn’t been what I expected his entire life. Almost all those ways have been good. But they have caused me to re-evaluate how I needed to parent him. They have caused me to re-evaluate how I needed to advocate for him. They have caused me to re-evaluate the type of parent that I needed to be for him. And the same has been true for Clayton, albeit without all the postpartum new mother freak out.

I am not the parent that I thought I would be when I first started this parenting journey 20 years ago. Because neither one of my boys has been the child/teenager/young adult that I thought they were going to be. So I’ve had to adjust. And I’ve had to learn to be the mother that they needed me to be, not the mother I thought I was going to be.  A mother who over the years has learned more about Barney, Veggietales, Thomas the Tank Engine, the US presidents, theatre, band, choir, art, and art supplies and techniques than I ever thought I would know or need to know.

I have also learned more about asthma, lung diseases, immune deficiencies, and all the treatments for all those things, along with how to deal with insurance companies and disability offices. I have learned to administer medications through a PICC line, administer percussive therapy, insert infusion needles. I have learned to conduct business from hospital rooms and waiting rooms and doctor’s office treatment rooms. I know more about the process of plasma donation and production of immunoglobulin and IGG levels than I ever thought I would want or need to know.

Because that is the mother that Aaron needs me to be.

I have also learned more than I ever knew there was to know about sexual orientation, physical, and romantic attraction, gender identity, gender expression, and gender presentation. I have learned about the history and the context of Bible verses that I had never before bothered to study. I have learned what businesses, churches, and universities are LGBTQ+ friendly and affirming, and which are not. I have learned to love and cherish an entire new village of people that I never had reason to believe I would even know much less come to consider some of my favorite people.

Because that is the mother that Clayton needs me to be.

And the truth is, becoming the mother that these two boys need me to be has changed who I have become as a person. It has broadened my view of the world. It has made me more compassionate, more empathetic, more kind, and more loving. It has also made me less fearful of change and confrontation, more outspoken, more sure of who I am and what I believe, and more articulate in stating those things.

Because that is the mother that they need me to be.

That is the mother I need myself to be. 

That is the person that I need myself to be.

And maybe most important of all, that is the person that God needs me to be in this world.

For my own boys, and for others God has placed in my path.

Perspective

As an Enneagram 9, routine is my happy place; but my #1 strength on strength finders is adaptability which means that typically I go with the flow and take things as they come. Those two things seem in conflict but for the most part they aren’t.

Except when they are.

I’ve been hearing rumors for the past couple of months of changes within the court system in some of our rural counties that may change the way that my cases are handled in my county. But they’ve just been rumors that I haven’t been able to find any clarification on, and none of my local people seem to know anything about them.

And then over the past week I’ve heard more detailed rumblings, and this morning in court, I heard things that made the change seem more definite. Still, nobody locally seems to know what is going on and if we are going to be affected and exactly how the whole thing is going to work.

And so my need for routine overcame my strength of adaptability, and I was moderately freaking out.

In the process of my moderate freak out, I was talking to one of the CPS supervisors about the situation, and I was just really complaining. “It sure would be nice if they got input from the people being directly affected,” I said. Followed by, “I just don’t like it when decisions are being made about my life without consulting me, and I have no control over it.”

And as soon as those words came out of my mouth, it was like a lightbulb went off.

I stopped and looked at her. Because it hit her about the same time it hit me.

“This must be just what it feels like for the kids we work with,” I said.

Suddenly everything fell into the proper perspective.

Because at the end of the day, whatever happens with this work situation, I still have my home to go to.

Where my family lives.

Where my pets are.

Which has all my clothes, my books, my things.

I get to sleep in my own bed with my own pillow and shower in my own shower  and dress in my own clothes out of my own closet.

I get to go to my own church on Sunday and see my own friends this week.

Unlike the kids in the court system who too often lose absolutely everything in their lives that gives them comfort and a sense of safety. The kids whose lives are affected by major decisions being made with often very little input from them about it. The kids who the system too often fails to consult about what is going on with their present and their future.

I don’t know what will happen with the court situation. Whether I will be affected or whether I won’t.

What I do know is this: the next time that I make a decision about a child’s life, I will try to be a bit more aware of how it must feel to have decisions made about your life that you may or may not be a part of or even be aware of until it’s done. 

All Rise

I’ve worked in the court system for more than 25 years. Whenever the judge comes into the courtroom, he or she is preceded by the court bailiff who says “All Rise.” And everyone stands up, and remains standing, until the judge tells them they may be seated. The same happens with a jury. When the jury comes into the courtroom from the jury room, the bailiff says “All Rise for the jury” and everyone stands up and remains standing until the jury is seated.

Both are a way of showing respect to those who are going to be making hard decisions.

While I’ve been a part of both of those experiences literally thousands of times over the years, I’ve never really thought much about either of the practices.

Until two weeks ago while sitting in a jury trial with particularly difficult facts.  It was a criminal trial, a companion case to one of my CPS cases, involving the death of an 8 week old who had starved to death. The testimony was heartbreaking, causing, on more than one occasion, tears both on the witness stand, in the gallery, and in the jury box. It made me think of the many ugly trials I have been a part of over the years, and how hard it must be for most jurors to sit and listen to things so far outside the scope of their everyday lives.

I thought about how hard it can be for those of us who do this work for a living to see and hear the things we do day after day after day. I wondered about the ability of many of us to compartmentalize the things we hear and see, as a defense mechanism, to allow us to live the rest of our lives without the constant effects of the PTSD that we ourselves sometimes develop as a reaction to all the secondary trauma we experience.

I thought about those times, like two weeks ago, when after listening to the trial of the starved 8 week old, I listened to the beginning of a sentencing hearing on another criminal case a companion case to one of my cases, with another child, this one older, who too had been starved to death. In the middle of watching these two trials, I observed one of the most emotional goodbye visits I’ve ever observed. And despite all the years I have done this work, and all the skills I have at compartmentalizing the trauma, the week was just too much. It was one of those weeks which occurs from time to time when there is just too much to compartmentalize effectively, and too much to be able to mentally and intellectually and emotionally process, and the only reaction a person can possibly have is to just shut down or fall apart. I did a bit of both, to be frank.

And so as I reflected on that week, and I reflected on the practice of standing as the judge or jury enters the courtroom, I began to wonder if maybe the significance of the “All Rise” isn’t just about the respect for the office of the judge or of the juror. Maybe it’s more than just an acknowledgement of their important role as decision maker. Maybe it’s a recognition of the fact that hard stuff is about to happen. Important stuff is about to happen. Stuff that most people know little or nothing about is about to be discussed and decided. And there is gravity to that. There is honor in that.

So for all my fellow prosecutors, investigators, law enforcement, support staff, attorneys, caseworkers, CASA advocates, court reporters, bailiffs, court clerks, and judges, I honor and respect the job that you do, in hearing and seeing hard things. Keep up the good work.

And the next time you hear and respond to the command of “All Rise” do so in deference to the judge or the jury. But do so as well in recognition of your own role in what can be an incredibly difficult job.

Holding hands

It was the image of their hands entwined that broke my heart the most. My boys tell me it’s called “waffling”, when you hold hands with a person that way. And that it’s much more personal than “pancaking” where your palms touch but your fingers stay apart. Waffling is reserved for only those you really love, they tell me.

And this little boy really does love his mama, despite the anger and the confusion and the sadness he is feeling on this day, his last time to visit with her after she has given up her parental rights to him.

I am grateful to see him finally sitting in her lap, this last time, when he had spent the 20 or so minutes before, by himself, sitting across the room, his head down on the back of the chair he sat straddling. He had been so angry and in so much pain that the waves of both emotions radiated off his little body in almost visible waves.

But finally now, in these last minutes he will be with her, he sits in his mama’s lap. He’s a little big really to be sitting there, his legs hanging all the way to the floor. She holds him as she must have when he was a toddler, in her arms, kissing his face. He doesn’t wipe the kisses away this time as he did two weeks before, when he didn’t know what was coming, but when I wanted to badly to go in the room and tell him, don’t wipe away the kisses, sweetie. You’re going to want to keep them. You’re going to want to keep them always.

He sits there, his fingers entwined with hers, as she whispers in his ear, as she did with his two sisters, all the things that she needs to say to him while she still has the chance. This little boy who once grew in her body and under her heart. This little boy for whom I’m sure she once had great plans and big dreams. This little boy who will grow up with a different family because the hold methamphetamine has on her is stronger than the hold her little man has on her hand.

And tears leak from my eyes for the 5^th time this visit, my heart breaking as I wonder, how many more times must I watch this play out? How many more times will I have to witness children saying goodbye to their parents because of the hold that drugs or other demons have on their parents? How many times? And the answer is as long as I am here. As long as I do this work. However long that may be. Because I owe it to these children. I owe it to these parents. I owe it to my workers. And I owe it to myself. 

May I never forget the heartbreak that comes when I ask a judge or a jury to bring a legal end to a family. May I never forget the image of two hands entwined, for the last time, as a little boy says goodbye to the person in the world who is supposed to love him most and put him first. 

May I never stop praying for his healing, and for hers, and for new healthy lives for them both. So that some day, when this little boy looks for his mother, as I have faith he probably will, he will find her healthy and whole. And he will be able to build a new relationship with her that is life giving and love affirming. And that one day she will have the opportunity to waffle hands with her grandchildren, the way she once did with this sweet little boy, on the day that they said goodbye.