This is a long, rambling post. Basically, I say the visit went well and difficult child is back on the streets. She assures us she will keep better contact, and that she will visit again, soon. Either way, husband and I are doing really well with everything. Wonderful to see her, actually very nice to have her go back to her own life so that we can enjoy ours.
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LONG VERSION. FILLED WITH INTERESTING OBSERVATIONS ABOUT LIFE ON THE STREETS AND POSSIBLE MIRACULOUS OCCURRENCES. :O)
We had such a nice time with difficult child. Our friend (the one we were on the way to the airport for when difficult child called and said she wanted to come home) is an understanding man, who has lost one of his own children (a son) to drugs. Many years ago, this son died of a heroin overdose. It was the same thing for his family. They tried everything they knew to help their son...but they lost him. They also lost their marriage. We have never met the first wife. Anyway, though the friend had no idea our daughter was having problems to this degree, or that she would be here during his visit, he was accepting and supportive. As we (or even, difficult child) filled in the backstory, he took everything in stride. The two of them got along very well.
But, oh! Some of the stories we heard! difficult child is matter of fact about the homelessness thing, about what it is like to have your things stolen again and again, about sleeping on the streets or in abandoned houses. The day we picked her up, someone stole her shoes. It was so crazy! We had just emptied that storage unit, as you guys know. We kept everything we thought she might want here, in the garage. Sure enough, there were shoes in there for her. We found her a good, thick sleeping bag, fed her well while she was here, and sent her on her way, this morning.
One of the things difficult child wanted was for us to take the bad man in, too. She repeatedly told us that if the two of them only had a stable environment from which to make a fresh start, she just knew he would change.
We said no.
Absolutely, no.
difficult child does not see the outrageousness of her situation, or the viciousness of the people she is with. I told her we don't even want them to know where we live.
Know what she took with her?
Hotdogs.
While checking her email here, difficult child learned that the teaching license for this state, which she had applied for last Fall before all this happened, has been approved.
So, miraculously enough, difficult child has a valid teaching license for this state. Strangely enough? She does not have an I.D., a Social Security card, or a birth certificate, to prove she is the person to whom the license was issued. :O) I mean, it's sort of funny, when you think about it. Also, does not have a driver's license ~ and for all I know, may never be issued another license to drive, again.
That news about the teaching license threw difficult child into an absolute tailspin. I think she has spent so much time destroying her life that she felt justified, now that everything was gone, in living the way she has been. There was a time, not so long ago, that difficult child was a gifted teacher. She loved teaching kids who were spending their own youths the way she had spent hers. She could reach them, could show them, especially in mathematics (her field) that they could do it, after all.
So, we concentrated on that aspect of things. We repeated some of the stories she had told us ~ about her more difficult students, and about what it felt like to reach and help them.
(When difficult child was teaching, we heard as much about her students as we did about our grandchildren!)
Last night, husband spent some alone time with difficult child. Pretty much telling her what she could expect financially, and what she could not. Also, how wrong it was for her to waste her life and her talents as she is.
difficult child looks just fine. She has all her teeth, her nose looks pretty good. (Though it has been broken three or four times since last Fall.) She walks so much that she is strong and fit. They eat at the soup kitchens nearly every day. She said the homeless people form communities and watch out for one another. The day we picked her up, there was an old homeless lady waiting with difficult child. We gave her two dollars (which is the small cash I had in my billfold) and felt like cheapskates. difficult child said that was more then generous. That most people give change, and that when the street person has enough for a bottle of alcohol, they go and buy it with that change. Their routines revolve around panhandling for money in the morning.
After breakfast.
Sort of like a job.
Imagine that.
So, it's been an interesting few days. husband and our company are dropping difficult child off at the porch in the abandoned house she sleeps in with the bad man. He is going to wait for her in this park the homeless people gather in. There was not a thing we could say to change difficult child's mind about anything she is doing. This is very freeing, for us. When I said something to the effect that difficult child must be enjoying life on the streets, she became upset? But at different times, she would say things like, "I remember working every day, scheduling my life around work, buying more stuff and never having enough money. I wasn't happy doing that."
So, there you go.
This lifestyle is a choice.
difficult child did admit that she was taken to EMOR by ambulance about a month ago. Alcohol poisoning. Blood alcohol was 5. something. She woke up in Intensive Care. the nurse told her what had happened. When she was released? She went and found the bad man. He was like, "Where the Hell have you been?" She said the hospital. And then, difficult child said, "He understood that, so it was no big deal."
The whole idea that a woman should not be anywhere near a man who enables that kind of alcohol consumption and then, doesn't stick around long enough to find out whether the woman lived or died when the ambulance takes her just never occurred to difficult child. This is the bad man who is supposed to be dying. That last incident (I posted about it) when she told us he just collapsed on the streets? Well, turns out he had alcohol poisoning. Apparently, there is something out there called GinKa. Half gin, half vodka.
Here is a very strange thing that happened, this morning. So, you know I have been all into the Joel Osteen materials and sermons. So, I preset the television last night for his 7 a.m. sermon and then, his 7:30 a.m. sermon, in case I missed the first one. Out of all the mornings she has been here, difficult child awakened early this morning, and flipped the television on. I overslept, and missed both sermons. All I heard from difficult child when I got up was: "Some pastor kept coming on the television this morning. I would switch the channel, and it would keep going back to him. Then, the same show came on again! Spooky!" I just said that I had preset the timer for those shows. difficult child looked pretty relieved, and we just laughed about it. Here is the really strange thing: When I listened to the program online after difficult child left this morning? It was all about how, no matter what you've done, Grace (God) is seeking you out, is preparing a way for you to come back to fulfill your destiny.
Isn't that the strangest thing?
A sermon custom-made for difficult child, who hasn't even had television for almost a year, now. Somehow, I pre-tune it like I usually do, even though we have company and were up later than usual and I figured I might not get to see it, at all. Which I didn't. Somehow, difficult child happens to be sleeping on the sofa, instead of in the guest room, because we have a guest the weekend she chooses to come home. She awakens early, snaps on the T.V., and it tunes, and then re-tunes, to a sermon called "Grace is Looking For You."
Could all be coincidence, of course.
There certainly were lots of things that made that happen, though.
I'm just sayin'.
We talked about difficult child's children a little. Chaotic emotions there, as can be imagined. We talked about the fact that it takes more courage to let your children grow up healthy away from you than it does, to keep trying to see them and have them with you when you are not healthy, yourself. It was interesting to see that difficult child is conflicted about wanting the kids back. That must be a very hard thing, to know how to feel about yourself when you have done what difficult child has done. What we sort of concluded is that, if difficult child sends child support, the kids will know she is involved in their lives in some way, and will remember that she loves them.
There really wasn't anything more to say, about that.
Barbara
Enjoy! Hugs DDD
