Jack Brennan Perspectives

It has been much too long since my last posting.  I have told myself a number of true things as reasons why; but though true, they have been excuses:

Danny has finally – after three months – started school.  Were I to keep him out of school for three months, I’d be charged immediately with child abuse.  I’m glad he’s finally there, of course, but I have to wake him up at 5:45 am for him to make his bus 45 minutes later, so school can start at 7:15.  All the research that I have seen in recent years says that kids from his age on up need to start school later in the day, rather than earlier.  So is this schedule based on the needs of the kids? Or on someone else’s needs? It feels abusive to me. But I do finally have some uninterrupted periods of time where I can concentrate. Yet, I posted during his first two months here with no school and much too few of those uninterrupted times…..

I have finally found Abraham’s grave. That has been haunting me. His widow, in retaliation, I assume, for whatever grievous insult she apparently suffered at our hands, would not even tell us if he was buried – let alone, where. But with my nephew I went out searching last week and found it.  There is no headstone, of course. And I am forbidden to put one up – only the owner of the plot can do that.  So the only marker is the temporary one from the funeral home, with Abe’s name, his street nickname, and the dates of his birth and death. It is not how I wanted him buried, and I am more furious at him for marrying this woman who, as a result, had total control of his funeral, than I am at her.  How a one year marriage legally trumps twenty five years of parenting is beyond me.

And then there was the waiting for the sentencing of Abe’s killers. It happened as scheduled.  Two of them got 2-6 years; the third got 3-6 as he had an earlier felony.  Another of my adult sons, took time off from work to go to the sentencing. I couldn’t risk it, lest his widow be there – as she was scheduled to speak. I’d have said things to her that I would not be proud of. But, she didn’t show, so no one was there from the family except my son.  He reported that one of the guys did apologize in open court and that the family of one of them (same one?) came up to him afterwards and also apologized.  It’s interesting how that made me feel better – not for me really. How does an apology make up for taking my son’s life?  But it made me feel better for that guy.  It gave me hope that maybe he woke up – there is that consistent phrase of mine again: “woke up.”

I decided, after thinking about it for nearly six months,  that I want to speak to these three. Now that all the legal stuff is over, I can’t imagine that they have anything to lose, by agreeing to such.  My son asked me last night what would be my point. I don’t really know. Certainly, I want to know from their perspective what happened.  But there is something deeper going on there: three more ruined lives will not make me feel any better about Abe’s death.  Revenge really is hollow.  But maybe by having a conversation with me, each of them could come to terms with what they did and turn it into some positive re-start. That’s not why I want to meet with them, though. I need to do it for me.  Maybe standing in for Abe, were he alive to do it? A closure of some sort?  I don’t know.  In any event, I wrote to each of them  in state prison yesterday. We’ll see what happens.

So, what does all this have to do with my postings? I’m not sure. This blog is supposed to be about my perspectives on foster care adoption, and certainly Abe’s death moved the blog immediately and heavily into a very personal realm. Maybe I’ve needed some way to put closure to all that’s happened both with Abe and Danny, so I could get back to “normal.”  I don’t know.

But, curiously, writing this to post to the blog is lifting a weight off me regarding the blog. I would have felt phony dealing with any other topic before I dealt with these. I opened them up in the blog; I suppose I felt I had to close them.  They are now closed.

I hope.

Jack

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,200 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

I came home from a wake tonight for a sixteen year old boy – Justin – gunned down last Monday- as Monday of last week drew to a close.  He died a little while later – Tuesday – in his eighteen year old brother’s arms. They were walking down the street together with another friend when a guy came out of an alleyway in the Bronx and started shooting.  Knowing these boys, I can’t imagine that that is anything but the truth.

Justin and his brother, Kevin, are the best friends of my grandson Bobby, Abe’s son.  They have ridden from Utica to the Bronx with me more than once; they have spent the night in my house – twice. They have eaten breakfast with us in my kitchen and dinner, in my dining room.  They have had real conversations with me; made real connections to me. But now, Justin is gone. Sixteen years old.

His funeral is in the morning.  Forty years ago to the day of my eighteen year old brother’s (Aunt Rita’s son) funeral.  Bobby was killed by a drunken driver driving the wrong way on the Long Island Expressway two days before what still stands as the worst Christmas of my life.

There were some in the family who wanted to go get that guy – he was in the same hospital as my surviving brother was.  I’m glad they didn’t. They’d have ruined their lives for no good purpose.

The police haven’t caught the guy who shot Justin yet. And I badly want that guy caught – that’s how it feels.  But really, I don’t care about him. I want Justin back.  Forty years ago, we wanted Bobby back.

Later on Tuesday, the day of Justin’s death, the three guys who beat Abraham pled to manslaughter, with the promise of six years max in state prison, when they are sentenced in January.  We weren’t told till afterwards when we were offered a chance to make a victim’s statement at sentencing.  No thanks.

I don’t know what justice is for those three guys; I don’t know what justice is for the guy who killed Justin; I don’t know what justice would have been for the guy who killed Bobby.  Eye for an eye? Life for a life? Momentary revenge. How does that help?  Bobby’s wake was finished forty years ago tonight – and still I feel his loss.  I feel Justin’s loss. I feel – still to only some degree – Abraham’s loss.

I am not saying let the perpertrators walk away. But six years, ten years, twenty years?  What difference does it make?

The first of my kids, and the oldest, was in prison in Florida where he died in 1995.  A few years before he died, I went to visit him and the authorities gave us a private room to visit as it was off visiting days or something and they took pity on my New York self.

Ricky was telling me how I didn’t understand him. I didn’t get how bad he was; how angry; how he wanted to kill everybody.  I surprised him when I laughed at that.  I told him that his anger was not much different than mine was. That I, too, wanted to kill everybody.  That if I had my way, I’d kill them all.  But with one, and only one, difference from him.  I told him that after they were dead, I’d bring them back to life to see whether or not they now got it – did they see the extent of the damage they’d done to others, including to him, with their refusals to think?  Were they thinking now? And if they weren’t, then I’d kill them again. And bring them back to life again to see if they yet got it. And if not, I’d kill them again and again and again and again. I’d kill them – I told Ricky – until they either got it, or till God told me that the next time I killed them, they’d stay dead. Then, and only then, I’d stop.

“Because, Ricky, exactly like you, I don’t really want them dead. I just want them to stop their shit.”

Ricky was stunned that I – a person, to his eyes, who was so incredibly different from him – could even talk of having such anger and rage. It transformed his perspective on me certainly, but also on himself.

Justice for killing Bobby?  Justice for killing Abraham?  Justice for killing Justin?

All I want is for each of the killers, all of them, to wake up to the losses they have been responsible for and the incredible pain they have caused – a pain and loss that are felt for decades and decades.  Will six years in state prison do that?  Would sixteen? Or sixty?

Lock them away till they get it?  I don’t know how we’d know.

I know I miss Justin – and it’s barely a week; I know I miss Abe and it’s not yet even five months;  and I know I miss Bobby – and it’s been forty years.

There is no justice for those losses. For those pains.  There is only hope for the perpetrators, somehow, some way, some time, to wake up. And to begin to think.

A sad night for me.

In 1971 and, again, and still, tonight.

Jack

Yesterday, finally, we had Danny’s CSE (Committee on Special Education) meeting. It ended well – Danny got the placement that I would want for him, and when I would want it, given where we are now in the school year. More importantly – much more so – his ED (emotionally disturbed) label was removed from him.  His classification is now what it always should have been: Other Health Impaired (OHI) which is accurate given his need to have his diabetes constantly monitored.

But here is how I prepared for this meeting. First, I hired a CSE advocate. A calm, reasonable, brilliant strategist. She planned everything out; met with Danny and spent time with him, researched the law, and most important for me, she came to the meeting with me and advised me and the CSE every step of the way.  She gave me a big break on her fees, but still cost me hundreds of dollars.   She, in turn, referred me to a human psychiatrist.

Human psychiatrists are in contrast to the mechanical-by-the-book ones.  They are also much rarer. This one has her office one hundred miles from here. The psychiatrist meets with Danny and I first; then she meets with each of us individually. Then she attempts to get a handle on the whole picture, including all the horrific paperwork.  Lots of time on her part. Close to a thousand dollars – so far – on my end.

Then I asked my county caseworker – Danny is still technically a foster child – to attend the meeting by phone. She, in turn, asked her supervisor, the county director of adoption to also attend.  Not an easy thing to arrange given folks’ caseloads. But both of them attended (by phone) for the hour and a half meeting. That the supervisor pointed out that sometimes the family court judge has had so subpoena CSEs into court did not go un-noted by the head of the meeting. The judge would want to know why the child is not in school after so much time has passed. Well, it did not go un-noted by me that the head said that the CSE was very familiar with that kind of thing. Uh-huh.

And then there was Danny’s home schooling teacher, who gave an honest and full report on how Danny has been with her all these weeks. Her evaluation meant a lot, naturally, to these school folks and she pointed out that he could handle a regular school program.

I don’t suppose it hurt that I requested to tape the meeting. Of course, that couldn’t be approved until the school came up with their own machine to also tape. Mine was electronic; theirs required them to hunt down a cassette.  But tape it we finally managed.

And then, of course, there was me. Well aware of what I wanted; well aware of how I perceived Danny’s experiences the past two years – and articulate about both.

So it worked: they heard us now. Finally. All’s well that ends well and all that…..

But what if I hadn’t had a home equity line of credit to pay for these outside experts? What if Danny’s teacher was a cynical person simply waiting on her retirement date? What if the county didn’t participate? Or didn’t show their strong backing up of Danny and I?  What if I weren’t articulate? What if I knew nothing about these things and simply looked to the so-called experts to guide me through?  What if….any of those things?  Danny’s future should depend on all this?

And all because of the horrific reports that were sent onto the local CSE?  Reports done by very well paid experts. Reports that talked about Danny so that he was inevitably seen as essentially broken, damaged, and, by implication, no good. Not reports like I would write that require perspective, and hope, and, believe it or not about me, humility. Fr. Huntington defined humility for me decades ago as simply recognizing and defending the truth. Interesting definition, although I have probably distorted it in my memory.

Family Focus Adoption Services, where readers know that I work, has a rock bottom principle called the “Forty Year Plan.”  What it requires us to do is to look at the impact of the decisions we make now – on our kids or the families we work with – forty years from now.  That rule makes us look at things deeply, widely, and long long term.  Most importantly, it makes us look at things personally.  And that is what makes us stand heads and tails above any agency I’ve ever seen.  It also shows that it can be done.

The CSE did that long term perspective yesterday.  But do they do it routinely? Or because of what I brought to the table?  I don’t even wonder……

I don’t imagine there will be a need for me to write about Danny again. He’s now a regular kid, leading a regular life,  in a (more or less) regular family. That’s a happy ending.  He’s won the lottery (see last post).

Being his grandfather? So have I.

Jack

My last posting was on Monday, October 31. Friday, November 4th, Danny moved in.  Is it just me, or do you think there might be a connection?

The following Monday, I registered Danny in school, and today, five weeks later, Danny is still not attending school. Instead, the school district has placed him on home teaching, two hours a day (the state minimum for special ed students).  His IEP, the bible of Special Ed, recommended that he be in day treatment and/or in an 8 child, one teacher, one aide, (8-1-1) classroom. The district, claiming to have no such, is going to refer him to day treatment schools. Not try him in a 6-1-1 or a 12-1-1 or, imagine that: a regular sixth grade classroom. No. No chances to be taken with this defective human.

Prior to Danny moving in, I asked his social worker not to send in all the horrific reports to the school district as they all looked so bad. Academics only.  Her response – which even now is sitting in my craw – was that it would not be “ethical” to not send it.  Right…. But it is “ethical” to hold against an eleven year old boy all his behavioral reactions to being betrayed (see earlier posts) by the only family he ever knew – and then being blamed by them for their “having” to walk away?  What was he to do with all that pain, all that loss, and all that hopelessness for his future?  His parents left and took with them his siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, and friends. They took his house, his bedroom, his toys, his clothes, his favorite recipes. With them went his neighborhood, his Church, his stores, and his school.  And in their place was left the hope that someone would step up for him. Someone no where to be seen, but someone nonetheless?

The fact is that in our culture when someone steps up for any familyless kid over the age of 3, it is the equivalent of the child winning the lottery.  There are no adoptive families for most of these kids. Add in his history, and his diabetes, and there will be no one. Short of winning this adoption lottery, there never will be any one. But Danny is expected to moderate his behavior; learn to speak – without being overwhelmed – about his feelings; and behave himself. Trust the adults. And be good, now spoken as “be safe.”

Danny was not good.  And you know what? I admire that. It says to me that Danny is a believer. He believed that he was being betrayed; that he was being thrown away; and that we, as a culture, could essentially not care less.  And that made Danny berserk.  Isn’t that a good thing?  Isn’t it good that he threw off these people who were trying to get him to accept these experiences? Isn’t it good that he wouldn’t tolerate accepting less than what every kid is entitled to?

So he became a “bad” boy. No one spoke to his issues, so he listened to no one.  That is admirable as I see it.  But then the powers-that-be wrote up their experiences of Danny from – of course – their Olympian point of view.  And these reports – for years, I have referred to them as the “damage reports” -followed him here because it was the “ethical” thing to do.

In the past five weeks, I have not had time to write this blog. Danny is here every day all day (today, one of my kids took him out with his cousins for a few hours.)  Danny keeps me busy; and my still locked up grief about Abe, slows me down.  But I’m not kept busy with calming Danny down; and chasing after him and his path of destruction.  There is no path of destruction. Danny is creative. Not once has he turned on the TV. Not once.  He builds things out of junk; he plays with his hand held games; he reads; he rides his bike; he does whatever little homework he has; he plays with his little cousins downstairs; and his big cousins up here.  There are no problems with him. 

He’s not in school. And still I have no problems with him?  What kid – even without his history – would be able to keep himself busy day after day after day without acting out in some way or another. But Danny doesn’t.  He’s not a saint. But he’s not evil incarnate. He’s an eleven year old.

And what if I had to work a 9-5 every day?  What would happen to Danny then? 

But no one from the school district wants to hear that. No one chooses to respond to Danny as a person. Or to me.  No one is giving him a chance. Because the reports – the damage reports – had to be sent to the school and must be listened to by the school.  Because it is “ethical” to do so.

Ethical?  I don’t care what the dictionary definition is: without a response to the wholeness of a person and the person’s situation, there is no “ethical.”  Without giving a person a chance to redeem themselves or accept responsibility for their own future, there is no “ethical.” By presuming that what happened in the past always and automatically determines the future, there is no “ethical.”

There is rule following.  There is butt-covering.  And always there is bureaucracy.

But “ethical?” Ethical?

They can all kiss my unethical ass. The fight is on.

Jack

It has taken me months to do it, but I have finally finished sending out thank yous to the many many people who reached out to me and to my family when Abraham died.  Writing so many thank yous to so many people has gotten me thinking, because there were some folks whom I did not thank; some folks whom I could not bring myself to thank.

I think one of the earliest lessons we are taught, on our journey to becoming civilized, is to express gratitude for gifts for which we don’t feel grateful: grandma’s Christmas gift of socks; Uncle Charlie’s birthday gift of a book we wouldn’t read in a million years; Aunt Rose’s gift of a toy that’s more appropriate for our brother who is three years younger.  It comes as a shock to a kid, I think, to learn that it isn’t automatically phony to be grateful when we don’t feel that gratitude.

We are soon taught that it is the thought that counts, that a gift is always a good thing and not ever to be frowned upon.  And thus we are taught graciousness.

When I was in my twenties, my grandmother, a long time widow than in her seventies, and supported only by social security, still made sure to send me a birthday card every year. I found that thoughtful. But she always made sure to enclose two dollars.  That two dollars added little to my income, even forty years ago.  But I knew that it subtracted a lot from my grandmother’s.   I thought she was foolish to do it: the cost to her outweighed the benefit to me.

But when I turned twenty six, I had the opportunity to get into a special government mortgage program that would allow me to buy this house I am still in.  It required me to go on a strict – very strict – budget for over a year where every single penny literally mattered.  I had a hard time with it, but I was determined to take advantage of this opportunity, so I followed the budget religiously. And then my birthday came.

I don’t know that I have ever been so grateful as I was that birthday to open that card from my grandmother and find the usual two dollars.  It was totally unbudgeted money and I could do whatever I wanted to do with it. I suppose it would be the equivalent of about $15 today. It was a wonderful gift.

Yet, it was the same gift that she always sent.  Thankfully, I had changed and finally created the circumstances within which that money was experienced as it should have been: as a serious gift.  The objective value of a gift, I learned, depended on the receiver, not the giver.  So I get it. I do get it: gifts are to be appreciated. Recipients are to thank givers.

Years later, I read a remarkable book by M. Scott Peck named “People of The Lie.”  Peck – as I remember it – told a story about two teenaged brothers who each wanted to own a gun – hunting rifles, I think. The older brother finally got one. But he later used it to commit suicide with.  His parents took that gun, wrapped it up, and gave it to the younger boy for a gift that following Christmas.

Well, that made sense: the boy had wanted a gun; the family now had an extra gun; so why not give it to their son?  Well reasoned, or not, I was horrified – which was Peck’s intention.  While the objective value of a gift might well depend on the receiver, there also is always a context that must be looked at in doing that evaluation of the gift.

For instance, if I have two children, one by birth and one by adoption, it is not unheard of for grandparents to treat the birth grandchild as “real” and the adopted one as “less.”  We in the adoption world see it too often.  And if the grandparent were to buy a wonderful birthday gift for the birth grandchild, but either ignore, or buy a much less valuable gift for the adopted one’s birthday, the value of the gifts can only, and must, be measured by that context.  It’s not that one gift is acceptable and the other is not: both are unacceptable.  For a parent to allow the grandparent to do such would make the parent complicit in the grandparent’s very painful and disrespectful nonsense.

In both that scenario and in Peck’s story, gifts, no matter how they may look to outsiders – and they might look very good to outsiders, as they are gifts after all – can be used as weapons.  In those circumstances, although it goes against years of “gift” socialization within us, such gifts not only should not be thanked for, but such gifts need to be rejected out of hand and definitively.  It is not a particular gift, or even any gift, that one is demanding, when one does such, although it can be made to look that way. It is respect that one must demand, especially for one’s kids.  A gift, no matter how well-intentioned, given in a context where respect is missing, is beyond hollow. It is always perverse.

The gifts then, no matter the sincerity of the giver, are toxic.  And people we love, including ourselves, must be protected from toxicity – no matter how it appears to others.  The parents in Peck’s story – whether aware of it or not –are conveying to their son the message that he too should shoot himself.  The grandmother of the two grandchildren – whether aware of it or not – is hurting both children by treating them so differently – saying, in effect, that one is better or more valuable, than the other.  It is the parent’s job to say no.  Always to say no. No matter the consequences, with her mother, or any other relative in the family.  But to do that is scary and enormously difficult.

Yet, if we don’t stand up for our kids. than what’s the point of being parents? And isn’t being-stood-up-for the very thing that teaches us our value?  And isn’t that the core thing that parentless kids are missing?

Some thoughts……………as I prepare to pack Abraham’s funeral stuff into a box which will go into the closet with the boxes from the funerals of his – unbelievable – three brothers.

Jack

Last mailing was an error from someone else. Deleted on the site, but I can’t call back emails. Please delete.
Jack