Late night call

Don, Sean and I went up to the lake Friday night to meet Sabrina (Jenny’s sister) and her husband and daughter. They were spending the weekend there. Heaven knows they deserve a little vacation. We stayed and swam for a while. Sabrina and I talked a lot about Jenny’s childhood in foster care. Sabrina said she hopes Jenny doesn’t remember it. She said when Jenny was little, 3 or 4 they lived with a family that kept her locked in a closet with nothing but a mattress. She said that Jenny was part of three “failed adoptions.” It’s no wonder she’s such a messed up adult, she had a totally messed up childhood. Somehow Sabrina overcame but Jen just doesn’t have the inner strength to get past it.

As soon as we got home from the lake I went to bed. At 11:30 the house phone rang. Don answered and it was a crying Jenny. Don told her I was asleep but she said it was an emergency. Honestly, I have Sean and the girls are in foster care. What kind of emergency does she have that I need to know about? Force of habit, I took the phone call. She was screaming and crying that she’d ruined her life and she wanted to kill herself. She misses her girls and was upset that Sean wouldn’t talk to her. I asked her where she was and she said at Dales. I asked her whose phone she was on and she said Dale’s mother. (the number she called from was Kristen’s) I don’t know why she still lies to me about things that don’t matter.

She said she just wants someone to take care of her and love her. She can’t believe that the state took her kids and she doesn’t know how to get them back. She was talking crazy. I couldn’t decide if she was drunk or just despondent. I think despondent. I could hear Kristin in the background and asked her if she was there. She said yes, so I was glad she wasn’t alone. It was sad listening to her. She’s homeless, she’s lost her kids, the state cut her off welfare, she has four unresolved court cases and may be charged with felony fraud soon. Yep, Jenny your life really sucks! I don’t know how you fix that. I told her to take one day at a time and just start cleaning up the mess, get a job, get a room, go to all your court dates. She just kept saying, “I can’t do it, I don’t know how.” I was looking at her court documents and she has six and seven bench warrants for every charge she’s ever had. She never follows through on her court dates. I don’t think she’s capable of following through on anything in life. I had no words of comfort for her so I just didn’t say anything. Just agreed that her life was in a bad place and it would take a lot of work to fix it. Eventually the phone she was using battery ran out.

I found this path to permanency picture on the states website that explains what happens to kids when they enter the system. They have 12 months (11 now) to earn their kids back. After 12 months the court terminates parental rights and the girls get adopted. (We would then be able to adopt Sean) There have already been three or four hearings. The hearing with Jenny on Monday is where they determine what her reunification plan is. After that there are periodic hearing where the case worker reports to the judge the progress or lack of progress by the parents.