I cry every time I think of the one time I had this conversation about Grandma’s.
It occurred during a week that was very difficult, I was worn out from dealing with a number of different things, but especially trying to help one young woman. I’ll get back to the Grandma conversation in a bit.
On Saturday evening I got a text:
Um just wonderin if u r someone else kud take me 2 that program on archibold on wed I wana try n get in it
This was a cry for help from a young, single Mom of two young daughters aged 5 and 3.
Two of us decided that on Wednesday we would meet her at the school when she dropped off her daughter. We showed up at 9 and waited for a while, we decided to go and check with the principal, I know her fairly well from other interactions. I tell the principal who I’m looking for…I know she can’t tell me if she’s around, but she goes off looking for her to see what’s up. As we step outside the office the Mom walks in the door.
We ask her if she was ready (as Nancy takes her daughter off to class), she says, “yeah, I guess.” It feels a bit like an intervention, even though it was her idea.
We go visit the women’s program on Archibald. They couldn’t allow us to look around until the ladies were gone off site, so we waited in the board room. A lady drops off a pamphlet and a registration form. The young mom reads over the pamphlet and immediately begins filling in the form.
We get a tour of the place, which is an incredible program that allows women to keep their children with them (in fact they often help women who have lost custody of their children to CFS to get their children back). The young Mom doesn’t say much, but at the end of the tour the woman says to her, “I would like to get you in next Thursday, do you want to do that?” Our friend is clearly uneasy. The woman says, “you would need to detox for the next 8 days, how would you handle that?”
There are a few detox programs in the city, but none of them would allow her to take her children with her. We start to brainstorm about possibilities…could people from the church take care of her girls? Is there someone in your family that could? She doesn’t like any of the options, but in the end says that she would be there next Thursday.
The worker asks the young mom,
“when’s the last time you did any drugs?”
“Well, I took a pill this morning…”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know, the yellow one, with the house on it…?”
“Oh, I know which one you mean.” She writes something down.
She has been a drug addict since she was a preteen. Her brothers are known as the big drug dealers in the Point Douglas area at the moment, and there has been drugs in her family throughout her whole life, her grandmother, her Dad, her brothers, they all are addicts…and dealers. Somehow she grew up in the midst of all that, trying to figure out what life is supposed to be all about. She has always used drugs that she gets on the street to help her deal with her anxiety, depression and stress. She self-medicates. To be honest, I’m not sure things would be much different for anyone in her situation.
The woman at the program tells her she should actually go to the Doctor to get prescribed medications instead of trying to figure it out herself…this is a bit of a novel idea for her. She has thought of it before, but was scared to tell the Doctor that she has issues, because she was concerned that they may take her daughters away. When she was still a teenager, she wound up in an abusive relationship, he took her away and locked her in a house in a small town, far away from anything familiar to her. She was eventually able to get out of the relationship, but one of the results of it is two beautiful little girls.
We leave, but I am weighing all the options in my brain, trying to think how we can help her. We take her off to the Doctor, to get prescribed some real medicine. She is, rightfully probably, concerned that if she checks in to a detox, it will set off red flags at CFS. She is paranoid about losing her girls.
In the end, the young mom decides she will try to do the detox on her own. I tell her,
“this is going to be really hard, do you think you will be able to do it?”
“I don’t know…maybe…?”
“When’s the last time you went eight days clean?”
“When I was a little kid…”
She decided to try for it anyway. The other options just didn’t seem attractive, she didn’t want to leave her kids with people from the church, she didn’t trust any of her family…
Now, to the conversation that makes me cry when I think about it.
Later that same day, I was at WEFC, just checking in…an older gentleman happens by and asks me how I’m doing. I tell him a bit about the young Mom (not using names or details), and I tell him of the conundrum. He says, “that’s when someone needs a real good Grandma to help her out.” I say, “Yeah…it’s too bad that her Grandma is the one who has been bringing her the pills…”
We look at each other, and the gentlemen says as tears well up in his eyes, “some of us just don’t know how good we have it…do we?!”
Tears begin streaming down my face and I can barely hold it together as I attempt a response “…no we don’t…”
WOW!