09.16.08
Posted in Musings, Relationships at 12:36 pm by Administrator
Kelly and I have been celebrating our birthdays with one another for over twenty-seven years, which is half of my lifetime and more than half of hers. We first met while working for the same management company and while there, began the tradition of treating the other to lunch for her birthday. Recently, we met at a deli for my birthday celebration. Two of Kelly’s co-workers whom I had never met accompanied her. She suggested they ask me anything they wanted to know about her. I replied, “You may not want to count on my memory. This morning I was cooking oatmeal in the microwave. When the ding…ding…went off, I opened the door to find the microwave empty and my bowl of oatmeal on the counter.”
Perhaps it was the fact that Kelly had two friends along that we spent most of our lunch reminiscing about mischievous pranks at work, and in rapid fire succession told humorous stories of papering houses (yes, after the age of thirty), the time the wind blew my dress up to reveal… We reminisced about me as a bridesmaid in her wedding and then grieved the bodies we once had.
It seems just yesterday that I had wallpapered the nursery before the birth of her oldest child, who is now in college. Then later, she loaned me her maternity clothes. My “baby” is a high school senior. Our children have long outgrown the annual Easter parties. Kelly and I rarely see each other between the two annual birthday celebrations - separated by careers and family obligations, yet I know she would be here in a minute if I needed her.
After our recent lunch I was thinking about our long-standing friendship and thought of a song I learned as a young Girl Scout. “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.” Such wisdom is learned only through experience. Simon and Garfunkel were a popular duo in the late -1960’s when I was in junior high school. Perhaps it won’t be long before I will have experienced the meaning of their popular recording “Old Friends.”
Old Friends
Written by Paul Simon
Old friends,
Old friends
Sat on their park bench
Like bookends.
A newspaper blown though the grass
Falls on the round toes
Of the high shoes
Of the old friends.
Old friends,
Winter companions,
The old men
Lost in their overcoats,
Waiting for the sunset.
The sounds of the city,
Sifting through trees,
Settle like dust
On the shoulders
Of the old friends.
Can you imagine us
Years from today,
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange
To be seventy.
Old friends,
Memory brushes the same years
Silently sharing the same fears
“>
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08.15.08
Posted in Relationships at 3:57 pm by Administrator
August 11, 2008
It was a mentally grueling day. My oldest daughter called from the cab of an eighteen-wheeler she is sharing with a married man. “We’re not doin’ nuttin’” she screamed when I told her it wasn’t right. She tried to rationalize her actions and then fault me for not being happy that she’s working (as a household mover.) We went round and round. I said if his wife knew she would be angry, hurt, and insecure. My daughter retorted that it’s his wife’s problem if she couldn’t trust him. I told her it’s wrong and dangerous footing for them to continue like this - people don’t plan to fall in love, they don’t plan to…
It was a useless conversation, I know. My daughter will be twenty-six years old next month. Young you may think, but she’s seen more road than I hope anyone reading this. I am more than twice her age and I expect it won’t be long before she looks older than I will. By her own choice, she’s been on and off the street for nine years. She carried three babies with little-to-no prenatal care, consumed alcohol and drugs while pregnant, and gave the first one to a stranger. Each time I have offered to help her get on her feet, to care for the baby while she worked, or attended school. Within weeks after each birth she was releasing custody to me, the only way I would take them. That’s because I knew if I didn’t have legal guardianship, she would use them as a pawn for manipulation. Thankfully, she’s been neutered. Yes, I know that’s not a term used for women.
Today’s conversation: I asked her how she could think I could be that naïve. She screamed some more and I hung up. She called back wanting to know if she could move back home and get a job. Nine years and she says she wants to move home. Nine years of so many men she can’t name them, teeth rotting from crack cocaine, living without routine, responsibility, and regret? Only she knows if she even knows.
Can she come home? No. It’s plain, but not so simple. I told her she needs more help than I can give her. She needs resources and services more than I know exist and how to get them. She must know they exist. Countless volunteers work the street everyday trying to help people get out of homelessness and on their feet through job training, counseling and housing. She needs them. They know what they are doing. They understand the addiction of homelessness better than I do. They can probably peg the ones who will remain in the lifestyle and those who want to rise from the ashes. I fear my daughter is the type to remain in the pit. Her situation is everyone’s fault but her own.
Today she wants me to get her into rehab. I asked her how I could do that. “Make some phone calls.” I asked why she couldn’t call, “Because I’m in friggin’ El Paso that’s why!”
The screaming continued and I said I was on my way to a meeting: a true statement. She called three times in twenty-minutes. She forgot I said I would be in a meeting. She left voicemails.
“You’re always saying you love me. Now’s your chance to show it. When I need you, you won’t help me. You’ve never done anything for me. I don’t see why I can’t move home and get a job. I’ll move out in a month.”
Nine years without a high school education. Nine years unemployed. Nine years just hanging out. Nine years panhandling. Nine years using government services to pay travel expenses to get from another state back to Texas. Nine years of walking into an emergency room for healthcare. Nine years is a long time to go back and look for the little girl she once was.
It was a mentally grueling day.
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