Fly Away Dear Mother

Good morning dear Mother
- I am safe
- I did not die
though I wanted to,
hoped to
and almost tried.

But I stopped
myself
because you taught me how important living is.
And I want to live.

And not be bound by all the trappings of my mind that spirals down into abyss twirling and swirling and spinning until I am small so very very small and alone and only alcohol takes away the pain - like when I began in a liquored sea under my mother's heart.

I stopped myself mother because you took me from a place of empty arms into your home and
into your heart and you poured everything you had to give into me
- to help me and now I want to change and grow again
- to get up from where I have fallen back and back and down.

Pray for me mom
- that I find another man
- I cannot be alone at night for I am scared
- so scared to be alone and so I go alone to where a friend stays and never leaves
- an old friend I met not long ago but for always
- my bottle friend
- who comes when I am in pain
- to relieve my mind of the twisting and turning and twirling. It does not let go because I come
back to open the cap and drink the drink and feel the forgetfulness I seem to need when nothing matters anymore and I cannot go on, but then I must.

I must wake up and I want to live and not continue in such a way as I have done once again
- once again I fell so hard but this time I saved myself not you mom not you chasing me
- finding me
- picking me up from places you have never been,
nor would ever go because of who you are.

But you went
- each time before because of me.
Because you loved me
- you came to find your little one
- lost, hurt and alone..

So mom I called you this morning. Because I know that you're love is real and you do not forget the little girl who did work a job and did graduate from high school and did learn to do so many things others said I could not do. But I could. And I can do them again - I can you will see. I will try to fly again. Perhaps there is another way.

This place is safe mom - you put me here to keep me safe when I was just a fledgling adult
- a child really now I know, but I am 21 and oh so much wiser
- perhaps.

Perhaps not.
I dunno.

I asked for help to come where I knew I would be kept safe and warm and cared about
a place where people like me with no one come when they are scared and alone

- those who come regularly call this place heaven.

Those who live on the street and under bridges and sleep with plastic bags for quilts. Once again I see my dad, the man who gave me life
- yellow and withered
- here in the place he told me was heaven
- county detox
- his life so hard. He's over 50 and he still has not learned to read!

I cannot call it heaven mom for I have a home
- an apartment -
I have a family and 13 birds that call me their mother
- birds of every color of the rainbow that sing me to sleep
and wake me in the morning to their songs.

What will happen to my birds mom?

Will you come and care for them and keep them safe and warm while I am here
- becoming once again the me I lost
- the me lost to the bottle before I was even born.

I want to fly mom.
I want to fly fly away and be safe.
Life is so hard
....but I won't quit.

Perhaps we can all pray for all our young people with FASDS who try so hard.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda

FASD Day 2007

If only it shoulda woulda coulda been different.
Not that I really want everything different but one thing.
If only my daughter's mother would have abstained from drinking -
at least for a moment -
at least for enough time to allow this beautiful child
to be born whole -

I can't put back what she was never given.
Some gifts are only given once.

In essence I have done my job, done it the best I could. Laid my life down so to say, as have so many of us. So so very many.

My daughter has the best laugh in the world - it is a laugh that can burst a rainbow out of a thunderstorm. Too many thunderstorms today I have no laughter.

Enough.
Enough.
Enough

I shout to the heavens, because the world is not hearing. Everynight another mom
shares a bottle with her unborn baby - somewhere - someplace - sometime...in celebration, in pain, in joy, in sorrow - there is always a reason.

Alcohol has lots of friends.

I want to run away - I want to grab myself a box of Oreo's or Chocolates or Boston Cream pie - but instead I take my vitamins knowing that is what I truly need -
to pass another day
- another test
- of who I am
- what I am capable of giving and forgiving
- not what I want.

I want to drink a whole pot of coffee
- so I pour myself a cup of Camomile tea.

Perhaps that will ease the pain of another derailment
- another collapsed bridge
- another twin towers.

For you or I life is so simple because we can see the complex.
But what it you
couldn't,
didn't,
can't.

I want to grab my own bottle or chemical and numb myself from the pain
- the chaos, the confusion of consequences of her trail of tears
- but I sip my tear and instead weave a word tapestry
for others to understand the pain and nonsense of FASDs.

My daughter walks on a very very narrow line to maintain a piece of normalcy.
A push or shove however slight can tip her balance.
Balance for her is still in full pendulum swing
- back and forth
- back and forth
- back and forth.

I want to cry but I know if I began I may never stop
- I have held and counseled too many other parents and friends and families as the reach out for support. And I have been strong for myself and for them. In the journey with my daughter

- I have been prepared to understand for others.
And like Alice in the rabbit hole
I fall once again into my daughters madness....

Oh if only she reached out instead of came because she needed a crew to clean up her demolition site. In a whirlpool she is sucked into things unfathomable. Mom I found a job I can be a dancer for an agency - translates to a stripper for a pimp. It was such fun and it's very easy work. And this my dear boss sir is what I've found on my own to pay my bills because I used the passcode you gave me to help you out. I was only being kind. You did not tell me the passcode was a
secret - when you were busy you recited it aloud so I could type it in. I am proud of using the computer - I can do that now and I have learned new things - I even memorized your passcode. The one you now tell me is a secret and I am not to know it. But you told it to me and you had me enter it, again and again and now I don't understand why I am fired.

I try so had to control myself - I limit what I eat, where I go, who I am with. I even limit the amount of alcohol I drink to numb my own inadequacies - a twenty ounce water bottle is now only half full - It's half empty - I used to drink the whole bottle - but not any more - I am doing well - so well - only trouble is I need it more often now now that I don't have a real job. I was proud of my job - I made pizza's - I topped them and made them pretty. I liked my job. I wanted to do in my way on my own. But then I entered the passcode - on my own was what got me in trouble one more time.

My head hurt so I took a pill - mom had invited me to dinner - and we had talked during the day nicely - but the pill I took was not an aspirin
- I don't want to die I want to live
- and at the restaurant in front of my family
- I slipped from being me to someone else
- my brain and my chemistry turning to mush - but I was not drunk
- I didn't drink.
I tried to act grown as I became a child.
No I didn't I maintained my composure
- but they said there would be no more dining in publics with them.

My "friends" dropped me off at my mom's and dad's but they weren't home and I was cold and wrapped up in a table cloth she had on her stoop.
Stoop too low sometimes don't I.
I want to go home
- so mom takes me home - alone - now I have no boyfriend
- we had been together for other two years - he is my best friend's lover now.

Did I say best friend .... well maybe not anymore.
Her sister helped me get some money - dancing - dancing - it was fun.
They let me drink - I am adult - I am see I can prove it too you.
Oh I forgot - maybe I cannot prove it
- my wallet was stolen at the party
- my ID and my social security card.
I kept my SSC when I got my job
- This time I am an adult so I didn't give it back to mom. I am 21....

I would have had money - all the money I ever needed but mom locked down the check book
I took from her office.
It had my name on it. - It was mine - she said it was ours.
I bought nice things with the checks
- things I wanted - or thought I needed.
It didn't take long to spend a lot of money.
It didn't matter to me there was only $15.00 in the balance.
What is a balance? The bank always has money.

My bruises - well - I have not been eating well
- I have been drinking too much
- I have not taken care of my birds
- don't worry it was better when I was working
- when I had to be someplace on the same days
at the same time sober and looking healthy.

Do I care - no yes I mean no. I dunno.

.....I dunno ---- I dunno.

As a mom I leave the groceries at the front door, with her and a friend 'a safe friend' to clean and repair and help her get back onto the ridge. Walking on a ridge is always hard - dips and turns and stones and crevices to jump. Those of us who raise children with FASDs understand all too well the death toll of Liberty Ridge. It is a hard climb and even with the most experienced climbers working together - few make it.

I will stand on the other side of this new crevice - looking for the next piece of gear to help her. But it has been an arduous climb and I am weary. Like so many of us no matter how well I care for myself - I need rest. I need strength and fresh water. I didn't go to a FASD celebration yesterday - I couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't - yesterday I had nothing to celebrate.

Jkulp 9/2007 - Happy International FASD Day

Seven Steps To Learning - Wisdom from a Dog

Sir Makone of Knarlwoods joined our home this past week, all fifty empty brained pounds packed into still to grow folded skin. He was already the size of Bonnie our two-year-old standard poodle. Beki, our sixteen year old had died five days earlier and Bonnie had not eaten since her death, refused to ride in the car that never returned her mother and moped around the house trying to fit into her role as the only dog critter. Already her bones protruded from her skin and the bounce and light was fading. I understood her feelings, those feelings were the very reason she had originally joined our home.
Bonnie arrived two years ago as Liz, eighteen and full of the wonder of the world had ventured off into adulthood carrying the burden of FASDs and the belief that “when you’re eighteen you can do anything ‘you’ want.” Watching her transverse chasms and be drawn into trauma, I needed something to hang onto as both my daughter and the old dog she left behind skittered often close to death. Bonnie brought into my home of sadness and worry the joy and laughter of puppy antics and I claimed her and trained her with the same neuro skills Liz had taught me to help her brain grow while our old girl Beki claimed the little ragamuffin as her puppy and taught her dog manners. Bonnie had become a sanctuary for me when Liz fell again and again into difficult life experiences, her fur had soaked in oodles of tears as she had licked the salty water off my cheeks and cheered me on with dog ideas to make me feel better. She was a faster learner than I and a good teacher.
To see Bonnie, now almost a big dog pining for her adopted mother broke my heart. We had all survived the treacherous journey and learned much – Bonnie could play the piano with her nose and Liz could ride the metro from one side of the city to another without getting lost or picking up a “friend” who needed a place to stay. Timid Bonnie had learned to meet and greet strangers in polite doggie style and Liz had learned to keep her home a private place of refuge. I had learned that the five year brain training program we had set up for Liz didn’t stop her need to explore the world filled with coldness and stress and miscommunication and human predators. Her need for self-experience to find herself and understand the limits her brain injury placed on her was a journey she had to make on her own without the controls and structure and safety we had provided.
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Makone “Mak” is peacefully sleeping by my feet as I type this article in my up”stairs” office. At nine months old he had no idea two days ago how to get up any of our steps. He was afraid of the steps to the kennel and the steps to the car and the steps to the studio and the steps to the basement. Some were carpeted and some were yellow wood and some were brown wood and some were concrete and some were painted white.

They were all steps – simple steps.

And yet Mak came to teach Karl and I a very important lesson for our daughter who has finally settled into her own home of safety and sanctuary. Mak came to teach us that even though he looks full grown he is a baby and babies need a lot of love and guidance to grow. Mak came to teach Karl and I that each step is a new learning experience and each step is different. He came to remind us that his heart wants to do each step but sometimes his mind doesn’t know how. He came at this moment to show us that some steps he could go up and some steps he could go down, but some steps he isn’t ready to touch at all. Maybe someday, maybe someday when he is a big dog. With Mak we expect accidents and piddles along the way as he plods curiously and innocently into each life experience. Liz has learned much in her two-year life experience college of hard knocks. Karl and I have learned as much as Liz has grown.
Mak backs up and spreads his gangly feet in all directions to protect himself from each new steps – Liz in her own way does the same - she loves and hates learning.. Mak came to remind us that just as we had taught Liz in our home, we needed to move to teaching her out-of-our home with the same love, compassion and expectations – step by tiny step finally gradually handing her our controls and respecting that they can become her controls.

Today we implement a seven-step process in exploring or teaching her a new skill.
1. REVIEW - We review the options of how to teach so we have a backup plan. We make the initial calls, visit the site and discover the details.
2. WATCH We tell Liz what she is going to learn and take her through the process to accomplish the task. In this first step she is the observant participant with us – we do not require learning.
3. WATCH-EXPERIENCE We repeat the experience with her contributing pieces of the learned task.
4. EXPERIENCE – WATCH We repeat the experience with her contributing more pieces of the learned task and we begin to step away.
5. EXPERIENCE – SHOW – She tells me what to do and I laugh and become a partner in “her” learning.
6. SHOW – LET GO – She shows me as I watch and then let go.
7. I CAN – She skillfully and a bit fearfully completes the process, while I sit in a parking lot waiting or stay close to the phone to guide. I Can, can take a while and when learning is mastered we move on to the Next Step in our adult journey.

For a while we will keep Mak leashed to our side because he does not have the skills to be independent and unknowingly could be injured or killed.
We keep Liz tethered to us with the line of love - the same line of love that invited us to a homemade turkey dinner, with gravy and mash potatoes, stuffing and cornbread. I stopped by to demonstrate getting the neck out of the turkey and putting the big bird in the oven. I left her to do the rest herself. I came back to read the recipe for stuffing to her, while she prepared it herself and I demonstrated cooking the giblets. Then Karl and Bonnie arrived to join her and her boyfriend at her “own table” in her “own kitchen.” Her Christmas tree glowed red and green and white in an organized living room. It had been a long journey to get to this place and the journey will continue.
Mak came to remind us of the management of that journey – kindness, compassion, clear simple direction – and only one step at a time.