Tag Archives: Family

Katie and Roy

Our family was transformed in the summer of 2008.  It was then that my husband and I met our two children, Katie and Roy, and the three children we already had – Julia, Jackson, and Jamie – welcomed two new siblings.  Technically it didn’t all come about so quickly, and it would be four more years until Katie and Roy shared our home for good, but they were a part of our family long before that.

I met them first.  Katie was a wild thing, like an animal uncaged.  She used each minute to have as much fun as possible, to live as much as possible.  You could see the energy coming off of her in waves. Roy was clingy, desperate for attention and affection.  Both were extremely thin, and very hungry.  Roy was eight years old, had just finished second grade, yet he was only as tall as Jamie, who was six.  He had just lost his two front teeth, whereas most children I knew had lost them in kindergarten or first grade. 

It was clear from the beginning that something was wrong with their home life.  The more time they spent with us, the more obvious it was that they were neglected, at best.  Possibly more than neglected.  They spent a lot of time at our house, and never wanted to leave. 

Roy, who couldn’t say his r’s, cemented himself in my heart permanently the day he asked, “Can you buy me fwom my dad?”

“Well, I would if I could, but it’s against the law to sell children,” I explained.

He thought about this for a minute, then asked, “Can you give them away?”

When I explained that yes, in some circumstances you can go to court and a judge will say if a child can live with somebody else, he said “I’m going to ask my dad tonight to give me to you.”

I can still see his snaggletooth grin, his skinny body in his borrowed swim trunks, planning a way to come be with us forever.

This is a long story of abuse, neglect, drugs, and other ugliness, and all the ways in which the system did not work.  Said system is geared to protect the rights of the parents more than the rights of the children, despite horror stories you hear of the reverse.  The ugliness has been told elsewhere in writing, to the court.  It doesn’t bare repeating here.

Child Protective Services was involved many times, but it is difficult to prove neglect.  Each time they would give parenting advice to the custodial parent, their father, check up for a few weeks, and then close the case.  The children had been primed on what to say, warned that they would be sent separately to live with strangers, and their father would go to jail if they ever said anything other than what they were told to say.

As summer gave way to fall, weeks turned into months, and months became years, we struggled to give these kids all we could, without having the rights to truly change their lives.  My husband taught Roy to play baseball.  We bought him gear and paid for Little League.  We put him in soccer.  We paid for soccer camps and baseball camps. I helped both kids with homework.  I talked to teachers.  I bought Katie maxi pads when she started her period, and I bought her her first real bra.  We bought both kids clothes, fed them, and had them over our house as much as possible.  We celebrated birthdays, and had belated celebrations together for Christmas and Easter.  Katie called us Mom and Dad.

Years before meeting Katie and Roy, I had felt as though our family was not complete.  I wondered if we should adopt, or maybe foster a child.  But our own children had so many needs and special issues, I wasn’t sure they could handle an addition being thrust upon them.  Our house was too small for any more people, and we didn’t really have the funds, so I put those thoughts away, thinking maybe when our three were older it would be a better time.  I remember asking God to lead me if he had plans for us.

Frankly, I didn’t think Katie and Roy would ever get away from their father.  My husband had to constantly remind me that they were not our kids, not legally.  We prayed for them.  We thought the best we could do for them was to provide a better example, take care of them when they were with us, and give them a respite from their stressful lives.  It wasn’t easy, as they both had emotional issues which affected our family dynamics.  But, our three biological children accepted that Katie and Roy were a part of our family, understanding that they needed us.  I can’t count the number of times Julia said, “Let’s just not take them back.”

Fast forward to 2012.  Things were not going well for Katie and Roy.  But in the span of one hectic 24 hours, things came to a head and they were here.  Living with us. There was a court dependency case that lasted almost two years, and a lot more ugliness.  Yet within that ugliness, just as nature reclaims with new growth areas devastated by disaster, tiny seeds sprouted and grew.

Our house is very small, still we somehow managed.  We bought a loft bed for Katie, and Julia made room for a sister in what had been her private domain.  In order to fit three boys in one room, we had a custom three-layer bunk bed made. We were officially a family of seven.

I don’t’ know how to explain what came next except to say it was very, very hard.  For all of us.  We were crammed into our house like sardines, and our biological children suddenly had to share everything, including their parents, all the time.  Katie and Roy had to adjust to new rules, and Roy particularly suffered as the move brought home to him the fact that his biological family would never be a functioning unit.  A lot of childhood hopes and dreams were obliterated overnight. 

Kids who have had trauma in their young lives do things that are strange to the rest of us. Katie would fill her plate to the brim, leaving nothing for others, then not finish what she had taken.  She hid food in her bed.  Actually, she kept all of her belongings in her bed, and hoarded everything. 

She was a sophomore with almost no hope of graduating, ever, let alone with her class.  She had no sense of who she was, did all sorts of things that we had to make clear she understood were not allowed while living in this house, and entertained no thought beyond the present moment.

Roy was argumentative, desperate for affection and attention, and prone to tantrums.  He was so hyperactive he would watch TV, play with a moving toy, and play a handheld video game all at the same time.  He was 12 years old and could barely read.

Katie had to go to adult school every day after her regular high school classes, and had to go to summer school every summer.  It was touch and go, but she graduated with her class.  She is now slowly making her way through college, studying psychology and American Sign Language, and working in the floral department at Safeway with her sister.

I fought tooth and nail to get Roy tested for special education.  After being told endlessly he would not qualify, once tested he qualified in three categories.  With the proper support, he slowly made up for lost time.  Today he is in college in Minnesota with his older brother, where they both play baseball.  He works on campus, and is academically sound and independent.

Sometimes I look back and wonder how all of us made it this far.  And yet, we are all so blessed to be a part of this bumpy journey.  Our biological kids learned compassion, forgiveness, patience, hope, and to love when loving isn’t easy.  For Jerry and I, it has been a fascinating process, watching all of our kids grow.   Many times we get so bogged down in the day to day struggles that we don’t see the progress, but when we get a chance to breathe deep and step back, it truly has been amazing every step of the way.  I marvel that God placed such trust in us.  We are so ordinary.  We are not out to save the world.  Shoot, sometimes it seems like a miracle we even get through the day!

Katie and Roy are still a work in progress, as are we all.  But this is a story of what may lie hidden in every kid who seems like he or she is going nowhere.  Every kid who gets in fights, skips class to get stoned, has no friends, has too many friends of the wrong sort, acts out, shuts down, and is academically light years behind, has a spark inside that just needs a little fresh air and fuel to brightly blaze. 

The story here is what stability, unconditional love, and a safe place to call home can do for a kid. This is Katie and Roy’s story of courage.  Jerry and I are the supporting players.  We opened the door, but they had to walk through it. 

Silver Stars Go Gold!

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February 4, 2011

Rochester, MN – The Silver Stars Synchronized Skating Team, representing the St. Moritz Ice Skating Club, took first place in the Pacific Coast Sectionals, the highest level competition for this Pre-Juvenile team.  Five teams competed for the title, which took place early Friday morning, Februray 4, 2011, in snowy Rochester, Minnesota.

As the Silver Stars took the ice and prepared for their warmup lap, the small parent contingency rocked the stadium with their clanking cowbells and “S-I-L-V-E-R” cheer.  Finishing the warmup lap, the skaters prepared to take their starting position. Silence suddenly reigned. As they took their positions, a loud cry of “We love you!” echoed through the still arena.

The team skated to “Once Upon a December” from the movie Anastasia.  With the first graceful notes, the Silver Stars elegantly transitioned from balletic arm movements into a circle with complicated footwork. 

The audience tangibly held their breath as a slight break occurred in the circle, but it was quickly closed with no interruption of the flow of the program.  Without stopping, the skaters reversed direction and performed a steady and swiftly moving traveling circle.

The remainder of the program was completed without error.  A traveling wheel just over halfway through the program moved with impressive speed and shape.  As they approached their finale, the skaters formed a solid line, broke into two, and two spiral lines glided to a graceful stop.

The crowd erupted.  Coaches, parents, and fans recognized a possible gold medal performance.  But this was figure skating, and in the end, it always comes down to the judges.

Said Jean Fahmie, SMISC Vice President and Membership Chair, who was at the competition to perform the duties of Accountant for other events, “Well, I knew who I thought deserved first place, but the judges never ask the accountants!  The Silver Stars had by far the most difficult program.”

Back in the stands, now wearing team travel jackets, the skaters watched the next event and nervously awaited the results.  Finally, it was announced that the final standings of the Pre-Juvenile competition would be next.

The results began with fourth place, the South Suburban Stars from Colorado.  The tension was palpable.  Third place, Fire Crystals, also from Colorado. Now the moment of truth…would they be first or second?  Would Epic Edge, from La Jolla and always a strong competitor, grab the gold away from them?

“The Silver Medalists…”, said the announcer, to a perfectly still arena, “from the La Jolla Figure Skating Club…”. Cautious screams began to erupt from the Silver Stars, as they realized the only positions not announced were fifth, which is not a medaled position, and first. 

“And our gold medalists, from the St. Moritz Figure Skating Club…” The rest of the announcement was drowned in screams and cheers.  Parents, coaches, and skaters cried and hugged.  Coaches Liana Martin and Laura Erle wiped tears from their eyes as they hastily pulled out cell phones to tell relatives the good news. 

This was a remarkable day for a team that shows tremendous promise for the future.  What’s next? Quipped coach Laura Erle, “I’m going to Disneyland!”

Paradise Family Style

Fluffy white clouds move across the incredibly blue sky.  Waves crash upon the shore just a stone’s throw from my spot on the lanai.   Lean bodies bob in the surf, waiting for the right swell, then rise with the ocean, toes clinging to boards, falling back down as the wave ends in foam and bubbles, only to paddle out to begin again.  Gazing past the palm trees at the scene before me, I sip my lime laced Corona, and sigh.

Sounds good, don’t it?  Well it was really like that, some of the time, but the truth is, it was one heck of a trip just getting my family to America’s Eden in the South Pacific:

It starts out all right on a flight from San Francisco to Honolulu, but things go awry after catching a connecting flight to Maui.  Seems we had more than enough time to make the transfer, but our bags didn’t.  The baggage agent assures me that they will be on the next flight.  Maybe.  Or maybe the one after that.  Or maybe they will deliver them to our lodgings later.  Much later.

Okaaaaay….

Well, the next flight is due in twenty minutes, so might as well hang around for the luggage, right?  The kids are over-tired and out of control, but that’s just another day at the beach for us.  As we wait, the twenty minutes turn into an hour.  We watch in confusion as the arrival screen shows the flight as on time, then late, then on time, then removes it off the board all together.  When we do finally collect our luggage, we figure now we may as well wait for my parents and sister to arrive at the baggage claim since their flight is only another half hour away.

I watch anxiously as weary travelers straggle in from the gates to wait around the carousel where my parent’s flight is listed.  Scanning the crowd, I cannot find my mom and dad.  Worried, I try my dad’s cell phone, then my sister’s.  Surely somebody would have called me if something had gone wrong!  Anxiety turning to fear, I run down the open air concourse in the humidity until I come to the ticket counter, and race up to an available agent.

“My parents were supposed to be on flight 34, but they didn’t arrive!”  I gasp, wiping sweat from my eyes.

The agent looks up, smiles vacantly, tip taps into her computer, and calmly replies “That flight’s delayed two hours.”

“Oh,” I gush with relief, “I was so worried because the screen shows it as on time…”

“That flight’s delayed two hours,” she repeats with the same vacant smile.

Okaaaaay….

So jump ahead in time a little, the relatives arrive, and we help my folks with their luggage cart over to the line for the rental car shuttle bus.  We wait, and as the person before us finishes loading and jumps on the bus, I begin to load the parents’ luggage as quickly as possible, not wanting them to stand in the hot sun.  Neither one walks well, and I want them seated.  At the same time, from the other direction, some bozo starts throwing luggage on, completely disregarding the fact that we waited in line and it’s our turn.  So pushy little broad that I am, I don’t back down, I just keep tossing luggage to the poor driver who’s putting ours in one pile and Bozo’s in another. 

“Why don’t you wait until somebody else is finished?” Bozo says acidly.  “There’s a line here.”

“I waited in line,” I snapped indignantly, “you came from the other side.  And I cannot leave my parents standing in the sun any longer.  They’re handicapped.”

“Not my problem,” Bozo dares to say.

I am on the step of the bus, Bozo is on the curb and he’s sort of a runt anyway, so turning back toward him and leaning in close, I am about three inches from his face when I bite loudly, “You’re an asshole.”  I hope he caught some spit with that.

People on the bus turn and stare, but Bozo shuts up.  At the car rental he shoves his son off the bus before it’s fully stopped, ordering, “Get in line, quick!”  For his efforts with his son’s life, he ends up about four customers ahead of us.  The snaking line positions us directly across the rope guide from each other, but while I check out his lycra encased chubby wife and decide she’d be a candidate for “What Not to Wear”, Bozo carefully avoids looking at me.  Yeah, that’s right, little man.  Don’t mess with angry Greek/Italian women.  We’re mean.

Traffic to our destination is obnoxious, and at one point we consider pulling over until morning to join the jalopies camping on the narrow band of beach next to the “highway”.  We finally arrive at our condos in paradise, and find out the relatives’ expensive condo hasn’t been updated since Captain Cook frolicked with natives.  Fortunately, a pleading call to the property manager solves that problem the next morning, and we are now free to enjoy ten days of carefree relaxation. 

That was a fantasy with no hope of realization.

Did I mention the Greek/Italian thing?  See, vacationing with my family is like skipping off to paradise with some unholy mixture of Chevy Chase’s Griswolds, Cher’s family from “Moonstruck”, and Nia Vardalos’ family from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”  Nothing goes right, we fight, we shout, we cry, we forgive.  We don’t do peaceful very well.

Still, in our chemically unstable way, we have a good time.  And we are together. 

Eventually the trip ends, and we return to our ancient half remodeled fixer, my parents to the family home where I grew up, only half a mile one direction, and my sister to her cute condo, half a mile in the other direction.  We all say we want to return to Maui next year. There is a spot in our backyard where I would like to put a bench.  I like to pause there under the mulberry tree, and look back across the toy strewn lawn to our house.  It looks cheery despite its age from that vantage point.  I can hear the shouting from within, some joyful, some argumentative, some punitive.  I can hear the children’s laughter.  And when I revisited this spot soon after our trip, I smiled to myself at our untidy yard and noisy home, realizing that really, paradise is relative.

Heaven’s Gardener

Sometimes, something special happens.  Well, I suppose something special happens more often than we realize, but sometimes we notice. I am sitting by the pool, gazing at clouds that look like they’ve been sponge painted across the sky…only God could do that.  And I think of things… 

A year ago May, my aunt passed away.  She was an unusual person.  She was generous, loyal, hard working, committed to family.  An excellent gardener and cook, and an expert knitter. She was also opinionated, often abrasive, argumentative, stubborn, and basically difficult.  A vulnerable know-it-all with fragile self-esteem.  She was very bright, a master with finance, yet consistently chose relationships with men who could only offer heartache.  She claimed to not be religious, though we found bibles and religious articles in every room of her home.  She had many talents, and many problems.  She was a contradiction, and she was ours. 

I could fill a book with anecdotes, some pretty funny in retrospect.  But this is about something special. 

Niki was not given to outward displays of affection.  When we were children, our grandparents (her parents) would warmly hug and kiss us goodbye.  Niki would coolly turn a cheek.  As adults we would literally have to grab her and force a hug upon her.  I don’t think she minded, she just didn’t feel comfortable being the hugger.  Yet, she sent cards for every occasion, including Easter, Halloween, and Valentine’s, always adorned with cute little stickers, and simply signed “Love, Aunt Niki.”  No one else ever mailed me a valentine.  There were no valentines in the mail this year.  I almost expected one. 

In her beautiful Berkeley hills garden was a painted wooden sign that read “Niki’s Garden.”  I took it home and put it in our front garden on one side of the walkway by the porch.  Though our garden isn’t as impressive, I thought she would like us to plant it anew among growing things.  I’m not a gardener at all.  My thumbs are black right to the bone.  But this past November, I planted bulbs.  I always meant to every fall, however it seemed I never got around to it.  Niki had planted them for us once or twice in the past, and we would have beautiful tulips in the spring.  She always planted hundreds in her own garden.  So this past fall, among others, I planted white and yellow narcissus in front of her sign, as a sort of tribute. 

All of the bulbs sprouted, but the white narcissus in front of her sign outgrew all at a furious pace.  By January, they were in full bloom, while all the other bulb plants were only a few inches high, nowhere near blooming.  They made me smile each time I passed.  Perhaps these bloom early.  I don’t know.  But I liked to think that Niki made them bloom. 

Scattered around the garden, the crocus and tulips each took their turns.  Of the yellow narcissus, half were planted by Niki’s sign and half a few feet away where they had the same amount of sunlight, same drainage, same exposure to rain.  As the white waned, the yellow sprang to life in front of the sign.  The other half of the yellow bulbs bloomed weeks later.  

Our front garden faces north.  It gets afternoon sun, but very close to the house it stays shaded.  Thus the closest beds all point their faces toward the road, tendrils stretching toward the sunlight. 

Except this once.  

As the spring flowers inevitably faded away, a grey-green plant called a Dusty Miller sent a large shoot away from the sunlight and back toward the house.  The rest of the plant reached for the source of sunlight, but this one shoot grew backward, about 18 inches back into the shade until it had reached Niki’s sign, where it wrapped itself around the wooden stake, and curled upward toward the painted letters where the leaves spread out in a graceful fan around the edge of the board. 

It is summer now.  On each side of the walkway, near the porch, the hydrangeas are in bloom.  My husband had cut them back some time ago, and they started the season unequally.  One was small and stunted.  The other was larger, strong and healthy, with large deep green leaves, and tiny buds that would become colossal pink blooms.  Fast forward to the present.  The plant that started stronger looks healthy, with two big beautiful blooms.  The runt is now enormous, with ten big blooms, and buds hinting of color to come.  I keep straightening the sign next to it, and each time I pass by, I find it gently leaning toward the plants that grow in profusion before it. 

Is there a logical explanation?  Possibly, maybe even probably.  Perhaps for some reason the soil on one side of the walk is richer this year.  Perhaps the drainage is better even though it doesn’t appear to be so, or the sprinklers are more accurately aligned.  Perhaps the sign has just come loose in the soil.  Or perhaps from God’s beautiful garden, a soul who loved deeply but could only show it indirectly, visited mine. 

Each time I pass through the front door, I look closely at our garden, admiring, and looking for anything extraordinary.  Because sometimes, something special happens.  Sometimes we  notice.

3:00 P.M. Dentist, 4:00 P.M. Dance, 4:45 P.M. Soccer…

I have wasted a lot of time flogging myself mentally for not measuring up to the level of wife and mother set as an example by my own mother.   Maybe my memory is frayed, but I do not recall my childhood home ever being as messy and frenetic as my home now.  My memories of my mother when growing up do not include a harried and harassed lady with little time for any but the most basic personal grooming, and whose very being emitted a sense of no control.  Granted, these are the memories of a child, but I am afraid my mother herself has confirmed the worst:

“Your life is crazy!”

What really burns my biscuits is that my life is less crazy than some other mothers I know, who seem to be able to cram in a whole lot more, and still keep their roots from showing.  I quit my work-at-home-so-you–can–be-stressed-all-the-time job when my youngest was about 11 months, and yet I do not seem to be faring any better with all the “extra time”.   I’m not lazy.  I try very hard.  My life is crazy but I believe I am reasonably sane (of course, what looney believes herself to be looney?).  

So what the heck am I doing wrong? 

The answer came to me a couple of weeks ago.  My five year old son had a friend over for a play date. The boy’s mom stayed for a little mom-to-mom chat while the kids tore the house apart.  It had taken me a week to get ready for this little event.  A kid, not my own, was coming over to my house, coming inside my house, with his mother.  That required extensive preparation.  Like not letting them see how we really live.  And making sure I had an assortment of healthy kid snacks in case he was picky, and a similar array for his mom.  The kids had a great time, and so did I.

But here’s where the realization set in. 

I never had a play date when I was a kid.  My mom had nothing to do with my playing with other kids.  I’d walk or ride my bike to a friend’s house, knock on the door, and ask if so-and-so could come out and play.  Come out and play.  We would almost always play outside, and in fact we had to ask permission to play indoors.  Many times the answer was “No!”. If the house was a mess, I never saw it.  There was no need to “get ready” for your kids to play with other kids.  And although I received the occasional glass of milk, my friends’ mothers were under no obligation to provide snacks.  Sometimes I never even saw a parent.  The child would come outside to play, and when it seemed like it was getting close to dinner, I went home.  A similar scenario played out if a child came to my house.

With the dawning realization of just how different my stay at home mom life was from my mother’s, I thought about all the other areas I had to be involved in with my children that was unheard of in Mom’s day.  We didn’t have a lot of after school activities, because we could go and play outside, on the sidewalk, down the street, wherever, without worry.  Mom didn’t need to keep us under her watchful eye every single second.  If we did have an activity, chances are it was within walking or biking distance, and we had to get our little butts there ourselves.  Mom didn’t haul us all over the county.  I didn’t have a schedule.  Didn’t want one.  I was a kid, for gosh sakes! 

My life, in contrast, revolves around my children’s schedules.  They cannot safely walk two blocks to play with a friend, or go to the school playground or local park without supervision.  Anything they do outside our own home requires parental involvement.  No wonder I feel sometimes like I have lost myself.  I’m not lost, but I am certainly low priority.  The world is so much more complicated and threatening than my childhood world.  I don’t know if there is really more danger, but there is certainly more awareness.  I’ve seen the online state list of prosecuted pedophiles who live in my zip code.  How many little faces arrive on flyers in the mail, asking if I’ve seen them?   Like any 21st century mother, I am determined my children will never be anyone’s victim, will never have their faces on any mass mailings. 

I still hate the mess.  I hate always having to hurry.  I hate never having enough time for anything.  But I look at it differently, now.  I see it is not my fault I can’t be like my mom, at least not entirely.  She really did have more time to get things done than I do.  She cared for us, and did it well, but she didn’t share every moment of our lives with us. 

My life is crazy because I am not living my life.  I am living my children’s lives, or facilitating their living their lives.  I have chosen this.  If I still worked outside the home I could probably find a piece of my mind and maybe a few intelligence cells that still work, but I sacrificed that willingly, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  

Besides, I really couldn’t guarantee that more time would make me a better housekeeper or more organized.  At least this way I have an excuse!  Heaven help me when the kids are grown and gone.  I’ll just have to plead senility then.

The Wall

It’s hard not to want things.  It’s human nature.  Sometimes we want things we need, or think we need, and sometimes we want things just because we want them.  Most of us here in the United States are better off than so many others in poorer parts of the world.  I try to remind myself of that, and to not place too much importance on anything I don’t have.  But sometimes knowing you have all you need is not enough.  You have to feel it.

When my daughter Julia was two and a half, and I was pregnant with our first son, we lived in a tiny condominium.   There were technically two bedrooms in the 880 square foot dwelling, but the second bedroom was more like an exaggerated closet.  There were three humans and three cats sharing the space, and I wanted a house.  I needed a house.  I deserved a house.

Never mind that our little condo was in a nice neighborhood, and within walking distance of the BART train that took my husband to his job.   There was no yard.  Sure, there was a park across the street, but it was a very busy street, and I had a toddler!  There was only one bathroom.  Our daughter was potty trained, and there was some competition for toilet time.  The kitchen was too small for more than one person at a time, and the dining area not nearly large enough to seat all our family for holidays and birthdays.   And storage space, well, let it suffice to say that we had to use the trunk of the car for things most people would put in a utility closet.

In the San Francisco Bay Area where we live, home prices are astronomical.  Our little condominium was worth more than two hundred thousand dollars.   We needed more than twice that to buy even a modest older home, and we just couldn’t afford the mortgage. My parents lived close by in the same home I grew up in.  I would drive through my old neighborhood, and see new families in the houses that used to be occupied by my young friends.  The schools near my childhood residence are the most sought after in the area, and the homes, though old, sell for premium prices. “How can these young families afford to live in a nice established neighborhood like this?” I would agonize.   

Back in our own cramped quarters, we had a routine, my little girl and I.  After bath time, I would snuggle up with her in her tiny toddler bed, and we said our prayers.  “God Bless Mommy and Daddy, Papa and Grandma, Gammy, Niki, Lisa, Papa and Grandma Carolina, Cindi, Danny, and Emily.”  Then I would ask Julia what she would like to thank Jesus for today.   She loved this part.  She would look around her room, and pick a stuffed animal, her shoes, a doll, whatever seemed special at the moment.  Sometimes she would put her little arms around me, and say “Thank you for my Mommy and Daddy!”

But on one particular evening, nothing seemed to be special enough.  I made some suggestions, but she shook her head.   “No, not that.”  She looked around her small cluttered room, and then smiled as inspiration struck her.  She put her dimpled little hand on the wall next to her bed, and said proudly “Thank you for my wall!”  She patted the wall soundly, “Amen!” 

“Amen,” I repeated.

Snuggling close, I curled my legs up, and held my child as she drifted off to sleep.  Leave it to a child, I thought, to put everything back into perspective.  The wall separated her warm cozy bed from the dark night.  It kept strangers out, and those she loved in.  Everything she loved, everything she needed, was on her side of the wall.  Nothing else mattered.  Why didn’t I see that before?  “Forgive me, Lord,” I thought.  “And thank you for my wall.”