I began a conversation with my husband as he got home tonight.  I was reminded again   about our financial situation and the lack of income coming into the house.  As the wind and rain blow through, I am reminded again about our financial situation.  The shingles on the south end of the house have blown off due to previous heavy wind and rain.  We have a tarp over that area and the shingles in other areas are peeled back.   As I go out to get the mail I am reminded again of our financial situation.  Last weekend a driver took out our mailbox that had originally been encased in a brick stand.  There are bricks scattered in an empty lot and a mailbox that is a crumbled mess.  Satan loves to hit us in the most vulnerable place.  As I walk back toward the house, I am joined by my little blond blue-eyed boy, who is not so little anymore.

Not to long ago he could not put a sentence together.  He did not hold a pencil correctly.   He had to be removed from every daycare or school he has ever been to.  He was a bitter.  He had angry outbursts.  He is sensitive to noise and would often run down the hallway at school to escape from it.  He is dyslexic and at the beginning of the week when the new spellings words come out, you can almost guarantee a call from school.  Nobody wants to hear what the family goes through at home.  Families often fall apart with the stress and turmoil caused by a non-typical pattern of behavior.  I feel guilty as if I could change the madness.  Behavior specialists can give good background tools, but there is no situation that is the same.

Lupus finally took me down about a year ago but I fought it for years before that.  I was a single mom until he was five.  When you are so busy, you do not stop to enjoy what God has given you.  It is very easy to look out and see what you don’t have.  Day after day you become embedded in a routine that seems so solid that nothing could break the barrier.  I would isolate myself because I felt like a bad parent.  I could not leave my children with anyone because I was so ashamed.  You want to change the behavior but everything you do doesn’t seem to matter.  And, it doesn’t get better, it just changes as they get older. You go through the motions day after day.

I never thought I would be so stagnant.  Now, I sleep half the day sometimes.  I am at the point where my income has stopped coming in.  The other day he looked at me and asked me if I was going to go back to work.  Before I could answer , he said I am afraid.  I do not want you to go back.  You might die.  He heard me say for so long….¨i cant do this anymore¨!   just cant do it, he was scared.  I saw him for how his behavior affected me, I never saw him for how MY behavior affected him.  He is reading and schoolwork although still hard, gets done in a somewhat sane way.  I forget these boys who feel abandoned by their father, have overcome great obstacles .  Even though I now am remarried,  I am the only parent they really know.  When you are a single parent you sometimes feel distant and cold, and removed from the relationship you have with your children.  That is the biggest mistake I could have made.