2010: A Lesson In Trust

Father Tony had a less hopeful year than I did... hopefully it's ok to repost this way (????)
I feel very hopeful...the kids are all still breathing!!!
click on the words below to see his blog entry...

2010: A Lesson In Trust

my response...
Tony,
maybe this has been a more hopeful year for me because I had no expectation that those in power (church/politics) would jeopardize that by stepping in with us.
I found hope in the kids who survived the year. I know it is a terrible thing to set the bar to 'they are all still breathing' but ... the kids I worked with in 2010 ARE.
I found hope in the activists in Memphis, MGLCC, TEP who continue to go to the wall, and hope in those on the sideline who have begun to say 'why not?'

I found hope in Fortunate Families outreach... hope in Equally Blessed... hope in the grassroots movement that will take a lot longer to effect change, but will make that change eventually.

I am a straight catholic mother of a gay son. I find hope that he is OK. (scratch that- he is wonderful).

I find hope in my friends who support us in our outreach, and hope in my church (the people in the pews...) that they are beginning to get it.

Is it enough. NO. Are the detractors still in power... yes. I think with each step forward we have folks joining us in our effort. Nationally- I can't fix anything. Locally... I have hope!!!

And for me it has been one kid at a time, one small crisis at a time. I pray that those of you who have the national stage not get discouraged, find other avenues, other ears to bend. Keep working hard in 2011, so that those of us in the small movements have hope that the larger one will succeed.

Happy New Year...

Deb

Alone… lonely.

I am at a stage in my life where I rarely feel lonely.
Alone time is something I cherish, and get very little of.

I’ve noticed a pattern with the kids we’ve helped. They will do almost anything to keep from being alone for long. I can’t remember if I felt that way at their age. Maybe I did. They stay very connected through electronic devices and none of them will be able to move their hands at my age…from texting. But even with all that connectedness… the few kids I’ve had in the house seem to be afraid to live alone.

I’ve watched bright kids make dumb choices about living arrangements.
I’ve watched pairing off that makes absolutely no sense, except that it keeps the kids from being ALONE.

Obviously my experience with discarded children is very limited. My guess is that what I’ve noticed is a combination of self esteem issues from being unwanted and a very real fear of living on the streets.

We have “committeed” our issue to death here in Memphis. We need a way to get kids off the streets and into a safe house for at least a year and maybe longer. We need to be able to provide safe clean shelter, food, and guidance. I don’t think any of our little group ever wanted to be in a shelter business. There are rules and regulations and codes and staffing and a million details; but the most important and hardest to deal with would be fundraising. Even within the community there is often a sense of “hey I made it on my own, they just need to…” And there are other issues on the burners that must be tended to as well.

I will continue to do my best to provide a band-aid for the kids who have no place to go in 2011, but I do hope that this is the year we come up with a better solution.

And for the next three days, while my one guest is house sitting, and caring for a friend’s grandmother… I will enjoy my aloneness.

And I’ll enjoy the benefits of my age…I know I won’t be lonely …that is for sure!

Enjoy your weekend. I've earned my first actual weekend in weeks.!!!

The year is almost over... amazing how many folks saw the video....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWoHsYN-dKY

The gifting is done, the food cleanup finished…and a long work week looms ahead, restocking stores for New Years Eve…

My children and grands have returned to their homes.

The siblings are leaving later in the week, but before that there will be more meals shared; more stories told… more laughing, more hugging, more very silly games played.

This is the first time in almost 10 years that my siblings were all in the same room for Christmas. Our group also included all the surviving aunts and uncles, our children and grands. It was a really remarkable group. (Unfortunately in the excitement and silliness there were no photos made) And it may be the last for a while; most of my sibs have obligations with spouses in other parts of the country. The moon was in the right place this year I guess.

I heard from most of the kids who shared space with us this year on Christmas Day- from a quick Merry Christmas mom, we love you… to a longer...I wish I was still there note, and of course … there is one still here. He made plans with friends for Christmas, disappearing after breakfast for the day. I have come to understand that ‘family holiday celebrations’ are particularly hard for displaced kids, because it is such a huge reminder of connections lost. We don’t push, we just allow the kids to decide how much they want to participate in. But he knew when the day was done that he was welcome at our house. (Even though the sofa was the last empty space)… and he is loved there.

I spent a few minutes on Thursday night at MGLCC. The angels came through for the kids. The Christys (Tweddle and Cain) were making a wonderful dinner, and the young ones had broad smiles.

Steve’s company was sold a few weeks before Christmas, and his job is gone. We were aware for the last few months this might happen, and then thought he was safe, then not. I had been very careful with money- since we really do live on both of our salaries. Christmas was a little skimpy in material presents, but I think the presence of my family more than made up for it.

We had a lot to celebrate. We shared a wonderful meal and visit, and we will eventually clean up the disaster scene that is my house!

I have BIG UNCHANGABLE plans for NY weekend. A three day weekend in Jammies! (With the exception of an hour in church)… Something to look forward to... Something I really really need. (smile)

I AM Tired. Weary to the bone tired. But I am so blessed with the people who make up my life; The angels that I call on, the folks who know what we need instinctively, the folks who work hard to make up for the harm that some families cause.

I am tired, but it is a good tired.

The angels are aflutter, making it better!

Christy Tweddle, board chair for MGLCC put out a call for Christmas gifts for the youth we support in various ways. Some of the kids were in housing, some use the food pantry and shop in our clothing closet. Some just needed someone to talk to … about whatever is going on in Life. Will is the go to guy for that. He has patience when he needs it, tough love when they need it, and a way of relating to kids that is remarkable. The kids spill their souls to him. He has truly found his ministry at MGLCC.

And the angels are answering the call. Every few hours on facebook I notice another name I recognize or a new face offering to pick up something… to bring something for the kids. My sister has offered. My friend Ann asked what she could do. Angels come when called! Some of the angels at the center are on duty all year long… some stop what they doing and come right away. These are people who are way past the ‘it gets better’ message. These angels have moved on to Making it Better!!!


you can be an angel all year long.
Donate on the MGLCC home page. http://www.mglcc.org/

Saying my prayers...

I’m saying a prayer this morning that my kid does well on his college entrance exam. He has been helping his friend study –she has a GED and has been away from school for years, so she was nervous about passing it as well. It has been strange to watch this young one…sitting at the kitchen counter with a study guide and pen, concentrating on the work. They are both sweet people who could use a break. I’m hoping this is a new beginning for them.

We have never been homeless. Thank you Lord. But we did have a year (10 years back) when Steve was ill and unemployed for 11 months. Actually- he got a job in the middle of the illness (pancreatic cysts) and we planned a move. The furniture got there at noon- at 1 Steve collapsed and I checked him into a hospital in a new town far away from family…for what would be a 32 day stay. The job disappeared (yeah, they fired him while he was unconscious…) the day they told me he had an aneurism that they might not be able to fix. The point of the story is this. Sometimes bad stuff happens and no matter how hard you pray- the answer may not be what you want. A few months later we limped back to Memphis (I went back to work after a 3 ½ month hiatus) to restart our lives. We got a second chance. We had family who loved us and I never once worried that I would spend a night on the street or go to bed hungry.

Is ‘Our Story’ part of the reason that we are so concerned about our brothers and sisters going without, probably! I was asked by a college student at a recent presentation-“would you do this if you didn’t have a gay son?” Maybe not, I told her, but I think I would be involved in some way in support of the poor and homeless. I know we all make choices. Sometimes we make the best choice we know how to make given our past and present circumstances. And sometimes our best choice is … not good enough.

There are a lot of things I would do differently if I could do a time machine run … but the purpose of the run would be to make it easier for us to be more generous with our time and treasures.

I had ‘the girls’ over last night. My buddies from high school, friendships that have lasted more than 40 years! As we opened the gifts we were exchanging… one of the girls said- you know I love the things I got tonight, but when I read on Fb of the kids Deb is helping, I wonder if next year we shouldn’t just make a donation instead.

It was a good night!

Yes, Virginia there is a santa after all.

Talked to my youngest son (Sergeant Scrooge) this morning and he has had a change of heart about Christmas night. The youth staying with us can sleep on the sofa…while my grands are in the house. I’m gonna make a “humanbean” out of that Ms raised, redneck republican boy yet.

We are in the midst of too much to do, and too little time to do it. I know that the house guest and I have talked repeatedly about school, roommate, moving out, financial aid etc. Seems we were talking about two different schools. His plan is to stay in Memphis, and he can move out as soon as his financial aid comes through. Again, mom never really knows everything. ( smile )

An article I wrote for CALGM, which they edited slightly...

Surely you can set one more place at the table… please.

We live in a world with so many natural and manmade problems; the overwhelming feeling is that we can’t fix the world. We can’t but that doesn’t excuse us from doing what we can. As parents of two sons, (one gay-one not) my husband and I are trying to do what we can in Memphis with LGBT youth who have been discarded. We house youngsters (18-24) whose parents have kicked them out after hearing that they are gay. We love them, feed them, counsel them and remind them that they are God’s children.

We began this part of our journey two years ago, after hearing that Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center (MGLCC) volunteers were seeing kids who were homeless and hungry. One young man had slept on the deck behind the center; others came in with only the clothes on their backs. Hunger was common in a group that was sharing an apartment with no utilities. Steve and I stopped by to see if we could help, and I found myself on a committee. There were months of meetings, ambitious agendas, and still we had few solutions. When the call came that there were two young ladies with a four year old child, hoping to find shelter… we answered by saying you can stay with us. The girl’s jobs had been downsized, and then they were evicted. They had a place to go in a few weeks, but there was not a shelter in Memphis that recognized them as a family, and would let them stay together in the meantime. We had a four year old grandchild at the time; we just could not imagine him sleeping in a car. That is how the journey began… one small child tugged at our hearts.

In the last 15 months we have had 8 queer youth stay in our home. One stayed only one night, one almost a year. Each of them comes with a different set of issues, a different set of strengths. Some have been so badly damaged by life in a dysfunctional family that they will struggle for a long time to find personal strength. Some, like the girls, have just needed a place to sleep safely until they could get a better handle on life. The young man who is with me now was ‘put out’ by his mom 4 times in his senior year of high school. A short stay with grandma after ageing out of the foster system ended with her trying to ‘anoint the gay out of him’. (He woke to her pouring oil on him on day 4.) One of my kids was DADT’d out of the Navy after seeing a base psychologist about headaches. A few hours later the paperwork was in process. His mother told him (after trying to drop him first at “Love in Action” for reparative therapy) that she felt leaving him at MGLCC was dropping him at the gates of hell. He arrived pale and shaking. I still have the text from him…when on a weekend visit with her he told me “mom, if I didn’t know I could come back to your house tomorrow I would hurt myself. Your house is the only reason I can keep going.” He is ok, we think. He has moved to another state and reaches out to us at least once a month…just to say “I’m ok, love ya.” Another young man I call a satellite kid is with us as I write this. He will move on again. But when things become impossible for him to deal with…he comes back to us. This is the child who attempted… in our house. We have hope for him each time he leaves, but his decision making process is flawed, and we won’t let him starve, he doesn’t handle hopelessness

We have decided at the center that housing kids in homes for just a few months is like treating gaping wounds with band-aids. When you are working with a population that is prone to suicide , you need more than band-aids. LGBT homeless kids attempt suicide at a rate of 69%. Why, as church, are we missing this? A search for a model of Catholic Charities reaching out to homeless lgbt kids comes up empty.
(edited, as CALGM attempts to keep the lines of communication open with the Bishops, and doesn't use the angry rhetoric I do! :-) We as church find the funds for what is important… mailing marriage DVDs, keeping up the standards of the purple culture. This is probably the thing that makes me angriest about my church. We put blinders on when it comes to these kids. If we don’t acknowledge the problem, we can’t be part of the solution. )

God loves us all. I believe that.

Steve and I are told regularly that we are crazy. I think “crazy” excuses others from helping, “That’s just crazy, why would I do that??” Others say “you are saints” also a way to be excused. We are neither saints nor crazy, just folks who saw children in pain. We have given up a little freedom, a little privacy and a lot of groceries (smile) to house these kids. But they are all still breathing. At the moment we can all hope for a better day. My work with Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center reminds me… we have to do what we can in our little corner of the world; with or without church assistance.

I’m not sure exactly why… but I feel better when I blog.
I hear similar statements from folks who exercise (I don’t believe them of course, but they do say it).
I have taken the blog down on several occasions. Usually at the request of someone who worried that I shared more about the kids than I should. And occasionally I’ve gone in and ‘sanitized’ the entries. I could just shut this site down, but being able to put down how I feel about what is going on in my house somehow seems to help me sort things out.

At the moment, we don’t have anyone in the house in the program. Our most recent youth moved out over the weekend. He seems to have made peace with his mom; he’s finished his first semester in college and now has his first apartment. Not bad for a kid who was kicked out 4 times his senior year, and then dealt with a grandma who tried to anoint the gay out of him. When he came to us in? July, he was only going to stay a few weeks until he left for an out of town school. Plans fell thru, he registered for school here and we have had him the whole semester. But… he is now on his own. And he is safe.

Not that we don’t have a kid in the house. One of the kids who came to us thru the program- has come and gone a couple of times and is back with us. He has become one of my children, and each time he left we held our breath waiting for the train wreck that is his decision making process. And each time we have tried to help him put the pieces back together. He has made some big mistakes, but I think the heart of what we are trying to do is say to these kids –we love you! No matter who you are, what you’ve done, you are still loved. That’s a messy game plan. I’ve annoyed the center folks, pissed off my biological kids, and wondered about my own sanity each time we take him back in. I feel like the other option for him would have been worse. Boys who have no other choice turn tricks to survive. Homeless lgbt youth attempt suicide at the rate of 62%. I know the questions - I don't know the answer.

BUT, He is planning at the moment to go to school in his hometown for the spring semester. If that happens… he will be leaving again the second week in January. I’m not sure what plan b will be for him (actually- we must be up to plan Q, and one of those included joining the army- Good Lord)

I’m currently negotiating sleeping arrangements for Christmas night. Yes my son Shawn (the cop) Scrooge could put a kid out (not into the streets…just out) on Christmas. Whooo. He has small children- lalalaaa. Anyway- negotiations underway.

My reaction to denying Communion to gay advocates.

Click on the words above to get to the youtube video....

I'm back

As I write this, we have one child left with us. He has been with us off and on for a year. He is studying now for a test that will get him into college for the spring semester. (please Lord) We transitioned one child out this past weekend. We will keep in touch, but he seems to be ok. He has repaired the relationship with his mom, and I think in retrospect she just had a bad year, and his revelation was one of the last straws. (She lost a 4 month old baby.) Her reactions were not right, but we all screw up at some point.

I'll catch you up tomorrow on the rainbow ribbon advent project.