The CRCG: Part II

I can't put a name on it, how this feels.  It's a bundle of sadness, regret, fear, and just a little bit of hope, but I have to search through the tangle of all those other things to find it.

Yesterday, a meeting was held at the Juvenile Probation Center off of Kilpatrick. You arrive there and you tell the receptionist that you are a parent and you are there to attend a CRCG meeting for your child.  Then you sit down and you wait a long time until the CRCG committee gets to your child's name.

They call your name and you walk into a room that contains about twelve people, most of whom you have never met.  They are representatives from MHMR, from CPS, from Special Education programs at one or two schools (in this case it was Cleburne and Alvarado), School Resource Officers, and others.  Someone introduces you.  You sit down and say hello as each person introduces themselves.  And then they ask you for a basic summary of why you are there.

And you tell them.  You tell them about how your son's behavior has deteriorated over the past year, and what that actually means:  that you often have to take your four year old and lock yourself in a bedroom because he gets in a "mood" and wants to harm you.  How your two older children don't really want to be at home anymore.  How he is too big and you cannot control him anymore.  You tell them about all of his hospitalizations, and how nothing concrete came of that except the knowledge that he functions much better in a regimented and scheduled environment.  You try, in the limited time that you have, to convey the absolute desperation you feel that something must change, and then they ask you what you would like to see happen for your child.

And you have to look at a group of twelve people, most of whom you have not met before this day, and say:

I would like my son placed in a group home.

They tell you they will sign the papers and get the ball rolling.  They thank you for your time.  And you leave.

And when you get out to the parking lot, that's when you absolutely lose it, because you feel like a monster.  You didn't get to tell them about his beautiful smile, or his wonderful sense of humor, or how he cuddles up to you at night, or how he loves the singer Pink and the band Fallout Boy, and you didn't get to list his favorite foods, and how he helps you in the kitchen and helps you clean the house and plants things in the garden.

You don't get to talk about that and you question yourself all the time, every minute, until the next time you have to lock yourself in the bedroom again, or the next time he pulls on his four year old sister, or scratches you on the arm or hits you in the face. Then you think, no I did the right thing.

And you realize that what it boils down to is that this isn't just about you. You, yourself, may be able to endure this indefinitely.  Because you are his mother, and you are genetically wired to sacrifice and to endure.  This is what mothers everywhere do for their children.  But your other children and family members are not wired this way; your other children are just children, and they need you too.  So you make this decision and you do it understanding that this child does not just belong to you, he also belongs to Heavenly Father.  You understand that his life is taking this turn for a reason.  Logically, you know that if you wait until he is thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, something terrible may happen. He may hurt himself or someone else without understanding what he is doing, and then the choice of what happens to him may not be yours to make anymore.

But that doesn't make this any less painful.

My hope is that this will be a positive thing for him and for us.  There is no question that Logan needs more care than I can give to him at this time.  One day, he may be able to return home again, and we can make up for lost time. Until then, we must, as his parents, make the best possible decision for him and for us, and that is giving him access to the care he needs and an environment that he can function in, and giving our other children the peace they crave and deserve.