Total Pageviews

Friday, April 27, 2012

justice for Cristopher


I learned a valuable lesson earlier this week, or should I say I relearned a valuable lesson earlier this week. I learned your happiness and security can crumble around you in a matter of seconds. A lesson I have learned several times in my life. A lesson I had forgotten. Our life was torn asunder last Tuesday when a Greene County Juvenile judge threw a brick wall into our path. Our lives shattered into a zillion pieces.

Christopher, our grandson, came into our life almost two years ago after his mother made some unwise choices. We became his foster parents at that time. For the last two years we have loved, cared for him while his mother set her life in order. The prognosis for reunification was good. The mother was told that all parties involved to regaining custody were moving forward.

Our hearts broke when a Judge Jones gave custody to Christopher’s father. This father has a major anger issue. This father has seen his son one time since he was six months old. This father can’t seem to find ten minutes a week to spent Skype time with his son, yet he thinks he will be able to spend 24 hours a day raising his son. This father abused his son while he was married to the mother.

How could this travesty happen? What was the judge thinking? The fact of the matter is Christopher was on the role of Foster Children of Missouri and the State paid $488 a month for his care. The mother was not completely ready to take care of her child, so he arbitrarily decided to give custody to an abusive stranger to get Christopher off of the roles and save the State $488 a month.

We were not given a voice. We are willing and financially able to care for him. But no, he is being forced away from all he has ever known because of a judgment from a Judge thinking only about the bottom line. His decision was not ‘what’s better for the child’; on the contrary it was “what’s better for the state, the child be damned.’

Where is the justice for Christopher? Why should he be a victim of the economy?

Raise your voice to the injustice if you are in the Springfield Missouri area, hell raise your voice to this injustice if you are a caring member of humanity. The bottom dollar should not be the deciding factor when deliberating a child’s fate.

As for now we are shocked, numb, and outraged. Dreaming is no longer fun.


Monday, April 16, 2012

my name isn't Noah

On Thursday, April 5th, I awoke to the sound of water below my bedroom; I said to myself that someone was taking a shower in the bathroom below me. The problem with that thought is NOBODY USES THE BATHROOM BELOW ME. I ran downstairs to find a swimming pool in our basement (ok a swimming pool for small insects and such as the depth was no more than 2 inches) a pipe in the toilet had burst, spewing water like a miniature Niagara Falls.
Update

The final casualties for last week’s flood is in. 60 of our grandson's stuffed animals lost their life as they valiantly kept him safe from water as he slept. (We were told we shouldn't save them as most were soaking wet) Every single one of his books drowned, they didn't know what hit them, and we are waiting to see the condition of the three easy chairs. They stood stoic as the waves lashed against their legs. Their companion tables are so lost as they sit in a corner of our living room. The poor tables miss their easy chair companions.
The pipe that burst was one of those pipes that had a lifetime guarantee against burstability. I took out my dictionary to see if I had the right definition of LIFETIME.
We have yet to hear from FEMA.