Getting Shit On...


Not many of you know this, but one of the essential reasons we moved in with my Grandmother was to protect her from my cousin (a few years older than I) who has a strong history of drug addiction. Needless to say, Grammy has funded this addiction for "years"...under the impression that she was helping him survive whatever crisis situation that he narrated. If you know Grammy, she is the meek, mild, and simple.

As we step directly into this particular chapter, my cousin has mistakenly gotten his girlfriend pregnant, to which they went ahead and got married...right out of the opiate party scene...living in government housing...claiming to be trying to clean up their act, which to some extent they did...just enough to not have their daughter taken from their custody. Their daughter is now two years old.

We have tried our hardest, in this situation, to practice every word we have preached over the past five years or more. We have been overly merciful and gracious, in every way Victor Hugo, in order to take pressure off of Grammy, to show our love and practice true forgiveness, and to invite them to do the same...we only ask for uncompromising honesty, for their sake and ours.

Yesterday, I took some food over to them, and gave them some gas money because my cousin has gotten himself a full-time job at Wal-Mart, which he has to drive to, and to which he has not yet gotten paid. We wanted this to work out for them, to believe that they could be straight, walk the line, get out of crisis mode, and see farther than two feet in front of their face.

It is always interesting to us, that when we give them something in support, they need something else the next day, often to which he accepts no alternatives except cash money for this particular thing or happening. Red Flag, I know...I have been honest with him about this...to which he awkwardly agrees, and then continues narration of this particular short story in which he believes is happening, or believes is important enough to be directly dishonest about.

So today, I arrive home from my social work job (where I spent the morning in domestic violence court and juvenile court), to find my cousin nervous and shaking, Grammy and Kelsie in the backyard looking for a twenty-dollar bill that Grammy had told him she would put under a particular flower-pot. She did it this way, so that no one would know she had talked to him earlier in the day. Well, he convinced us (not really) that the twenty-dollar bill was not there, and must have blown away. He eventually ended up with another twenty-dollar bill from Grammy. Awful, huh. Well, keep turning pages.

This particular short story was connected to several others he has written. His Mother-in-Law has almost died several times this past month. She has been flown back and forth between Ashland,KY and Lexington,Ky in near death situations. She had recently been released and taken home and I was told she was doing much better (just yesterday). Well, she has been flown back to Lexington, and apparently is going to die...so it was written. His wife and daughter had already gone to Lexington, and he needed MORE money to go and join them.

Once it became dark, I decided to drive over to the housing project where they live. I saw a light on, and my heart started beating out of my chest like I myself had been disgraced and shamed...and so I prepared myself, getting out of the car, walking up to the door...heart beating heavier...I listened...and I heard his voice, and then I heard his daughters voice. The constant flashes of the television were all that remained after the first knock...I intentionally lowered my head in disappointment and hurt, waiting for the door to open up. It never happened, as I waited a full five minutes...knocked again...a few more minutes...knocked again...nothing. The television had been left all alone, while I assume they hid in another room.

I walked back to the car, to see the bedroom light still lit. What were they thinking or saying right now?? Are they now writing Science-Fiction into the story, or is non-fiction rising to the surface...I don't know. I did call, left a message of hurt, of feeling manipulated, of wanting to believe he didn't receive our mercy, and then turn and stab us with it, rather than giving it to someone else. I wondered why he had no desire to become Jean Val Jean, but then I thought, he has yet to accept his number, yet to accept that he is a prisoner. You cannot otherwise be set free.

The injustice done unto my cousin was not done by a judge, but rather by his parents, in which his prison is unseen mess of psychopathology. However, his aunts and uncles took him in at the age of four, adopting him, caring for him as should be done by his community. Sadly, this has not been enough, and it has been torture to see his biological parents situation and circumstance be repeated by their son. And it has been a tortuous reality for Kelsie and I to see the Kingdom of God so easily rejected, and thus cause us so much frustration and confusion.

We can only pray and believe that the light will expose what lies in the darkness...especially in ourselves.