A Hug Saves a Soul: Part I

A Hug Saves a Soul:  Part I

The story I have to share with you today is startling, somber, serious, and sad.

The story begins with a small fragile vulnerable baby at fourteen months of age. We start the story at this point because it really sets the stage for seventeen years of struggle and suffering.

We zoom in to see a family in the in the mid-1960s. A family of nine children.

We pause just long enough to see a father who was not able to pay the heating bill.  His young baby nearly dies of double pneumonia.

Our focus changes to see a distraught mother who has to make the most difficult decision in her whole life. With one phone call to Catholic services, she sets in motion the future of her nine children.  No one in her family steps in to help so the children go into group homes and into foster homes.

Today we only have time to track the life of that 14-month-old baby.

Our tender little baby enters into a loving family were all of his needs are provided for. There is heat in the house and ample food to eat.  But it comes to our surprise that before this baby becomes two years old he is put into a new foster.  The Krugs are now entrusted to care for this young child.

I have in my hand pages of caseworker reports that note and log the observations that they made about the development of this young child.  For the life I am sharing with you today is my very own.

And I read in this cold analytical report the heart of a caseworker who is very much concerned about a foster mother's care for this young toddler.  He questions her treatment of the child, her discipline of him, and ultimately if she is providing enough love for the child.  In these case logs there is a letter from the foster mother who defends herself and her actions. She realized that the caseworker did not approve of a discipline that made a toddler play in the pigpen, the pigsty, because that if fitting for a toddler who behaves like a pig.

I was professional tested at this time, I was 5 years old, and it is determined that I should be classified as Mild Mental Retardation.

The case worker notes: 

Patrick is immature socially, and of course, has experienced severe neglect and emotional deprivation in his earliest years.  .. . and obviously has never had all the mothering he needed.

The caseworker stepped in and pulled me from the foster home and placed me with another family.  I was there for 4 months and then moved on to another foster home.  

The McWilliams.  And lest I be accused of pulling at your heart cords.  I have to provide a bright spot to all this dark recounting of my childhood experiences.  Those 3 years and 7 months and 18 days with the McWilliams were the happiest of my life.  I had so many fun memories of being a kid that I still cherish to this day.  I liked to catch flying grasshoppers in the potato patch, Japanese beetles in the grapevines and catching flies to put in the spider webs that were abundant around our outhouse.  I didn’t have any memories of the prior 3 foster homes and gave no thought to the future.  I lived in the moment. 

But one day the caseworker came by one day and asked if I wanted to meet my “real” mother.  To this day I remember my emotional confusion and asking the question: 

“But I thought she (referring to Mrs. McWilliams) was my mother?!”

Then I met my “real” mother and realized just how complicated life really was.

My mother had gotten really sick and was bed ridden for a long time.  Not Mrs.  Barrett, the other mother, my real mother: Mrs.  Mc Williams. 

See I told you it was complicated.  It was the first time, I was 8 years old, that I heard the dreadful word, “cancer”.

“Mother Elsie has had cancer and she passed away last night.”

The three piece suit was bought, worn, and we all went to the funeral.  I lost my mother, the only one I have ever known.  I was alone, and in the darkest emotional state that you can image.

But my physical needs were taken care of.  There was another foster home to go to.  The case log is quite extensive detailing the move from home to home.  Time does not allow for us to do more than just list the many different foster families that I lived with.

The Derbys  …  three months.

The Eisenhower's …  one-year and three months.

The Creeleys for five months.

The Aspeys  … two years and nine months.

Ms. Martin for 11 months.

Another Martin family for two years and 8 months.

When you read it as a list of families it sure does not sound all that tough.

For all the notes, commentaries and observations of the caseworkers that I have had read, they never really knew the heart of that small frail child.  Only I can tell you what the state of my heart was at that time.  Looking back at the time I was fifteen years of age, my caseworker was stressing out as to where I could be placed.  My real bio family was still not an option.  I never knew who dear old dad was.

But then I had the opportunity to move into a foster home that was caring for my real bio sister, Tina.  The one and only time I ever lived with any blood relative.  But under just a year our foster mother, Lucy, died suddenly of a heart attack.  Lucy’s son took my sister and me in.  Tina soon after made it safely off to the military and I was left alone to make the best of it.

Things went from bad to worse.  You can image by now that I wasn’t the best addition to a family that could be found.  By greatest defensive protection was apathy which most people interpreted as passive-aggressive behavior.  I didn’t do anything evil but I was not the most cooperative member of the family either.  So I was eighteen years old and the Martins wanted me out.

Who could make anything good out of the mess I was in?

You guessed it.  Jesus.

But I needed to meet a family first.  There were some things I had to see in action. 

Love in action.

To see what a truly caring family looked like.

It was and still is a dramatic story of timing and of risk taking.