How Facing DEATH Can Cause An Ephinay

       This past week I almost died! I mean this literally! It is funny that when one is really facing death, how you face your fears. I have a lot going on in my world. I am always the one who helps care for everyone else. I am the one who throws myself under the bus for the betterment of everyone else. I volunteer and try to help kids who no one wants . This means I get to know them personally. I know which ones are being beaten, I know which ones who are hooked on heroine ( that is an issue that is growing more and more each day), I know the ones who have a parent who is dead or who kicked the kid out. I feed them find them when they disappear. Where is the State in all of this you may ask? Sad reality is that when a kid is 14 or 15 they fall in the cracks of society. What is scarier is that they are also expected to be adults one day and productive members of society. How can that be when they are the lost. 


        I guess I can relate to them being termed this because I was once the lost myself. Its not that I didn't have a parent who cared, I had a mother who went out of her way to try to save me but she was trying to care for another child who was with a potentially fatal illness. She did the best she could. I went to live with another family when we were in Texas. I am one of 53 foster brothers and sisters. Yes you heard right. 53 of us at different times. So the kids I mentor are no different than those I lived with. Point is that if I don't show up to help these kids then who is? Where are they going to be? I can't let them go to the streets so I have to take a stand and fight for them because no one else has or will. 


         Then there is my step dad. At 53 he had artery bi-pass surgery that was done incorrectly. The hospital let him go home twice with hospital grade staph infection. Even though it's been 4 years since the surgery, he was hospitalized this past week. He may still loose his foot. We'll know later on in the next couple of weeks. When he was home fighting the infection before, he refused to leave his recliner. He was so afraid that something would happen if he walked to far. This is not a quality of life. For 18 months he went as far as the kitchen to the bathroom and back to the recliner. It was terrible! I finally got him to go to the garage and look at his Harley. Because of the surgery they had done, he was not able to steady the bike or lean it to turn. I convinced him to get a side car for it. I think that the Harley was what saved him the last time. He ended up going on a 6,000 mile road trip on it. I pointed out that he could die in that recliner or he could die on the road or he could live. But if it were me I would be on the road and take my chances because at least I was having a quality of life that the recliner was not giving me. I have no regrets taking care of him again. He won't be living in that recliner either!!!!


       Then there is school. I decided that I needed to complete my education. As I was lying in that hospital bed knowing that I could really die,because the doctors were telling me I was so close to it, I realized that I don't have time to die!

       This is my world. People will say to me "Dawn you have to give up something in your life to make it easier for yourself!" OK normal people would, but tell me what do I have to give up? If I am not there for my responsibilities then someone pays a heavy price! So facing death has made me stronger and more driven. If I don't complete school, then the person I have not met yet who is needing my skills as a victim advocate won't get my help one day.


       So I guess I realized that as long as everything works in one way and nothing goes wrong my life is ok. I know you are laughing! Life never goes the way we want it to. 


       I guess I have realized that when facing death, I realized how blessed I really am. I realized that I am too damn stubborn to die. I realized that everything is connected in life: I am in school to learn so I can help the one person I have not met yet that will need me. I will be better prepared when I do meet them because of what I have been through. So giving up is never the answer! In the meantime, I am willingly putting myself on the front lines of a battle that everyone else wants to ignore or not see with these kids they call delinquents. Who knows one day it may make a difference to one of them. Its hard to know where they will end up. Even they don't have a clue. It's hard to see hope when you don't know where your next meal will be. Still I believe in them. No matter what they do. 


        So this is my week. How was yours?