Continuation

Let's begin with a prayer:
Dear Heavenly Father, watch over and guide our loved ones and ourselves as we go about the business of living. Ever mindful that we are not alone because you love us more than we can possibly imagine. Dear Father, you know our hearts and our minds may they always be in tune with you and not with this world. Let us keep in mind that we are holy because you created us and you are holy and so all that you create is also. Thank you Father for all you have done for us this day and all you continue to do for us. Amen

I was looking at my journal that I am currently writing in and like most of my journals I don't fill one before starting on another so some of them may have entries going back three years or more. The one I am speaking about now is like this and sometimes I will read what I had written to see how I have grown. The date is sometime in 2001 and I am writing about being alone and spending a lot of time in the house. I write that my older daughter is sugesting that I find an outside intrest possibly a job and I am upset because noone understands what I am going through and why just getting a job wouldn't do the trick. As it turns out I did get a job that only lasted a few months before the let me go for lack of business. Then I suprised myself and kept looking until I found another one that I kept for two years and only left for health reasons. Soon I will be starting yet another job when school begins in August. What i realized after reading my entry was that I was wallowing in self- pity and my daughter was right I needed to get out and do something. So here is to my oldest daughter.

My story is an on going process as I am sure all of yours are. Just when we think that we can stop and catch our breath we are faced with a new challange. I was writing about how lonely I felt because of my situation with my oldest son. How isolated I thought it made me and this is probably what caused my depression. However during all of this I never stopped going to Mass or stopped teaching Religious Education that I had started doing in 1977. I don't know what I would have done it had not been for the church and my faith. I have always found comfort in my religion even though it has been hard to understand how God could love me as much as the Priest said that he did and accept the eucharist knowing that it was pure love meant for me. Sometimes I felt like I was hanging on by a thread and at any minute I was going to fall and never get up again but the Love he had and still has for me did not let me do that.

My son had been abused by the school he was attending and looking back on it now I wish I had, had more information about home schooling because I would have done it in a heart beat. Even though I thought about it, my low self-esteem was getting in the way and I did not think I could undertake such challange. So there we were, teachers and students all trying to cause my child harm. It became so bad that by the time he was in second grade he was punishing himself. If a child saw him out on the playground and did not want him there he would tell my son that the teacher was mad at him. My son did not question this remark instead he would go back to the classroom and either put his head down on his desk or stand in the corner facing the wall. The teacher who found him this way did not understand how a child would come to punish himself simply on someone's word. There were a lot of similar incidents throughout his school years. It was in ninth grade that someone other than myself actually confirmed what I knew. It was at the end of the year and a boy in one of his classes who had been picking on him all year finially decided to fight my son. Well after eighth grade when someone broke his collar bone we had put him in Karate so he had confidence that I had not seen in him before. The story goes that during class the kid kept taunting my son to fight so right there in front of the teacher no less my son said,"Come on." The kid charged at him over a few rows of desks and all my son did was what he had been taught in karate class, he put out his hand so that the kid hit his open palm with his forehead and was sent reeling backward. Not understanding what had happened to him, he charged again and with the same result. By now one of the students had left the classroom to get help and someone stopped the boy who was still intent on doing harm. When I got the call I was as usual on my guard. What did he do this time? Yes I will speak to him. The same old stuff. But this call was different the counselor who spoke to me was quite upset at her discovery. It seems that after speaking to the students in the room she was convinced that my son was and had been socially abused. I was in a state of shock because I forgot to get her name a big mistake on my part as it was proof as to what I believed and what I had been telling anyone who would listen. Needless to say that without that name my husband still would not listen to me on the matter. It wasn't until our son was diagnosed that he began to see a pattern and decided that after all that time it was not me that was at fault.

Let's close with a prayer: Saint Monica you know what it is like to suffer at the hands of your own spouse. You know what it is like to see your child turn away from the faith and flounder in this life. Teach us how to have your strength and patience. Teach us how to rely on the power of prayer and the Love of the Lord to face each and every day. Amen

Remember always Saint Monica. God Bless