I Lose Mary

I didn't quit, and something did happen to my daughter. For the first time in years my daughter, Mary, had not been in a group home or in a foster home. From 2007 to 2009, while in out-of-home placement through our County, she had been moved over twenty times and had unspeakable things done to her. That is, until I got her out and brought her home.

Raising Mary had been a challenge for her mother and me for most of her life. She was born with nonverbal learning disorder (an organic brain disorder similar to Aspergers), and because of this life had been a struggle for her far beyond that which most children ever experience. When she became a teenager, her behavior was more than either of us could handle and we became concerned she wouldn't be able to keep herself safe in the community. This proved to be true when one night she left the house, got into a stranger's car, and was sexually assaulted. We turned to the county for help, and after a great deal of discussion, decided it would be best if she were placed in a group home. As it turned out there wasn't a group home in the state that could keep her safe either, and for the next two years she was constantly moved from one group home to another and abused numerous times.

I finally got her home, nursed her back to health, and watched her improve to the point where her life started to resemble that of a normal teenager again. She and I were able to do something neither the County, nor any group home in the State was able to do. Her life had stabilized and she was no longer getting into trouble. But best of all, she was in the community again and she was safe. And for the first time in my life I was envisioning a normal life for her. And for the first time in her life she was doing well — extremely well. That is, until the day I lost my job, which coincidently was when she started hating me.

Mary and I had always shared a special bond that was important to her and to me. I was patient with her and she could always count on me to call or visit her when nearly everyone else had left her for dead in the blur of group homes she was pushed in and out of over those two years. And even though I'd always shared custody of her with her mother, neither her mother nor her social worker would tell me why she suddenly started hating me, even though they told me it was because of something I did.

To this day, I still don't know what happened to Mary back in the Fall of 2010, but she and I have had no relationship since that time. This has been devastating to me, and I can imagine, to her as well. But even worse, just as she was beginning to turn her life around and recover from what the county had done to her, she was used again by them and then abandoned, just like she had been during the time when she was under their care.