Sunday, September 30, 2012

Snapshot 093012

That mirror? It's from my car. Notice, it's not actually on my car in this first picture. A kid in the program next door went on a rampage all across campus and my poor little car somehow ended up in the wake of destruction. Right before leaving, one of my own boys decided it was unsafe for me to drive home without it, so he taped it back on for me. 

This made me smile. But the smile quickly faded as I drove home.

S. o. o. o. o. o. . .
S. l. e. e. p. y . . .

Somehow through the drudge of sleepiness, my brain runs (as though in mud) through the scenarios of the day. Processing...

A new(ish) boy, who we'll refer to as Mississippi, well... he's just very sick. He's lucked out and basically been handed nearly every bad card there is in the deck: abuse history galore, abandoned and unwanted, low-functioning, funny looking, traumatized by Hurricane Katrina... the whole gambit.

At this very moment, he's sitting in the back of a big van between a therapist and a large Samoan man, being driven to a mental hospital. And he has no clue where they're going. He thinks they're just out for a nice Sunday drive...

But it's better that way. Or, at least, I think it is.
No sense in giving him a reason to freak out.
He's not really able to 'prepare himself' like many of us...

Seventeen hour shift. Behaviors. Property damage. AWOL's. Fights. Restraints. Protective Seclusion. Creative weaponry. Crisis de-escalation. Hospitalization.

And all those thoughts waft away as I devote my mind to one important question...

Who do I miss more?
My wife or my pillow?

At this point, it's hard to say...
Sorry, Sweet Pea...

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