I have not blogged in a couple of days because my Lupus was on ten. I had not been able to walk for like four days and I was in so much pain that I could not even sit up. I am not a go to the hospital person especially after I was diagnosed with Lupus I felt like I was always either at the hospital or at the Doctor. So Sunday night when my Mom asked me if I wanted to go we planned it so Monday morning I woke up with one thing on my mind. I was headed to the hospital to get some kind of relief. The blood pressure was 197/137 and that was after they had taken it a couple of times. But pain will cause all kinds of problems in your body and life. I have gotten so use to putting myself on the back burner that I have left my health to chance far more times than I can to think about.
This blog is about the end of a hard summer and my hopes that a new school year would bring about some growth and much needed changed on my son. However I was in for a rude awaking I never understood what my Mother said about being careful of the company that you keep because you become who you hang around. I am in no way saying that my son was a victim to his friends but what I will say that is that did not elevate him to try to change his behavior. It was like he was drawn to them like a moth. It was the first week of school that he ran away yet again. He did not come home from school and it was at this point that I was starting to see that this was a habit that my son had become use to. It was over the Labor Day weekend and just like a drug addict he disappeared. I called the police they came out and took the report but this time it was a little different when he had run away in the past he was fifteen and he was still considered a minor so if and when they found him they would just bring him home. But since he had turned sixteen in August then he no longer had to come back home but here was the catch. He didn't have to come home but I was still financially responsible for him. And I had no idea what that meant. It meant that if he got arrested he would be charged as an adult but that any restitution I would be responsible for. When I had called his school I talked to an administrator who was willing to help me. We had a plan and that when he showed up at school the teachers would text me and call her and she would go and get him and I would come to the school. Not all the teachers were on board and some just downright didn't want to help me at all. I had talked to the resource officer at the school and they told him that if they saw him at school that they would close the missing person report since they could prove that he was fine. But true to form my kid could even outsmart the police.
The one teacher who was willing to help had told me that she had given him school supplies and a change of clothes because he said he didn't have school supplies and he had not done his laundry because he was taking care me and I was dying of Cancer and he was taking care of his little sister as well. When she called me she was almost in tears asking if there was anything that we needed how she could help. He was falling asleep in class and she didn't want to see such a good kid fall behind. I told her that while yes I have Lupus, Congestive Heart Failure and blood clotting disorder that Cancer was something that have never and pray that I never will have. She was so hurt and I could understand but it was just the first of many lies that he would tell in order to have people feel bad for him and to be able to manipulate them. I told her that he had school supplies and plenty of clothes but that he had run away. She agreed to help me and would report when she saw him at school and try to find out who these new friends he was hanging around were. I was sure whoever these new people were they had to be giving him shelter.
Early on my son had been blessed to have an older man reach out to him and volunteer to be his mentor. It was a relationship that had exposed my son to golf, travel and community service. So when his mentor called me and told me that Zach had called him to come and get him from a friend’s house he didn't think anything about. By this time the shame of him running away was so great that I just stopped telling people when he was gone. I was happy to know that my son was ok but I was very angry. He had no idea that I knew about the lies at school he was too busy trying to craft a story that I would believe. My son could have earned an Oscar, Emmy or a Tony award. He had spun a lie that only he believed because as he began to tell me I saw right threw it. So as the story goes a "dude" rolled up on him about some weed money that he said Zach owed him and he wanted his money and so instead of coming home he stayed gone for almost four days to protect his. But he was going to school to certain classes and to eat breakfast and lunch. So since he proved that he did not owe the money it was safe for him to come home. So he called his mentor who picked him and listen to the story and was since he was unaware to what had been going on the kind of wanted to believe him. And just for good measure he had called by best friend’s husband and asked him to meet him at home so that he could help me try to understand. Now this whole time Zach had a phone he choose not to answer when I called but he did call out to the people that he wanted and needed. I sat on the couch and listened to the lie and the more he told the lie I could tell that by my silence he really thought that I was indeed buying the lie hook line and sinker.
Once we began to pick this fairytale apart he was still going to ride it to the end and I was like you are telling lies and I no longer want to listen. He had the same clothes on from four days earlier and he didn't smell like the young man who I had raised him to be. I looked at him like who is this dude and where is my sweet boy. These words are still said about him but he is such a good boy. I had not slept in days and had not been eating because my nerves wore tore up. It was like time stood still. Every time there was car wreck or someone was shot or the doorbell would ring I would fall apart. My Doctors were trying to find a good combination of medicine that would help with by blood pressure and something that would help with the overwhelming anxiety that I had no language for. I was starting to become very depressed and no one could pull me out. I didn't want to talk or eat or see anyone some days I didn't even get up out of the bed. When Monday rolled around and it was time to go to school he went and came home but something was odd. I had pulled up his phone bill and noticed a lot of calls to some of the same numbers. So called a few numbers but I was not ready for what I was about to hear. Zach had been some little boy to me but a young man who was far too told to be my son's friend. I was told that he let Zach stay between his house and another one of his boy's house on the same street because they were told that my boyfriend had jumped on me because some of his weed had come up missing and Zach jumped in to protect me and I took my boyfriends side and put him out. I had the phone on speaker and told the young man the truth who was shocked and amazed that Zach would go so far just because he didn't like my rules and no longer wanted to be in my house. Now here are the rules go to school and do your best, do house hold chores, and be respectful. I told the young man that Zach was a runaway and that he could be charged with helping him and he told me that he was in a little trouble of his own and that he could not afford any more trouble and that he would not allow Zach to stay at his house again and that he would let everyone on his street know the truth.
The next number I called was the weed man. I explained to him who I was and I told him that he did not ever need to text or call my son again talking about the weed was good and if he needed anything. I told him that Zachary was a runaway and that this was trouble that I am sure that he did not need. That it was none of my business how he paid him his bills but that I am sure going to jail was not in his plans.
I was so tired and the school year had just begun I was not ready for what was coming because this was mild.
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