Garbage Bags and Google
Now What?
We bought a house with a lot of space in hopes that we’d welcome more kids and have room to host family and friends. Dinner parties, junior high kids running around the basement someday, all the holidays; I couldn’t wait to buy my 12 foot Christmas tree and decorate it as the highlight of our living room for the season. My dream is to have all my family around that tree, making memories year after year, all the way until my last Christmas earthside. We bought this house for a lot of reasons, but we didn’t buy this house to start a homeless shelter. The reality that I had just moved two strangers in started to hit me as I lay in bed that first night. I couldn’t help but think about the girl in the guest suite, with every possession she had in trash bags just a flight of stairs away. Nobody she knew had any clue where she was. I’d hear her stir in the middle of the night, getting up to make bottles. The baby screamed all night, and hear me when I say ALL night. The bottle making production was loud; she never shut off the TV. But hey, I hadn’t slept through the night in five years anyhow thanks to my genius attachment parenting idea. Co-sleep they say! They won’t stay in your bed forever; they’ve never met my Rylee.
I’m 98% Type A, with habitual tardiness making up the other two percent. I’m a planner and I’m a fixer. This often lends me to be a terrible listener because I am here for the problem solving, not the feelings people (I’m working on it). So as I’m making breakfast for my family plus one that morning, I knew I needed a plan. I was going to change this girl’s life: help her get a job, make a budget, puree up some organic baby food, maybe even teach to drive a car (This was on D, because, well, I’ve hit a variety of parked cars in my day). I went downstairs and offered to help her unpack. I started untying the trash bags and my plans were humbled REAL fast. There were plastic dishes covered in food, dirty diapers intermingled with soiled clothes and baby bottles, a high school diploma and some artwork, a few family pictures.
I pay a very small fee for very good housekeepers to clean my house regularly, and now, I was washing a teenage mom’s clothes on sanitary because there was a roach in the bags.
“I’ll be back down in just a few,”.
I went to my bedroom and closed the door. I was overwhelmed, maybe even drowning, and we weren’t even 24 hours in. I found the business card that was left the day before and called our case worker, desperate for some help. I don’t remember the exact details, but I didn’t hear back that day. She was compassionate when we finally did talk. She thanked me and told me how much she appreciated what we were doing, but what she didn’t tell me was what the heck I was supposed to do with the girl and the baby.
“Teach her some basic skills, help her get a job, don’t let her get too comfortable, she needs to contribute. We’ll be by to see her soon,”. Thank you for your politeness and kind words but that was not the checklist I needed.
Google. Google will have instructions. I started searching job and family services and learning all about the resources available. We scheduled appointments for WIC (the baby only had half a can of formula left), health insurance, cash assistance, emergency housing; the list went on. Within 48 hours I had spent a solid 15 of them on the phone trying to figure out what our options for support were and where we were supposed to begin. I was beyond frustrated and defeated. It was a lot of work and a lot of confusion. She didn’t qualify for emergency housing because she didn’t have any money (makes sense right? ). She couldn’t drive so she had to wait until I could take her to all these appointments.
People on welfare are lazy right? That’s probably a thought I’d heard or maybe even ignorantly had at some point. Wrong. Being poor is hard. Being uneducated is hard. Having been neglected and abandoned had to have been hard. I have two cell phones, an Ipad, a desktop and a laptop and this sweet girl had broken eyeglasses and some spare change. The tasks were daunting for me but impossible for her. WIC wasn’t at the same building as the cash assistance and the job coach and all of them were entirely too far to walk. The formula had to be bought at a store that accepted the card. She needed to list a phone number and her last five addresses. She didn’t know her employment dates for her last job.
I called my mom. I cried. Marginalized people who’ve never had a home were not a crowd I’d been around, but I knew she might have some answers since she works in a school where she sees far too many neglected kids every day. She had more answers than Google, or at least more encouragement.
By the end of the first week, we had set up the services or made arrangements for them. The baby had formula and the clothes were clean and put away. She had a card for free public transportation to job interviews and medical appointments. D did his best to help her prepare to start interviewing. I got up with her at night to help console the baby and offered different ways to hold him so he would stop crying. We were making progress on the list, but my attitude was going downhill fast.
I complained to D and he complained right back. I was starting to have regrets. I couldn’t do all of this and keep up my own commitments. I had miscarried in the spring. It wasn’t fair. She let her baby cry and watch TV all night and I wasn’t pregnant, but now it was my job to help her become a better mom. I was in the valley. There was too much to do.
Rylee, D and I took a break at the end of the week to go to a football game. She had been nominated for “Student in the Son light” and the note home said, “ I never hear a complaint out of her mouth; she does her work with diligence and a joyful heart,”. She’s a good role model and honestly, better than the rest of us. I clung to those words as we entered the second week. Our case worker was coming and we were soon going to learn the story of mom and the baby and how they ended up at our house in the first place.
This Post Has 3 Comments
Katie thank you so much for sharing your journey. I am so happy for all your blessings! I think you may need to change careers! You are a very talented writer!
Oh man, I don’t want to wait until NEXT Tuesday!!
I “knew” your story, but I haven’t gotten to know your story until this blog. Love the journey, love your courage, love your writing, love your heart. I also died a little when your woke up D in the first post! Ahhh I can picture that perfectly 😂
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