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Caregiving Stories

The Tyrant

Was born ginger
and learned WhiteRacist
from Dad
dead now about a year.

Possibly opioid addiction
but certainly something
in growing families
of yin-suppressed
self-medicating
LeftBrain too dominant
addictions
to chemical acclimations.

Dad left by death
Tyrant's also addicted
and chronically depressed mother
And his only white racist
twelve year old ginger son,
Who looked disturbingly like me
when I was twelve
so many fading
domesticating decades ago.

The Tyrant was delivered to my condominium door
as a weekend emergency
because his self-medicating mourning Mom
finally used up life insurance money
was also out of medication
mostly out of LeftBrain consciousness
totally out of custodial luck

Because someone in LeftBrain SocialWorker Deductive Heaven
declared
it would be more therapeutically restorative
for Tyrant Son,
who adored his loving Mom,
and missed his admittedly racist Dad
and for his Professionally Kept Mother
to live apart
until she could afford
to give more robust care with him.

Instead they paid me
more than enough
to share our home
and food

So he could feel guilty
about building a nutritious life
deprived of her
And she could feel raped
by loss of his smell and touch,
All she had left
of her ranting husband
with life insurance
figuring he was worth
no less than $10,000.

The Tyrant stayed
six months
to finish out his school year
where he had been
while living in a motel
with his Mom
and eating out in restaurants
until the ten thou ran out
as did her credit cards.

Then I had to explain
he would not stay longer
because he verbally abused,
hate crimed,
bullied my two younger
and smaller
African-American sons
in their own non-N-word home
where they should feel at least safe
and at best unconditionally loved.


The GayBoy

The GayLatino came because
his foster home trail
of several sordid years
was too homophobic
to feel at home
when his *****hormones kicked in
or even around
foster over-populated housing.

That my AfricanAmerican husband
and GingerMe are gay
was both the reason they called
and the reason they kept a sharp supervisory 
suspicious eye.

GayLatino had been sexually active
within prior foster homes,
although I suspect
I only heard
the safest of these stories.

Anyway, GayLatino came with acne
and his hands across his smile
to not offend
with badly misaligned
neglected teeth,
and stoop shouldered body language.
More of a sad sloucher
than a gay glad athlete. 

But we visited an orthodontist
several times
and his acne went away with treatment,
and his gay foster dads
did not touch
other than a rare hug
after having been granted temporary permission.

GayLatino looked in his 17 year old mirror
and saw that it was VERY BUENO
and told me he would live with his grandmother
as he moved out to live with his new lover
and his new lover's not-well-boundaried mother.

Now GayLatino
had lived with his grandmother
right after surviving a drug bust
with a full blown urban SWAT
that pulled his Pops
into prison
and his lovely fading Mom
out to hardrock streets.

The family meth business
was no more
and all she knew to feed her addictions
was to compromise her personal sacred space
and time for PrimeRelationships.

GayLatino was badly hurt
by his parents' lack of regard
for his,
and his brothers', health and safety,
Angry and afraid about lack of care
for their own health and safety,
and what this might portend
for his own healthy-wealthy future.

His family anchor
was his grandmother,
his jaded Mother's mother,
Who was sad about her daughter
and loved her Gay grandson--
now with handsome spanish-smiling teeth
and slick hair grooming breathlessness.

While GayLatino had briefly lived with her
as an emergency foster placement,
she could not keep him
or his brothers
because she could not provide
a healthy household budget
to prove capable to wealth afford them
without a foster care-receiving stipend.

Some Professional SocialWorker
undoubtedly from Too-Ivoried Heaven,
had supremely declared
Relatives are socially preferred placements
for ecopolitical foster care
BUT
relatives cannot economically need foster care stipends
that a nonrelative care-provider may legitimately require
to adequately budget room and board.

It is this State Policy,
more therapeutic to pay a stranger
than to give foster care ransom
to a loving grandmother
so she can afford to be
his preferred
more therapeutic
restorative resident healthcare provider
as she cared for him,
off and on,
his whole pre-gay life.

I still reassuringly hear and see him smile
from time to time
through FaceBook pictured captions.

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