So now I have to go back a bit to my daughter Margaret Maureen(Moe)
Moe as I said was always a tomboy. Loved sports and soccer.Diagnosed with a visual processing learning disability at the age of seven and ADD later.Moe always had close with her a beloved stuffed animal named "Krissmutty".She truly loved this toy she had had since she was eighteen months old, and it want with her everywhere.Even as she got older and would sleep over friends house, krissmutty was with her somewhere,if even hidden her bag to avoid ridicule from her friends. Moe struggled in school,but all the support systems were in place to help her through, and they did.I think it was even more difficult for Moe as her sister Beth, who is only thirteen months her senior,was always in the gifted and talented programs in school and for Beth, learning was easy.Not so for Moe.In our family we would accentuate the positive, so for Moe the positive was sports and her incredible outgoing personality.She seemed to have no fear sometimes when it came to trying new experiences and things. We saw this as a good thing.With all our girls, we nurtured their strengths.
Moe played soccer/sports on the teams in our town until she was sixteen and to old to play.She wanted to play at the high school level,but found it difficult to maintain her grades high enough to participate in their sports. She began to exibit signs of trouble in the sophmore year of high school.Our worst fears were confirmed, she had begun to use drugs. We went through a strange gambit of Denial.."not my daughter, we didn't raise her like that" to Transferrence.."It's the new friends she's hanging out with, if not for them she would not be doing this" We however got her in to see a counselor ,Karen Holmes,who at the time was in downtown Toms River, and Moe was able to visit with her after school.And as per our pediatrician reccomendations, she also went regularly to a Child Psychiatrist associated with Brick behavioral health,who began treating her with Prozak., and Adderall.
One day she stole checks from our checkbook and somehow forged and cashed them. What a wake up! We realized that you pick your friends because you had something in common, and she was old enough and well equiped to make her own decisions.We actually signed a complaint against her with the police.I realize this sounds mean, but we figured better she accept responsibility now with only family involvement, than sweep it under the rug and have her try it later with someone else. We also got her into an intensive outpatient rehab available to us called Riptide, as we realized her drug usage must be more than we had imagined if she had begun stealing.Believe it or not, even though we the parents were the "victims" of the theft, We were also responsible for the $10,000.00 it cost to hire her a lawyer.And so we did.The out come was good. By the time the case was heard, she had finished all of her time with Riptide.She was drug free and sober, and able to finish and graduate school.However my husband and I had major concerns as we found out she had begun dating a boy from our town, Adam, who he and his family were known drug users.And although she at that time was coming up clean for all drug tests, we feared that this association was defiantly not a good sign.However she finished high school and vocational school and graduated.Yet this relationship with Adam continued. This was not a good relationship, he was mean to her. Did things like slash her clothes to shreads and leave them on our lawn. He even slashed our tires! The police said that although we all knew Adam had done these things, Because we never actually witnessed him doing it, there was nothing they could do. They continued with this relationship. She went one time for an abortion, which I cannot tell you how much it broke my heart.
After graduation she announced that she was going to Colorado with Adam, And they went! They were gone for approximately six months. She called me one day hysterically crying. She said she and Adam had an argument, and Adam "killed" her beloved toy Krissmutty, by tearing him into pieces and burning him.( To this day I still have the remnants of Krissmutty, as even though he was just a stuffed animal, To her and us, he was so much more than that.)I sent her a bus ticket and she came home. Of course Adam followed.
Shortly thereafter she announced to us that she was pregnant.At this point, much to our dismay, we realized Adam was not going away, and since he was the father of her unborn child, we did all to attempt to help her through her pregnancy.We brought her to social services where she was able to get assistance and housing.We also made every attempt to guide her toward domestic violence counseling, as we knew this relationship with Adam was toxic.They got an apartment in Bricktown, and we all awaited the arrival of the baby. She said she wanted me to be in the delivery room with her! YAY! Since I am a pediatric nurse and have been working for many years with Pediatric Affiliates, I didn't even have to attend any classes as they knew, that I knew all that was going to go on in delivery.So Moe and Adam attended classes so that Adam could also attend delivery.
My beautiful grandson Alexander John Thomas was born on June 23, 2005. It was the most incredible and emotionally charged thing to expierience the birth of Alex! And He was a Georgous baby! So handsome was he that He and Moe actually did a photo shoot in NYC when Alex was eight weeks old.The photo they took was so popular, I still see it to this day being used for various things from Wal-mart adds , to medical flyers for the Guardisil vaccine ,to a sign I saw directing people to a Child health clinic outside a hospital in poughkeepsie in NY! This photo of Moe and Alex is very popular indeed! It is a wonderful loving picture of mother and child.The picture is still being used on Moes Myspace page, although I see she hardly checks in anymore.....