May 2, 2016
It has been a pretty crazy month or so since I last wrote.
One of the biggest things that happened is that Hedayat(James) talked with his mother. It had been two years – he hadn’t heard from her since he left Afghanistan, in rather a hurry. We had been in touch with the Red Cross to try to locate her, but there had not been any progress that we know of. It was Facebook that did it. She found him on Facebook, somehow.
It is a bit of a long story, but here it goes. Someone made contact with Hedayat/James several months ago via FB message, but it seemed a bit fishy. A man said that he knew Hedayat’s mom and was a neighbor of hers. He left a phone number. We tried calling the number the person gave, but couldn’t get through. Eventually, Hedayat’s caseworker got a friend in Kabul to call the number, and it turned out to be legit. The person who answered said the man had moved away, but the person knew Hedayat’s mother. We tried calling the number again but couldn’t get through. Then one night, Hedayat got a call from the number and answered the phone, and it was his mom. It was a pretty intense reunion. She told him that after he left, their house had been bombed, and she had been injured, but was okay now. All his siblings are fine. No word about his father.
I can’t quite imagine what a tremendous relief it must have been for both Hedayat and his mother. I think the whole world is a good bit brighter for Hedayat now. He is talking to his mom at least once a week.
The second big thing is that we expect to be a family of 6 for a while, as in an indefinite period of time. LCFS is “selling” the foster program to Bethany Ministries. They don’t know if any of the current staff will be hired on, or if we will have all new people. It is a very difficult time for the staff at LCFS. As far as Isa and Roshan go, there are no other homes available, so the only alternative they would have would be to live together in an apartment. Obviously, that isn’t an acceptable option, so they are staying with us.
We got ourselves a proper minivan, so we can all go (with dogs) together. We also got a hitch (which Ghani/Sam installed, of course) and we got a 4 bike rack for the hitch. I took the boys to get bicycles at a rather cool used bike shop in a hubcap warehouse in Easton. So, they each have a bike with lock, helmet, water bottle and now lights.
On their first bike ride back from soccer practice, Isa fell. He was wearing his cleats and the shoe slipped off the pedal and down he went. He rode the rest of the way home, but by the time he walked in the door, his right arm was swollen and it hurt to move it. So, Nolan dashed off to the ER with Isa. Our first ER visit – kind of a milestone or something. Isa was such a trouper! He was pretty dismayed to hear that it was broken. Further scans showed that it didn’t need surgery, but he did need to keep it in a cast for about 6 weeks. No volleyball. L
Isa and Roshan both seem to be adjusting well at school. They are anxious to find part-time jobs, so we are working on job applications. Roshan is a great story-teller and Isa has a wonderful sense of humor and a laugh that is contagious.
We are dealing with the Halal thing okay. There is a restaurant supply place that sells quite a bit of Halal meat, so we have a good supply of hotdogs, chicken breast, meatballs and chip steak. It does make meal planning a bit more challenging for me though. And I could really go for a pork tenderloin! J Going out to eat is rather tricky as well, but we aren’t doing much of that these days anyway.
Ghani/Sam, our straight-A, honor roll, super kid – has gotten into some trouble at school. It started when his science teacher asked him to bring in a project he had been working on at home. Ghani brought the project in his little tool bag. The tool bag contained a utility knife. The teacher said that knives were not allowed at school and had the office take the knife. The office kind of flipped out. Bringing a “weapon” to school is a serious offence, so Ghani was removed from class, searched, and suspended from school. It was all extremely traumatic. They were threatening police intervention, permanent expulsion, etc., all the while they were saying that they knew it was just a misunderstanding over what the teacher asked Ghani to bring to school. We were all (Nolan, Ghani’s caseworker and I) pretty appalled by the way it was handled. And they went by the book, so there wasn’t a heck of a lot we could do.
To add insult to injury, Ghani had been having trouble with a new boy at the school, who was bullying and threatening him. He reported this to the teacher and the school did an intervention kind of thing. But the bullying didn’t stop. Finally on Monday last week, Ghani had enough and let the kid know it. Ghani got suspended again. Ghani was not too keen to go back to the school, but he did, and he is doing his best to keep up the straight As and make it through the last few weeks of the school year.
The lemonade bit of this story is that during his second suspension, Ghani studied and passed his driver’s permit test. So now I have a designated driver! He can go for his driving test on his birthday, August 1st. In the meantime, I am enjoying being chauffeured around town.
I think that we have made the adjustment to our new family composition pretty well. All the boys are getting along well. I am more frazzled than ever, but that isn’t too surprising. My super cleaning-lady, Sherry, had open heart surgery a couple weeks ago. She is doing pretty well, but it is a difficult recovery and she will be out of commission for quite a while. In the meantime, we are all pitching in a bit to try to keep things going – and I miss her a lot.
I haven’t spent any quality time in my studio for a while. The weather started to get a bit warmer, so we are working on the yard. We got the pond going again – not quite finished, but at least going. We pulled a pick-up truck load of weeds, dead bushes and such and have hired an old family friend (Casey Wagner) to draw up some landscaping plans for us.
So there will be 6 of us going to AZ in June. I think it will be quite an adventure. Nolan’s folks have risen to the challenge, as usual. They seem to be taking it in stride. After the shock of being 6 instead of 4 wears off, the new normal becomes just normal. J
I have added a bunch more pictures to our online album here: https://goo.gl/photos/hj5nxUpzB8WjBHhG8
I could not figure out how to sort them so that the new ones are first.
And our first two boys, Simba and Zorro, seem quite happy to have a few more brothers. Simba is suffering from a really bad hot spot that was so uncomfortable, he didn’t eat for a day. (If you know Simba, you know that is a sign that things are really terrible). He is on 3 medicines now and wearing that awful collar. He is on the mend, and it will be a few more days till he is feeling himself, I think. He is definitely less uncomfortable today than he was yesterday.
We are hoping to get in a day trip to NYC before the end of school, but between shows and soccer and birthdays, our weekends are pretty well packed. The boys did get to see a hockey game (compliments of my brother and his family) which they enjoyed, and we saw a wonderful live show at the 19th street theater.
Ghani is taking piano lessons and Hedayat is going to start voice lessons. All the boys are taking swim lessons – so they will be ready for the pool and the beach this summer.
I am sure there is more but this email is quite long enough already and I have to get to work, so I will sign off.