Sunday, June 29, 2014

A Flawed Legacy - 19

San Diego on any day of the year is a good day.  We were fortunate to have found a nice duplex apartment that was close to the elementary school we needed for our children and across the street from a shopping center. It was a great new start and it should have worked well for us.  Unfortunately, it did not.

My problem was that I had not yet learned how to deal with rejection and working for a company that promised to "Write your Congressman" on behalf of the companies I was able to convince that they needed to participate, meant that I was being rejected on 60 to 70 per cent of my "unannounced" calls. More often that not, the owner was not available.  I should have anticipated this, but I did not.

Instead, I turned to what I had begun to believe was my old "dependable" as far as jobs were concerned.  I dropped by an employment agency looking for a "better" job and would up with another promise of the future and more drudgery.  I had some breaks.  The young Indian emigrant with more clerical skills than I had ever seen was easy to place in an "employer paid fee" job.  That impressed her father who came to the office with the resumes of the other children I had yet to meet and told me not to worry about fees; he would pay the fees for any of the others I placed.  That became my goal, but I did not share my thoughts with the agency manager and soon she became critical of my efforts.

Then came the bomb shell.  The mail box of the people in the adjoining unit had been pilfered and it did not take long for the authorities to visit Janice.  From what I would soon hear from the investigators who talked with me, she was blaming me for my financial failures.  To be honest, I almost lost it.  I came close to beating on her after she hid in our bedroom behind a locked door.  I kicked it in and was ready to beat on her, when I realized my promise to her and to myself.  One more incident like we had experienced earlier and I was through with the marriage.  The next morning I was talking with a lawyer about the possibilities of a divorce.  I would learn that we could not afford one.

So, I let the inevitable happen.  She was arrested, went to court - alone, and eventually, she was found guilty.  I never visited her in jail and was not interested in visiting her in the prison she was sent to for an evaluation.  Instead, I went to the appropriate offices in the State to see what assistance I could get to stabilize our family situation.  It would take time, I was told.

I called an old friend we had known in a Los Angeles church we had attended, shared my sad story and asked him if he could arrange to find me help for my problems.  By this time, I had to admit there had to be something wrong with me to have worked so very hard with no significant results and now, to find our family in disarray and my wife facing ten years in prison.  He came to San Diego, picked me up and we met with two others who were supposed to understand family crises.  We talked for over three hours and I realized, I was trying to convince them of my realities and they were fixated on what they had read about Christian family dynamics.  We were getting nowhere, but something my friend had said began to resonate with me.  My problem were more spiritual than any of us cared to admit.

With that I called a man I had known briefly, but who had made a lot of sense to me, so I called his office in Tulsa, OK.  Unable to reach him directly, his secretary suggested I come to Tulsa so that it would be easier to have him understand my predicament.  I thought that was a good idea.  I could not think of anyone in California who would be interested in listening to me.

I went back to the people I had talked with at the State offices and asked about the possibilities of placing the children in temporary (90 days) "Foster care" homes.  I assumed that before the 90 days had elapsed, Janice would be out of her temporary hold in prison, I would have learned more about my own sense of reality and we could establish a plan to our children.  To this day, I thought it was a good idea, it had been endorsed by the child welfare people.  Things would work out for the best of everyone. 

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