I have this job. I get up between 4:30 and 6:00, hit the gym, fly home, and then plow through the daily blood sport of Atlanta traffic. I field between 5-8 calls on the way in and flirt with my blackberry like a pilot trying to roll the hard 6. I have 1200 employees under in my command chain and a web of 60 odd managers. I lead by helping them see a different path and by giving the advice that is both best for them and the daily mission. It requires a series of decisions and conversations every day that do not slow their pace. I listen, decide, advise, act in endless and fast repetition and when I make an error, my company bleeds money, and people lose their jobs. I take it seriously.
My youngest is bi-polar. He is given to rage, but his rage is normally focused on his mother and I, with his brother the occasional victim of his rage. Two weeks ago, this began to change and the consequence for us has been heartbreaking.
He has begun to attack his teacher. Sarah, his teacher, is 26, and a slim and slight waif of a woman with a deep passion for those children in need of her special grace. She loves my son, and gifts him the smile of her bright eyes no matter how hard the tempest of his rage tosses her classroom. But he has begun to strike her now. This occurred three times in four days and the last time, he left her nose bloody and struck her lips with force enough to send meat squirting back through her teeth into her mouth. "Tad," she said to me, "I through the hold wrong and he got me with his head." She speaks like a bouncer. She did not blame him for his rage, but she took it on herself.
Her principal could not, and I cannot blame her for that. I was sitting in a cross-departmental meeting when my admin came in and waved me out. "The school," she said, "it's an emergency."
The vice principal explained that my seven year old would be suspended and I had to pick him up. My wife and I had agreed that this task, when it came, would be mine. I do not ascribe to many gender rolls in parenting, but this task, we felt, required a father.
Waiting in the atrium at the school for them to bring me up was a hopeless horror. My job presents me with the constant illusion of control. I say. People do. I think and create, it becomes manifest as a plan. Here, I was helpless and was only able to wait, and hope I would have words for him that would help him heal, help him understand the consequence of what he did.
Kent would not look at me when they brought him to me. He was ashamed. He was terrified. He took my hand and his bowed his head. His little shoulders shook in anguish.
"Are you mad Daddy?" he says on the trip home in the car.
"No Kent, I am sad," I said and saw the look of hurt and horror on his face in the rearview mirror.
"I don't want to be bad. I made her cry, Daddy. The nurse came." His little face was tortured by remorse and his voice shook in a mixture of fear and self-loathing
"How do you feel baby?" I asked.
"I don't want to hurt anymore," he said and I understood he meant his hurt and others.
At home, after we had some juice and a snack to help the world sit right, I plunked him down before the computer. I showed him the penal code. I read him the law. I explained that men who struck mean went to jail. They did not get their things. They did not choose what they ate. I tried to explain liberty. I tried to explain freedom and the horror of its loss. I showed him prisons. I showed him cells.
I let him know that f he kept hurting me and his Momma and his brother, that he might be taken from us. I explained that at some point, we would not be able to decide that we could take the bruises and bites and scratches and cuts. That at some point, what he did, would cost him all that he loved.
"Only you can stop the hitting Kent. I will help you all I can. I will do all I can. But you must stop the hitting," he wrapped his little arms around me and sobbed.
"It's too hard Daddy. The mad takes me away. It's too hard," and we cried together a long time, until his sobs settled into a deep ache. "I will try Daddy."
I knew he was sincere.
I set my next day so I could go in late. I wanted to walk him into school and help him begin his day.
He was anxious and twitchy. He was scared and there was the edge of mania in his eyes. My wife spoke to him and happy calming tones. I got in the shower.
"Momma! Stop kicking Momma," I hear me oldest scream. I leave the shower, slick with soap and hot water and find my wife on the floor holding her head. He had slapped his cup of medication from her hand and kicked her in the temple when she bent to pick up the pills. His brother had tried top stop him, but he had pushed him down the stairs and he was screaming from the landing. I grabbed him, first a wrist lock, then an arm bar and then I was on top of him holding him down as his fear and rage burned bright within him and seared the little boy who loves us from his consciousness.
My wife shook her head and tried to focus, stunned by the beating she had just taken. I called for my oldest who staggered up the stairs. He lay across me and his brother screaming. He has autism and is a gentle soul. His brother's violence is torture to him in ways profound and absolute. "I don't care if you hurt me. I won't stop loving you," he screamed and stuttered again and again and again.
Linda began to cry and cry and cry. "No more!" she screamed. "God help me but I can't let him hurt his brother."
The fire burned for another hour and Kent fought to get his teeth to my face and throat. Our family sadly sees this as something he chooses because he cannot behave. They think this can be fixed with a stern face or a different diet. This is its own torture. Those that should love us most give us disdain and criticism and whisper to each other about our weakness. Kent knows and because of his disability and his age, adults think he does not see. He knows. In therapy Kent said, "No one loves me. They think I make up the mads to get what I want. I don't want the mad." It is a heavy burden for a little soul.
Later as the ashes of his rage cooled, he lay in his bed crying. His mother sat on the floor at the door. She had taken his brother to school, and silently sobbed her pain.
I called his psychiatrist, leaving a message in a voice choked and horrified. Her first words on her return call were, "You cannot do this alone." I knew, but I did not want to hear.
Some minutes later, I went into my baby's room to talk to him.
"Daddy," he said to me. He was sitting on his bed holding his favorite stuffed dinosaur. He had put on his best sneakers and was staring at his feet.
"Daddy," he said, "do I have to go away?' He looked up at me with his Momma's brown eyes, rimmed red with his tears.
"For a little while baby," I told him as I bent to look in his eyes and help him understand. But he knew, you see. This is his pain and his horror and he suffers for it far worse than I do, or his mother does, or his brother does. "You need to go someplace where they can help you with your mad." I touched his cheek and kissed him and smelled his hair.
So, we packed his things, and went to the hospital: four books, his stuffed owl, a box of crayons, his journal and sketch pad.
When the therapist that screened us asked Kent why he was coming to the hospital he said, "So, I can be happy again."
I can ask no more of him than this. He knows he needs what is offered there. He knows that what he has done has brought him here.
Each night when we talk to him he tells us the things he has learned and how he thinks it will help. Each time we see him he holds us and tells us he misses us. He wants so badly to be free of the searing horror of his rage. The nurses and his Dr., kind and beautiful in ways I cannot explain, tell us all he does and faces and know the hurt we feel.
But still, there is an open wound upon my soul. It bleeds tears and I feel a sense of loss and hurt that stops my breath. I have to reclaim it with shuddering sobs. This is grief I feel. It is grief over death and loss.
My seven year old has burned away his innocence in the fire of a rage that scars our genes and seeps from generation to generation. In moments of weakness I hate myself. In other moments I marvel at our strength.
Life is more horrible, and far more beautiful, than I ever imagined.
My youngest is bi-polar. He is given to rage, but his rage is normally focused on his mother and I, with his brother the occasional victim of his rage. Two weeks ago, this began to change and the consequence for us has been heartbreaking.
He has begun to attack his teacher. Sarah, his teacher, is 26, and a slim and slight waif of a woman with a deep passion for those children in need of her special grace. She loves my son, and gifts him the smile of her bright eyes no matter how hard the tempest of his rage tosses her classroom. But he has begun to strike her now. This occurred three times in four days and the last time, he left her nose bloody and struck her lips with force enough to send meat squirting back through her teeth into her mouth. "Tad," she said to me, "I through the hold wrong and he got me with his head." She speaks like a bouncer. She did not blame him for his rage, but she took it on herself.
Her principal could not, and I cannot blame her for that. I was sitting in a cross-departmental meeting when my admin came in and waved me out. "The school," she said, "it's an emergency."
The vice principal explained that my seven year old would be suspended and I had to pick him up. My wife and I had agreed that this task, when it came, would be mine. I do not ascribe to many gender rolls in parenting, but this task, we felt, required a father.
Waiting in the atrium at the school for them to bring me up was a hopeless horror. My job presents me with the constant illusion of control. I say. People do. I think and create, it becomes manifest as a plan. Here, I was helpless and was only able to wait, and hope I would have words for him that would help him heal, help him understand the consequence of what he did.
Kent would not look at me when they brought him to me. He was ashamed. He was terrified. He took my hand and his bowed his head. His little shoulders shook in anguish.
"Are you mad Daddy?" he says on the trip home in the car.
"No Kent, I am sad," I said and saw the look of hurt and horror on his face in the rearview mirror.
"I don't want to be bad. I made her cry, Daddy. The nurse came." His little face was tortured by remorse and his voice shook in a mixture of fear and self-loathing
"How do you feel baby?" I asked.
"I don't want to hurt anymore," he said and I understood he meant his hurt and others.
At home, after we had some juice and a snack to help the world sit right, I plunked him down before the computer. I showed him the penal code. I read him the law. I explained that men who struck mean went to jail. They did not get their things. They did not choose what they ate. I tried to explain liberty. I tried to explain freedom and the horror of its loss. I showed him prisons. I showed him cells.
I let him know that f he kept hurting me and his Momma and his brother, that he might be taken from us. I explained that at some point, we would not be able to decide that we could take the bruises and bites and scratches and cuts. That at some point, what he did, would cost him all that he loved.
"Only you can stop the hitting Kent. I will help you all I can. I will do all I can. But you must stop the hitting," he wrapped his little arms around me and sobbed.
"It's too hard Daddy. The mad takes me away. It's too hard," and we cried together a long time, until his sobs settled into a deep ache. "I will try Daddy."
I knew he was sincere.
I set my next day so I could go in late. I wanted to walk him into school and help him begin his day.
He was anxious and twitchy. He was scared and there was the edge of mania in his eyes. My wife spoke to him and happy calming tones. I got in the shower.
"Momma! Stop kicking Momma," I hear me oldest scream. I leave the shower, slick with soap and hot water and find my wife on the floor holding her head. He had slapped his cup of medication from her hand and kicked her in the temple when she bent to pick up the pills. His brother had tried top stop him, but he had pushed him down the stairs and he was screaming from the landing. I grabbed him, first a wrist lock, then an arm bar and then I was on top of him holding him down as his fear and rage burned bright within him and seared the little boy who loves us from his consciousness.
My wife shook her head and tried to focus, stunned by the beating she had just taken. I called for my oldest who staggered up the stairs. He lay across me and his brother screaming. He has autism and is a gentle soul. His brother's violence is torture to him in ways profound and absolute. "I don't care if you hurt me. I won't stop loving you," he screamed and stuttered again and again and again.
Linda began to cry and cry and cry. "No more!" she screamed. "God help me but I can't let him hurt his brother."
The fire burned for another hour and Kent fought to get his teeth to my face and throat. Our family sadly sees this as something he chooses because he cannot behave. They think this can be fixed with a stern face or a different diet. This is its own torture. Those that should love us most give us disdain and criticism and whisper to each other about our weakness. Kent knows and because of his disability and his age, adults think he does not see. He knows. In therapy Kent said, "No one loves me. They think I make up the mads to get what I want. I don't want the mad." It is a heavy burden for a little soul.
Later as the ashes of his rage cooled, he lay in his bed crying. His mother sat on the floor at the door. She had taken his brother to school, and silently sobbed her pain.
I called his psychiatrist, leaving a message in a voice choked and horrified. Her first words on her return call were, "You cannot do this alone." I knew, but I did not want to hear.
Some minutes later, I went into my baby's room to talk to him.
"Daddy," he said to me. He was sitting on his bed holding his favorite stuffed dinosaur. He had put on his best sneakers and was staring at his feet.
"Daddy," he said, "do I have to go away?' He looked up at me with his Momma's brown eyes, rimmed red with his tears.
"For a little while baby," I told him as I bent to look in his eyes and help him understand. But he knew, you see. This is his pain and his horror and he suffers for it far worse than I do, or his mother does, or his brother does. "You need to go someplace where they can help you with your mad." I touched his cheek and kissed him and smelled his hair.
So, we packed his things, and went to the hospital: four books, his stuffed owl, a box of crayons, his journal and sketch pad.
When the therapist that screened us asked Kent why he was coming to the hospital he said, "So, I can be happy again."
I can ask no more of him than this. He knows he needs what is offered there. He knows that what he has done has brought him here.
Each night when we talk to him he tells us the things he has learned and how he thinks it will help. Each time we see him he holds us and tells us he misses us. He wants so badly to be free of the searing horror of his rage. The nurses and his Dr., kind and beautiful in ways I cannot explain, tell us all he does and faces and know the hurt we feel.
But still, there is an open wound upon my soul. It bleeds tears and I feel a sense of loss and hurt that stops my breath. I have to reclaim it with shuddering sobs. This is grief I feel. It is grief over death and loss.
My seven year old has burned away his innocence in the fire of a rage that scars our genes and seeps from generation to generation. In moments of weakness I hate myself. In other moments I marvel at our strength.
Life is more horrible, and far more beautiful, than I ever imagined.
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