One Daughter

The little brother, little sister, and Tigger several years ago, our last family Christmas together.


Jenn with Auntie Mum THEE English Aunt.







Probably J's last family get together, shortly after this the kids were taken into foster care. Look at her joy, the light in her eyes. Lord save her again.











But to know this, we have to go back and start at the beginning.


Being 16 is not the time to have a baby. I knew that, I wasn't stupid or so I thought; so then why was I pregnant? Because I had gone "all the way." The really strange part of this story is that my mother set this up. My mom was loving, sweet, charismatic, charming, and probably bipolar or manic depressive. She decided it was time for me to have a husband and a family of my own so she brought a guy home and moved him into my room. I ain't lying. I was lonely, and well yeah he was kinda cute in a coarse kind of way. He had a steady check, as far as mom was concerned. We had nothing in common except teenage hormones.

That is how my one child was conceived and brought into this world. One daughter. Jenny.
A lot of the time I was really lousy at the parent thing. I'd just take my daughter up to my mom's house and give her to her, for weeks at a time. My baby and my mother had a very special bond. My mama made magic with babies. She was one of those women who knows what a baby wants, when it wants it, and how it wants it, and they quit crying. Miracle baby worker. I was 17 and my baby skills were on the slim side. So my teen solution was give the baby lady, the baby.
My mom would only go along with that too a point. She had migraines and those would usually get me a call to come pick up your baby.

We had strange lingo, when the baby was mine she said your baby. When it was hers it's Nanna's baby, Nanna love it to death...

The poor kid was pretty mixed up. My mom's ability to not only care for her but also provide for her made me feel very inadequate. She had a great room set up for her I had a crib in the living room with me next to the refrigerator with the TV on top of it.

I can't really remember how old Jenny was when I met the hippies. Now I am thinking do I really want to go here? If you don't want to know, quit reading and come back another day.
That will work. I can't skip this part because it helped and hurt our situation and it may have had a huge part of my daughters struggles.

Hippie women presented options to me in parenting styles. They showed me back packs, and baby slings, simple ways to haul a child around and simple ways to get places. While they showed me how they did their mothering thing all calm, cool and groovin, they also encouraged me to step into the roll of being my child's mother,and included in that, "here have a puff of this."

I took the plunge. I chose the child and the hippies, and began trying to make a life for us. A life that had fringe elements in it. It seemed ok at the time, kind of a everybody is doing it deal. I went with them because they supported me. Instead of taking my problem away they helped me solve my own, that so much of this occurred stoned seemed a minor issue.

Fast forward, I'm having a party. Jenny is in a play pen and a bunch of guys are laughing. The way they are laughing is alarming. They are getting my two year old drunk. I freaked, party over, go home. Poor baby. The mother is looking for a hole deep enough to crawl into.

Fast forward, I get a phone call from my junior higher, she is sick can I come get her? She was spending the night with some friends and got drunk. She had the spins, did I know how to help? I put her foot on the floor. She was funny and pitiful at that moment and I didn't want to come down hard on her then; because she was so awful sick, as in green skin, matching vomit sick.
We discussed it later. She buffaloed me it wasn't the first time.

Fast Forward, at 15 she starts to run away from home frequently. Home is now stable, mom quit with any fringey stuff years before. Mom as in me, has become a new believer during these years and is born again. Before Jenn is 16 she is pregnant. My heart sinks. Different people are telling me she has problems with drugs and alcohol. I don't believe them.

Fast forward, a tiny premature baby enters our lives. I repeat my moms behaviors and basically care for this child better than her mom can which makes my daughter furious and despise me.
Her hippies are into crack cocaine, not a pit of the old evil weed. It's seriously kicked up a notch.
I do see a pattern emerging here in generational dynamics. But I don't see a solution.

Fast forward,next year another baby, when these 2 little girls are 3 and 4 they come to live with me for the first time and this will last years. Mom is hitting one of many bottoms, that are never low enough.

Fast forward, the girls have bloomed, they are learning and getting secure, they are a joy to me.
Their mom gets pregnant again and wants to marry this guy. Mom has declared she has recommitted her life and is getting right with Jesus. Can they live with us? Big decision here.
Did not happen quickly a lot of thought and prayer went into this.
We said yes.

We lived in a huge 4 story house that had enough space for everyone who lived there to have their own space. We asked Jenn not to be sharing a bed with M until they were married while under our roof. They agreed to it, yeah right, in your dreams. It wasn't long before the 4th pregnancy was announced.

This is a hit list so far of the trauma and drama that brought us to where we are now. There are whole chapters between these little bleeps. What I want to focus on is showing you who my babies mother is.

When full of her love for the Lord she did street ministry in down town Santa Cruz. She shared food stamps with the hungry, invited them to church and talked with them about how they got there; and how much God loved them. She was amazing. She took the Word of God so literally that in her mind if Jesus Christ himself spent the majority of his time with the unwanted wounded of the streets, then she would be there too. She chose to roll model her ministry after Jesus. That's my kid go straight for the top. We shared a lot of good times during this period and we were close.
Close enough that when an opportunity came up for an apt for them, a them that is married, it was a natural process to have my two girls try to go again with their mother. They were 7 and 9.

What came out later was how much they hid from us, drinking drugs,abuse. A big black closet full of secrets. ugly secrets.

Daughter breaks off contact with us. No communication.
We pray in tears, afraid , "Lord deliver them from evil."

Fast forward; Tigger and Piglet are sent to us after 6 months in foster care. The little sister and brother are given to the Dad's custody. He is currently homeless and they are with their mother. This family is now separated, and the two older girls moved from their home and siblings to a foreign land, Mississippi. They went into immediate culture shock and just freaked.

Learning to cast all my cares upon you, Jesus. This time we have a secure home. Their mom is not in their lives to hurt them or manipulate. That is a plus, the minus is they love her, she is rejecting them and that hurts.

They are thriving, growing, adjusted, and basically happy, in an uphill/downhill/ teenager way.

Piglet has just had a huge victory of faith. It reminded me of her mother. I had fear for her mother, because I saw that the enemy of our souls wanted to take her out, destroy her testimony. I was so blessed to watch Piglet take a tough spiritual test and pass it so well.
A little fear came creeping in, can she handle it? Will it push her? Will it make her crave these moments? Jenn had the potential to be a huge evangelist and work with masses of people. Unlike her mom whose little blog reaches 20 people on a really busy day. This girl could have impacted masses of people. It was there we could see it, and then the lights went out. She withdrew, she turned around, and went back to the prodigal pigpen, to wallow another time....

She has not escaped yet. At times we thought she was getting her life together. It is our hope.
The truth is we don't know anything anymore. That's the way she wants it.

How does God want it? I don't know but let me get out of the way. He knows what she needs.

I'm not really sure about this post. I want you to know Jenn to pray for her. She hates it when I talk about her and if by some chance she stumbled onto this she'd be mad. So I have tried to just make a list, a non threatening recounting of the time line, with everybody's unwise choices starting with my own. I want you to know there was a time when Piglets Mommy was a prayer warrior, a teen leader, a camp counselor, and always her beloved street ministry.

Lord please restore the years the locusts have eaten. More importantly there was a time when I had a daughter who wanted to be near me. She liked to lie beside me in the bed and talk. She thought deeply, was searching for truth but war raged in her flesh, drove her to distraction, to hasty decisions , to a path separate from home.

My prayer is for this broken families healing. For my daughter who I miss, for her daughters who also miss her. Whatever she has going in her mind to fuel this mess, Lord I ask that you'd put the fire out. Protect them, keep them safe, keep them for yourself and don't let the enemy touch even so much as a hair of their heads. BUT do as you need to do, to bring her back into a right relationship with you, and then I pray for us. She was my only child. Only God can heal our hearts.