One Family's Story
"The social service
network, including various LSS programs, formed the safety net that saved
our daughter's life." --Pastor David, Duluth,
Minnesota
When we moved to Duluth from
Chicago in March of 1993 our family was in crisis.
We had moved to Chicago in
1989, in part, so that our daughter - our only daughter and a middle child
- could receive first-rate ballet training. She had danced for eight years
prior to our move and had danced as a young student with the Pacific
Northwest Ballet Company for two successive seasons in their performances
of "The Nutcracker" at Northrup Auditorium in Minneapolis. In addition,
our daughter was studying piano and was a gifted painter. Being very
bright, she had a quick, sometimes wicked, sense of humor. She was our
bright and shining star, and the apple of my eye.
But all of that was lost by
the time we left Chicago 3 ½ years later.
Four days prior to our move to
Duluth, our daughter, at age 15, was hospitalized in the adolescent psych
unit of a local hospital, after a physical altercation at home and
numerous threats to run away. She was desperate not to move, wanting to
stay in Chicago with her friends. For some months her mood had become dark
and detached and her behaviors self-destructive. This had been
precipitated by the death of a very close friend who was shot through the
head a point-blank range at a party. My wife and I were, for the most
part, unaware of the depth of her - and our own - dysfunction and pain.
My wife and I saw our move to
Duluth as an opportunity to get our daughter out of her downward spiral of
destructive choices; she saw it as a death sentence. Because the
psychiatrist in Chicago did not trust her to make the move with us,
fearing that she would bolt at any opportunity, it was determined that our
daughter should be flown from Chicago to Duluth, with our college-aged son
as her escort. My wife, younger son and I arrived in Duluth with our car
and Ford Aerostar van about an hour before the plane carrying our daughter
and older son landed.
After meeting the plane, we
went directly to a local hospital for a three-hour intake session with a
psychiatrist, psychologists and other mental health professionals. Our
daughter's diagnoses included borderline personality disorder and bipolar
tendencies. There was also the very real possibility of suicide. Our
daughter was admitted and remained in the hospital for 28 consecutive
days, during which time the safety net of local social service agencies
mobilized to save our daughter's life - and to help keep the rest of our
family intact. I can't imagine the mental and emotional anguish our
daughter endured during this time of separation from all that she held
dear.
Treatment included intense and
painful individual and family therapy. Over the course of the next two
years, our daughter went from foster care, a group home, two LSS shelters,
and back and forth to and from our home. For our daughter's 16th birthday,
my wife baked a cake that we shared with the residents of the LSS Bethany
Crisis Shelter where our daughter was living at the time. Sometimes, she
was on the streets; she ran away on Valentine's Day, her unopened
Valentine from us still on the kitchen table, and we didn't hear from her
until St. Patrick's Day. Despite all the disruption she endured, she
managed to graduate with her General Education Degree (GED) at age 18,
after having experienced 14 different high school institutions or
programs.
As a result of the combination
of these unfortunate circumstances, our daughter forfeited her dance, her
music and her painting, and she lost what could have and should have been
a rich and fun high school experience. When she became pregnant at age 18,
college was not a viable possibility. But she is alive when she might have
been dead.
The social service network,
including various LSS programs, formed the safety net that saved our
daughter's life. She also has a strong will to survive. After some very
difficult and painful years, she is now 26, the mother of our beautiful
7-year-old grandson, and successfully working at a job that she's held for
more than six years in Madison.
Our daughter talks about going
back to her painting, and she is interested in teaching dance to children.
She also wants to go back to school. As I write this, she is visiting her
older brother, who lives in Paris, for a three-week vacation, for which
she saved $5,000 of her own money. She's using some of the French she
learned during one of her many high school experiences.
My wife and I are still a bit
numb as we think back to those horrendous days, still sometimes wondering
if we did the right thing, but realizing that we were not able to function
rationally through the pain. We are forever grateful for the people and
programs that were in place to help put back together the shattered pieces
of our lives. Through all of this, we saw the healing love of God.
Our daughter is still the
apple of my eye, a position rivaled only by her son, our grandson.
Pastor David
Duluth, Minnesota
(This
family wishes to keep the family name anonymous)
