March 6, 2018

When someone has been rejected repeatedly, brutally, everything means something different.

You live and breath the idea that you are unwanted and can be thrown out or sent away at a moment’s notice. The lie of unworthiness is twisted around your spine, squeezing tighter every time you make a wrong move.

Jackson and I had our first real disagreement while Jesse was still at work.

Nothing big. No different an issue than any parent would face with any child. I simply put a boundary in a place where it is going to be. And he pushed on it good and hard for a bit, as all kids do, but especially when we are still learning one another, still figuring out exactly where, and exactly how solid, the boundaries in this house actually are.

I stood firm, never straying an inch from calm and gentle, as I held the boundary in place. It didn’t budge. Once it was clear that it was not going to move, he had some anger to process. Understandable. We all have to process anger when we cannot have something our way. I wasn’t angry. Just holding firm.

After a good half hour of processing his anger, he bounced back quickly. I talked to him for awhile. Then Jadon got home and went into Jack’s room; they talked for awhile. He came out happy. I told him I wasn’t upset with him. And he came to a place of acceptance with the boundary I had placed.

All was well. He played with the dogs while I cooked dinner.

But once Jesse got home, later that evening, he withdrew from us again. He adores Jesse, the two of them became attached at the hip very quickly. A natural father-son relationship, with easy physical affection, like hugs and wrestling and cuddling up on the couch when we watch a movie (though he is fourteen, emotionally he needs nurturing on a much younger level).

But Jack retreated to his room right away, in that cute way where you know he actually wanted us to follow him. When Jesse went in, he was sitting on his bed drawing in his sketch book, his legs up, one crossed over the other, trying to hide himself from view. I had told Jesse over the phone about the issue and that it had been quickly and easily resolved.

Jesse playfully peered up through the gap where Jack’s legs were crossed in front of his face, said, hey you.

Jack avoided eye contact.

I just wanted to say hi, Jesse said. Poking playfully at the leg barrier.

And…? E said. What about what happened?

That was resolved, said Jesse.

I was sitting on the bed now too, plus both the dogs. Jadon entered and flung himself down in the pile. We do this a lot. We all pile on each other’s beds, all six of us and talk and read and rough-house and laugh. It is our special family thing. And Jack loves it.

He continued to draw.

We realized he was feeling ashamed for showing anger, for becoming a bit defiant and testing the boundary, and possibly feeling insecure about his place with us now that he has shown me a bit more challenging behavior. He thought we were angry with him. Consciously or subconsciously he thought we may want/like/love him less now. 

I realized that all evening, between the incident and Jesse’s arrival home, he had been waiting for the other shoe to drop. He had believed that when Jesse got home he would be in trouble. 

We spent the next several minutes telling him he was not in trouble. Telling him how proud we were of him, how well he actually handled his emotions when he got upset. We explained to him that getting mad was not something he would really ever get in trouble for. That his emotions were not punishable. The way we express our emotions is what matters. This is what may or may not be disciplined after a row. 

I said, Jack, honey, you did not shout, you did not throw anything, you did not cuss or hurt anybody or even slam a door. No, he had simply paced the hallway opening and closing doors, punched the bed a few times, manically rearranged the remote control car parts on his desk and then hid in the closet for awhile. I told him this was all a very acceptable way to process and express negative emotions. That not only were we not mad, we still loved him.

This was only the second time we had casually brought up the L word.

He kept drawing in his sketch pad, but he was glancing away from his paper and at us regularly now, a fearful hopeful longing in his eyes. We kept messing with him until he was smiling and laughing.

Jadon was laying at the foot of the bed beside me, playing with our Chihuahua, Maximus, who was in my lap. Jesse was laying in the middle. Duncan, our Shih Tzu was looking on. It’s hard to believe Jackson has only been with us for a few weeks. We feel like we have known him so much longer, he fits with us. Our family feels better with him in it than it ever did without him.

Jack’s countenance was slowly lifting, as he sketched away, and the color, which had drained from his face earlier, leaving him deathly pale, had now returned, the pink of happiness moving over him. Then he flipped his sketch pad around to show us what he had been drawing.

A beautiful rose. But it was the words above it that caught my heart in my throat. It said:

Found Family

Found Life

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