The voice on the phone tells a story between heartfelt sobs.
Many times, I thought we must have lost the connection, but I could just make out the woman’s voice working to gain composure to continue to tell the story. The story comes down to this. Her son had been a straight A student throughout most of his education. He last received a B in a math class in the third grade. The woman told me that he rarely watched television, was always reading a book or studying. Her son had just a few friends, but none ever came to their house. She feared that he was embarrassed by their abject poverty. She really didn’t blame him. While her job in the kitchen of the local school paid the bills, it did not provide enough to do repairs or even keep their small home clean. She had inherited the home from her mother who passed away just about 5 years ago. Grandma T was the rock of the family, and she had kept everyone moving forward. The family had relied on Grandma’s social security check to supplement the food stock and keep the place relatively maintained. Grandma was also, until she got sick, the one that did most of the cleaning. When she passed there was depression and sadness that was overwhelming, and nobody felt much like keeping things clean. The mother confessed that she spent her non-working hours now watching television and scrolling assorted social media apps.
Also, about five years ago, her daughter had got married and moved to a town not too far away but without adequate transportation. It might as well have been on a different continent. The daughter, though, loved her mother and nightly they visited over Facetime. Once a week the daughter would stop in and help a bit around the house. They often talked about her son, the brother. They shared memories of the silly conversations and the stories he would share. The daughter would confess that it was her brother’s mentoring that helped her to finish High School. Those conversations always ended with a sigh.
It was also about five years ago that he had compiled his perfect grade point average, high ACT score and the passion of a guidance counselor to get him a series of scholarships to college. Everyone was so excited. Hope had filled the family. Even Grandma T, who had hardly been able to get out of bed was suddenly able to step into action and baked a cake. The family had no history of college students, and this young man was holding the hopes of the family in his hand.
He easily adapted into the academic setting. This young man was designed to learn. Avoiding many of the pitfalls that new found freedom often offers young students, he focused on his studies and excelled. The end of the first semester showed him with straight As. Christmas was a great time coming home and telling stories to his family. Much of the humor was above their heads, but his laughter was infectious.
Returning to school, he focused again. This semester was much more challenging. While he continued to get “A” s in his classes, there was one that he quickly realized would be on the margins between an A and a B. Each weekend, he redoubled his efforts and dedicated himself to his studies. However, coming into the finals, he knew that his grade would be determined by his grade on the final exam. Panic set in. The only way he could study more was to not sleep. He tried soda and coffee. He even experimented with over-the-counter caffeine pills. None of them seemed to have the desired effect. In sharing his woes with a fellow student at the Student Union, he was introduced to a dealer who sold him methamphetamine. That did the trick.
While he did get an A on the final exam and an A in the class, he never returned to school. His behavior became unsafe, and his mother had to call the police on multiple occasions to remove him from her home because he was so threatening. As of this writing, he works the local corners panhandling and being supported by many in the community who are entertained by his antics. For a season, he was even a Facebook Live star which led to many more handouts and a deeper entrenchment in the prison of addiction. This young man does not need the nights in a motel, food, and clothing that is given to him in heaps; he needs addiction recovery.
