[SB] Sabbath Blessing (sort of!)

[Molly Wolf]

Kat

My apologies for not posting a Sabbath Blessing last week; I was busy with 
something more important. I was acquiring a teenaged daughter. She isn't 
literally mine, of course, but she's mine for the duration.

This is my third "other" daughter. The oldest one is in Halifax and has 
made me an associate grandmother, but I don't hear from her (hi, 
Margaret!). The second one (hi, Georgiana!) comes over for dinner, usually 
twice a week, often bringing her laundry. The third one, Katrina, now has 
the bedroom next to mine, where she is currently curled up asleep, with 
feline _obbligato_.

Never mind the circumstances.  She needs to be here, and she is a blessing 
to us, although all the required physical and emotional adaptations are a 
little tiring for all of us.  The family motto has become "we'll deal". 
I've brought up sons. I've never had a daughter in the house, much less a 
daughter with a very difficult past. Fortunately, this one is bright, 
strong, and resilient and she is learning to advocate for herself.

A friend (hi, Becky!) put it beautifully on Thursday, saying "You can't 
save everyone, but you can help the ones God puts on your doorstep." That, 
it seems to me, is the whole point. I can't rescue every teenager from a 
troubled background; I can't even help most of these kids in my town. I 
haven't the resources and I'd burn out fast. I can advocate for them; I can 
get up on my soapbox and yell at society, "Listen up, folks! These kids 
need your help!" and I will do that as long as I can set finger to 
keyboard.  It's insane when we have enormous wealth and desperate 
deprivation in the same city, but we do. It takes a particular willful 
blindness and a self-centredness that must make God wince to let children 
go to hell in a handbasket, but we do that.  We pour out our help for 
tsunami victims, and that's a good thing, but what about the 20% of Ontario 
children who live below the poverty line? Katrina has spent most of her 16 
years in that place, and it's marked her.

You can't walk around this city and not see what poverty and class 
distinctions do to people, especially the pinched, sharp, look on young 
men's faces. I called a dentist to see if he'd see Katrina, who will be 
getting social assistance, and his receptionist's voice took a cold, 
just-this-side-of-rude tone: there are special rules for welfare patients, 
and she made those very clear, crisply and without friendliness. Okay, in 
that case, the hell with it; I'm not going to have this kid exposed to that 
sort of discrimination for a measly $400 a year, which is all she can get 
in dental benefits. I began to understand the sharp, defiant, 
counterproductive angry pride that I've encountered among some of the poor, 
their sensitivity to being disrespected. It isn't productive, but it's 
understandable. Maybe one of the many reasons this child is in my life is 
to help me with that sort of understanding.

Katrina is here because that is the only possible right choice for her 
right now. She needs safety and love and unconditional acceptance, and we 
can muster those things for her. She needs "other" mothering, and I am 
likely a better "other" mother than I am a "real" mother, and I'm good at 
the latter. But if I'm a little spacy for the next few weeks, you know why. 
Keep us all in your prayers.



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I'm about to hit some sacred cows, and they moo so badly. -- Phyllis 
Tickle, aka The Divine Miz T.