Esperanza

I feel like so much has happened in the past two weeks that I don’t know if I will remember it all to relay it here. Primero had court last Tuesday. During my lunch break at work, right before I was getting ready to leave to pick him up, he called me to tell me his mom blocked him on Facebook. Apparently, she had commented on his sister’s post and when Primero couldn’t see it on his own page, it dawned on him it was because he was blocked. This upset him immensely. She later contacted him, after his sister told her it was terrible to have cut him off like she did and they are once again friends on Facebook. We went to court where Primero signed the paperwork consenting to the adoption and choosing his new name. He decided to go with his mother’s last name and my maiden name, which I had just changed with the Social Security office the day before. Yes, I have officially reclaimed my maiden name and divested myself of my married name. Hallelujah! Court was pointless, as I knew it would be, they talked about his play and joked about his character, Gingy the Gingerbread man. We waited longer to get to court than we were in court. We did see Hermano while we waited and he seemed to be doing ok. He claimed he would have been able to leave the facility where he was staying but he was playing football and so he stayed. His plans are to get his high school diploma or GED and then go to North Carolina to attend a college there. We shall see if he actually follows through on this plan.

We all survived the hustle and bustle of Primero’s play, which they perform three nights. He did a great job as did the rest of the cast. He almost broke up with his girlfriend at the cast party, but since he waited until the end of the night, I had shown up and he didn’t want to do it in front of me (even though I was sitting in the car and couldn’t hear a thing). I really truly hope they do break up soon because I don’t like this girl at all. She has done too much for me to even want to try to like her anymore.

Primero did not complete the schoolwork required over the summer to pass onto 9^th grade and so he will most likely be held back. I find this devastating news and I tried so hard to get him to do his schoolwork, but he was grossly unmotivated and therefore he will reap the consequences of his inaction. It’s so hard and I wish I could afford to hire a private tutor for him. I really think I need to look into that because he needs to get through high school and I feel unable to help him as much as I should. I did create a contract for him to sign spelling out what was expected of him and what the consequences were for not following through. I hope it works, but don’t know that it will. School is just not important to him, no matter how often I try to tell him it is.

Primero’s county case worker and his new CHOR case worker were over for a visit last night. The county worker just needed to give me a hefty stack of paperwork, which contained all the information in Primero’s file and she needed to review the compensation with me for him following adoption. Hopefully we will be getting a finalization date soon, she said right now they are booking for the beginning of September. She had also mentioned a few things about the other kids’ case that their mother has apparently found a job and she did have one clean urine test after several that were not clean. The case worker was mentioning that the grandmother had asked to be considered for the older sister again, and since visits have been suspended, it might actually happen this time. I tried to contact the sister’s foster mom about a visit this past weekend and she never responded. I sent her another message and she told me the sister is in respite and gave me the number to that foster mother, so I will contact her and see what’s what.

So Primero’s older sister is around more and I feel the need to give her a name here, since I’m sure I will be talking about her more often. I think I will call her Esperanza. It means Hope in Spanish and I feel like that is fitting for her. She is like a little flower bud closed tight to the cruel world, afraid to open and show her beauty because she has been hurt one too many times by people she loved and trusted. She and I have had some long conversations about her past and it is heartbreaking how often she had been rejected and treated poorly. I told her I don’t expect her to trust me that I’m sure I’ve told her the same things she had heard before from other adults, but that I hope to prove to her that I’m trustworthy through my actions. She deserves to be wanted and treated kindly and she really is a great young lady with so much potential – I hope to help her realize it.