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This whole time I've been off of the diary, I've been fairly self absorbed in some personal pain and angst. My back, while better, is still not always pain free. I am losing PitBull soon. She is leaving to take over another one of our schools in Phoenix, and as she does so, it seems as though she has pulled back completely from me as a friend. Someone who I care about and love deeply is going through a very personal and painful situation, and I've promised her confidentiality so I can divulge anything more right here, but it's a source of sadness. So there have been times when I've wondered why things get so bad.

Then yesterday, the kids and I got in the car, I turned the key, and I got nothing but a clicking sound, never a good thing. I made a call to my dad and he came and jumped the car and with a bad start, my day began.

I got to work with a sense of illness in the pit of my stomach as I am leaving to do some training at the school in Arizona on Sunday. I was feeling very overwhelmed, my desk heaped with unfinished projects, all of which were #1 priority. As I settled in to try a dig out, PitBull asked me to cover an intake staffing for a 15 year old, and about all I knew was that we needed an interpreter, which meant it was going to take twice as long as usual since everything said would need repeating. As always, I dropped what I was doing to cover for her. It began at 8:45. It ended at 11:30.

I was supposed to pick up the flight reservations at 10:00. As soon as the last intake paper was signed and the family was out the door, I dashed to my car, and when I turned the key, I was greeted with silence. Luckily, my dad made me take his little portable car battery jump starter, so I lifted the hood and in a mere 15 minutes of attempts and readjustments, it finally cooperated with me, and I was off. While at the corporate office, I left the car running to help it re-charge, and as quickly as possible, I got back to the school to try and finish out the day.

In addition to the general pressures of tying up loose ends, I had some very pressing last minute details to work out in order to make sure the Beast got her driver's license so that on Monday while she was on spring break and I was in Phoenix, she'd be able to drive to Little Bro's house to baby-sit Abbelina. This was going to require me to get to the social security office to get her a replacement card (hell, I have no idea where the original is!), get home and pick her up and get back to the DMV in time for her to take and pass the test so that she'd be home in time to baby-sit at 6:00.

Amazingly enough, I was ready to leave work at 2:30, with all the documents I needed in hand which would allow plenty of time to do all of the things that needed to get done. Except.....

Click click click click.....the car refused to cooperate. Piece of crap.

No amount of wrangling the battery charger worked. Two different guys tried jumping the car with theirs. Nothing. Nada. That car was not going to go anywhere under its own power. One of the teachers volunteered to drive me to the SS office and home. I gladly accepted, and we arrived at the SS office 5 minutes after they closed.

I came home feeling quite defeated. Oppressed by my misfortune.

And then, while I sat in the backyard in the silence of spring time's arrival noises, I reflected back on the family I met during that intake meeting....

A mother, she looked about 300 years old, had brought her 15 year old daughter for enrollment in our school. Representatives of her school district were there, and amazingly, a translator. A man who spoke her native language of Farsi.

This family originated in Afghanistan. After many years they made their way to Pakistan, and then spent time in a refugee camp before coming to America in September 2002, LEGALLY, with the help of Catholic Charities. Now their daughter, who has been in school for the first time in her life for the past 12 months, has been exhibiting aggression and needs to be our school.

This young girl has an active whopping grand mal seizure disorder for which she takes medication, but only since being in America. So for 13 years this has gone untreated, so we are probably looking at damage from that. She has scars on her body which indicate some serious things have happened to her in her lifetime. She has lived almost all of her life with bombs dropping out of nowhere, buildings exploding unexpectedly, people and family and friends dying daily for a variety of reason, family and friends just disappearing from her life.

Mother sat there, so quietly. I explained every step of our program and watched as my words were transformed into her dialect and watched her expressions change in a time delay as my message came to make sense to her. I demonstrated each step of our behavior model and physical management program, using the district representative I'd just met as the "student," all the way from a hands-on stance to a prone position on the floor. With each step, mother nodded, never questioning my motives or my expertise. She expressed her concern for OUR safety if her daughter should attack. I assured her that we'd be safe.

When she signed the paperwork, it was clear that she had very little, almost no exposure to using a pen. It was awkwardly positioned in her hand, and she sometimes used her left hand to help hold it. She carefully made, on each line on each paper a very frail, yet almost proud "X." It was clear she could not imitate the strokes necessary to write in the date, nor could she even make a check mark like all of the rest of us had on the sign-in sheet. I smiled and took the paper from her and assured her that it was no big deal, her mark was what was important.

She has a small mark, to the naked eye. But to be in her presence while she made it was to see how big it really was. It was HER mark, one she had fought for, one she endured torture and starvation and a lifetime of fear and hope for. She spoke in a quiet but confident tone. She looked her male interpreter in the eye when she spoke. These were new skills for her, just like manipulating a pen.

Most touching, most memorable, most remarkable thing: She spoke but one word of English. She said it often, actually each time I told her anything. And she said it strongly and meaningfully. She said it with folded hands, her fingertips pointed toward me. She said it with searing eye contact. She said it with more meaning than I've heard anyone else say it.

"Thank you."

What a slap of reality. With all this woman has faced in her life, she has the ability to still say those 2 words, and in a language other than her native. Those words were so important to her that they were the first she learned in her new homeland.

How many of us have forgotten that word?

So thank you for the opportunities I have to work with the students and families and peer that I do. Thank you for keeping me busy enough to make a good living. Thank you for the opportunity opening up for my friend PitBull and for the new opportunities we will both have to develop new friendships. Thank you for my children who are reaching adulthood and gaining new and exciting independence. Thank you for the car that opens up opportunities for friends and family to extend their help.

And thank you for reading and missing me and caring.

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