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Archive for the ‘Children’ Category

The Club No One Should Have To Join

Posted in Children, Family, Loss, love, tagged on August 6, 2009| 14 Comments »

Me and Jaren ... being goofy as he often was ... on a happy day.

Me and Jaren ... being goofy as he often was ... on a happy day.

I have been inducted into a club no one should have to join, Mothers of Dead Children. The only advantage of membership is that, unlikely as it may seem, it does provide a level of understanding that evades anyone not eligible.

The initiation process is a horror, and there is no recruiting committee; in fact joining the ranks happens before one realizes such a club exists. No secret handshake sparks recognition of other members, and any meeting requires nothing to connect.

Since my son died on the 2nd of June, many, many people have reached out to me. Support has come in many forms, some practical and covering bases I wasn’t able to attend, others clumsy attempts at consoling, a few downright agonizing in their neediness.

Although all have come from the heart, many drain from the little energy there is to slog one day to the next. The consistent exception? The instant comprehension from those who have had their own children die.

It doesn’t matter if the dead were big or small at the time, as to parents our children will forever be our babies. There is no need to do more than nod and absorb the fact that this person truly, truly understands. There are no words striking the “time will heal” chord, as members of the Mothers of Dead Children Club know too well that while time does allow some adjustment, we will probe the hole we live with for the rest of our days.

With no expectation of wholeness, we can comfortably exchange tales, cry without shame, laugh without worries of appearing to be calloused, and describe in minute detail our children and our pain.

To those who say, “I can’t imagine what it must be like,” we can unite in verses of “Don’t even go there … do not imagine this even in the darkest nights”.

When we are told we are strong, we can appear to be exactly that, as without the slightest effort we feel the member-wide slump of shoulders, the exhausted sagging toward floors, the lump in the throat, the razor-like sting of tears held again on the inside … and we know it’s okay, normal, the way it is.

There is comfort in this familiarity, or at least a version of comfort, and we cling to it as we do to the shreds of ourselves that bring our children close for those instants we can, however briefly, ignore the loss of them and celebrate what went before.

To my fellow club members I say: I am so, so sorry … and I wish I didn’t know you.

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Jaren Eli Combes 17 Feb. 1971 – 2 June 2009 … R.I.P. my son …

Posted in Children, Family, love, My Chinese Checkered Past on June 4, 2009| 63 Comments »

My son, Jaren, just a couple of months ago

My son, Jaren, just a couple of months ago

My son, Jaren, died suddenly in Los Angeles on Tuesday. He was 38-years-old, having been born on the 17th of February in 1971. (I remember that day like it was yesterday … )

Jaren was, hands down, the smartest human being I have ever known, and the funniest by a long shot. His heart was bigger than his talent, and that’s saying something.

He was a song writer, a guitarist, a singer, a writer, a comic, a bartender, kind, loving, forgiving … a gentle giant of a man who cuddled kittens as often as he tossed obnoxious assholes out of the path of nice people.

Not a simple man, nor always easy, his depth was sometimes missed as his wit took the lead, but no one could know him for long without experiencing a touch of his brilliance.

My life was blessed by him, and losing this son of mine has broken my heart.

I am leaving for California tomorrow night. While there I hope to meet with all his friends, hear all their stories, and feel all the love.

If you are on facebook, please see the group site dedicated to him for details and to read comments from so many who loved him:

Please visit his band’s MySpace page to listen to his voice, his music, his lyrics and his guitar, and his personal page to read a bit of his humor.

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Adding insult, and a fine, to injury

Posted in Children, England, Women's rights, tagged , , , on May 6, 2009| 2 Comments »

I was actually feeling rather festive this morning with it being Cinco de Mayo in Mexico still … Feliz de Cinco de Mayo! … starting off the day in a chipper enough mood, until I started trolling for blog fodder. (Yeah, I should know better.)

I had even managed to divert a bit of my horror and amuse myself in the reading of this report about child rape and murder in the UK.

Okay … it’s a terrible story of abuse of the worst kind involving a mother and her boyfriend and rape of a two-year-old and death and unimaginable savagery , but provided some some relief by pointing out that the “government’s expert on children’s services” is a guy named … get this … Lord Laming.

So, yes, already heading downhill mood-wise, I then come across this shit:

A court in Dubai has found a woman who lost her unborn child in a traffic accident guilty of manslaughter in what is said to be an unprecedented ruling.

The Lebanese woman, who was nine months pregnant at the time, was also ordered to pay blood money. She said she had not caused the accident.

Now, that just pisses me off.

This is, of course, a ruling based on Islamic law, or someone’s interpretation of that sees women as a vessel, a baby-growing container with no more right to a life of her own than a thermos jug.

Bottom-lining the thought process is this from the head of traffic prosecution:

… women in the third trimester of pregnancy should avoid driving altogether to protect their own and their foetuses’ lives.

Since … what? … men don’t get in accidents when pregnant wives are in the car? Or is the point really, with the prosecutors arguing that the sentence should “act as a deterrent,” that women should blady well just stay put until they pop?

Women in Saudi aren’t allowed to drive at all … I’m sure this case will be trotted out as justification for keeping chicks wheel-less … and in some Muslim nations anyone female out and about without a male relative of responsible years can be tossed in the clink, so a pregnant woman driving alone has trouble written all over her.

Of course, the “blood money” version of punitive damages really grates my cheese. As if this woman hasn’t paid in blood already! And I can’t help but wonder if the fetus had been a boy if the father wouldn’t be suing her, as well.

We really need to stop putting up with this crap, girls.

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Friends again … coming and going

Posted in Children, Expat Living, Friends, Island life, Seychelles on May 1, 2009| 4 Comments »

Saying goodbye to Julie

Saying goodbye to Julie

I’ve been writing a lot lately about friends … new, old, near, distant, physical, virtual … the value of all and the fact that I welcome them into my life with gratitude.

One advantage of life on a tiny island in the middle of the Indian Ocean is the diversity of friends and the fact that with so few people here, I usually end up meeting a lot of those with common interests that come to Seychelles and stay a while.

People come from all over to work or play, and as the shots I posted of more recent additions on the “people I’m fond of” list shows … eleven countries represented in twelve photos … my friends are from all over the world.

That is, indeed, a lovely aspect of island life. Conversations are fascinating, parties are a hoot and the bottom line always ends up under what what we share, not how we differ.

What is not, however, quite so lovely is the fact that most of these lovely friends also go.

Holidays are short and work contracts usually last only a year or two. Getting close to people comes with the caveat: This will not last for long.

My first few years here had me ducking-and-covering to a great extent, careful to keep myself a bit aloof, forgoing close bonding with those I knew would move along long before I would be ready to say goodbye.

That, however, is not a natural posture for me … my tendency is to give my heart, care much, share all, and I’ve learned to enjoy while I can.

The Internet has helped immensely, of course. I can now see people off at the airport knowing that we’ll be chatting on facebook in a few hours. This is not the same as having them in arms’ reach, but it does make a difference.

There are many, many people I miss daily and desperately, but I would not give up the time we did have together for anything, no matter how big a hole is left when they go.

The up-side is that I have friends all over the world, and although I don’t travel as much as I would like to these days, the biggest issue when thinking about going somewhere is deciding who I’m going to visit.

I spent some of yesterday with a family I’ll be waving adios to tomorrow night … Jakob, Lisa and Julie.

Jakob is from Denmark, Lisa is Swedish and Julie is 10-months-old and a heart-stealer. They going to Stockholm, and although I most certainly hope to share space with them again someday, there is no guarantee that will ever happen.

Although we didn’t spend a lot of their year here together, their departure will leave a blank space in Seychelles and I will miss them.

Thankfully, Lisa keeps a blog … today’s post is full of photos of me and Julie (Thank you, Lisa!) … so I will be able to watch a little darling grow, if from a great distance, and follow their lives as well as Bablefish allows me to understand Swedish.

Friends come and friends go, and I’m thankful.

As that great sage Anon once said,

“You meet people who forget you. You forget people you meet. But sometimes you meet those people you can’t forget. Those are your ‘friends.’”

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The UN and the “Terminator” … and we ain’t talking Arnold.

Posted in Children, History, The United Nations, World politics, WTF?, tagged , , , on April 29, 2009| 2 Comments »

If you were in charge, what would you do if you came across a dude who is known to have run camps that kidnapped kids, then trained them to be soldiers? Not just one camp, but seven of them. Keep in mind that this would be in Africa, the guy’s nickname is “the Terminator”, and he is on the UN war crimes list as a wanted man.

According to the BBC, what the UN has done is given him a job.

An indicted war criminal is playing a leading role in the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to documents seen by the BBC.

A Congolese army paper suggests ex-rebel leader Gen Bosco Ntaganda has a major part in the command chain, says a BBC correspondent in the country.

The UN-Congolese force is fighting Hutu rebels in the eastern DR Congo.

Well, that’ll teach him.

On the off chance that you’re not familiar with the plight of children taken for soldiering in the DRC, this report from Amnesty International gives a taste. Here’s just a tiny bit of the intro:

Seven years of almost continuous war in the Democratic Republic of Congo ( DRC) have led to the death of over three million people since 1998 alone, most of them civilian men, women and children. Tens of thousands of women have been raped. Countless acts of torture have been reported. Fleeing the conflict, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been driven from their home into neighbouring countries or other parts of the DRC. Many have died from malnutrition and lack of access to humanitarian assistance. Up to two million people have been internally displaced, including 400,000 children displaced from their homes. This is not a war in which civilians have been the unfortunate victims of ‘collateral damage’, but one in which they have been unremittingly and remorselessly targeted. Death and intense suffering have become the daily fabric of Congolese lives. The conflict has also been marked by the widespread use of children as combatants by all parties. The DRC is currently one of the countries of the world with the largest number of child soldiers.

Read the full report if you have the heart.

The UN is denying that the Terminator is on the payroll … they would, wouldn’t they? … but apparently Human Rights Watch isn’t buying it

“We are very worried by this information and it seems to us that the United Nations is acting like an ostrich with its head in the sand,” Anneke Van Woudenberg, the group’s senior researcher on DR Congo, told the BBC.

“It’s time now this is addressed head on. Rather than denying or ignoring the role being played by Bosco Ntaganda, the UN should be actively seeking his arrest and transferring him to The Hague.”

Well, yeah, although ostrich is not what comes to my mind. I doubt very much that this is a case of not knowing, or even of pretending not to know, but rather out-and-out lying when facts are brought from the gloom of shady dealing into the bright light of a world paying attention.

Where the PR machine spins this one is anybody’s guess, but I am hoping the story doesn’t die on the BBC vine, especially when the UN’s public defense so far comes down to a UN spokesman’s sorry comeback:

“Bosco Ntaganda’s name does not appear on that document, so we have from our Congolese counterparts an assurance that he is not part of the command.”

Well, then … job over, hey, Buddy?

If the United Nations designed dildos, they would all be one inch long, as thick as a toothpick, made from Silly Putty and would just lay there, but they would be a pretty baby blue … and would cost $1 million each.

And, yeah, that’s a statement on expensive impotence.

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A tribute to my youngest on her 4th birthday …

Posted in Cambodia, Children, Family, Friends, Fun, International Adoption, Island life, love, Older Parent Adoption, Seychelles on April 10, 2009| 5 Comments »

With thanks to all who filled in the PP survey, and who asked for more about my kids here … here’s a vid I put together in tribute to the beauty and sweetness of Cj … my youngest, my baby, my darling little girl.

Enjoy!

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Three Stories About African Orphans

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, Children, International Adoption, orphans, Uncategorized on March 31, 2009| 3 Comments »

Three stories about orphans in Africa in today’s news are overlapping interestingly.

The first is a follow the the story I posted recently on the new flap over Madonna’s efforts to adopt again, and the reaction of a guy named Nutt from Save the Children.

He’s now ramping up the media attention with an appearance on CNN and rehashing his hash.

Well, would it not be better to solve the problems of Malawi and help Malawians solve their own problems by educating their children and feeding their children and helping their children so they can get off that cycle of poverty? Not just literally transporting the whole population of Malawi.

That dovetails nicely into this report out of Ghana that starts off with numbers:

Available statistics collated by Ghana AIDS Commission indicate that about 160,000 children have been made orphans through HIV/AIDS in the country.

Then, this one out of Kenya states that 2.5 million orphans in that country will be shifted from children’s homes to relatives.

It seems that the Kenyan government is looking to “trace the orphan’s relatives” because, according to the Minister of Gender and Children’s Affairs, “We want to ensure that these orphans lead a humane life. We want to link them with relatives, where they will live a good life with other children.”

Good luck with that.

How families as poor as most in Kenya are are to be expected to absorb 2.5 million children, in addition to the large families they already have, is a question not addressed, although the country is in the process of amending their Children Act to penalize abusers.

“We have had an increase in defilement, child labour and child neglect cases, and the amendments will ensure the perpetrators are equally punished,” she warned.

… Kenyan children were at a higher risk of trafficking since the country was a transit, selling and receiving centre.

Unhelpfully, Mr. Nutt chose to lob a crap grenade into any potential discussions that might include the fact that there are so few options for so many children:

But we know from our case studies in working in Liberian orphanages that in many cases, these children are [picked] off the Internet, without much research going on, and sometimes it doesn’t work out, and the children can be sent back to their own country. And all that has happened is that that child’s life has been messed around with.

I’d like to see his stats on that, then sit down with some Liberian kids without families their opinions.

So … what do we have here?

Save the Children attempting to prop up the notion that organizations like theirs have it within their power to turn Africa around and make it a peachy place to be born … soliciting donations all the way.

Ghana trying hard to address the issues of the devastation of AIDS in their part of the continent through education and development projects … just up Save the Children’s alley and part of their mandate for the past 30+ years. And, gee, problem solved, heh?

Kenya passing the buck big time as they shove 2.5 million kids off their rolls and into homes where they will do little but add to the strain of families barely making it, thereby guaranteeing that many of these children will be worked, starved and abused.

Three stories, one news day.

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Madonna adopts … not this crap again …

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, Celebrities, Celebs, Children, International Adoption, tagged , , on March 28, 2009| 9 Comments »

Here we go again …

OMG! Celebrity adoption in the news … yawn … and it jump starts the backlash. Sheesh.

Okay, so it is Madonna, and although she may be named after the muthah of all mothers (in the Saddam Hussein sense, that is) there is consensus that June Cleaver she is not, but …

For Save the Children to react like this just annoys the socks I don’t wear right off my itchy feet.

Save the Children spokesman Dominic Nutt told the BBC’s Newshour programme: “For the most part so-called orphans in poor countries tend to have family still available to them, if not actually a parent still living.

“It is vital, we say, that children should not be taken abroad to be looked after but should be cared for in their own environment by their own community, ideally by their own family, particularly their extended family.”

Yeah … I do note that the guy’s a Nutt, which he proves nicely with:

“You cannot literally take every poor child who may only have one parent living, or no parent living, across the world and transport them all into Kensington in London. It’s not a solution.”

Gee … I wonder how much he gets paid to come up with such simplistic tripe?

Here’s a hint to agenda from him: “The thing to do is to support the community, to support local agencies and charities who can look after the child so that the child is at least cared for in their community.” (emphasis added)

Okay. One more time …

Malawi is in Africa. Much of Africa is dirt poor, disease-ridden, starvation-plagued, violent, corrupt and over-populated to the point where quality of life issues begin and end with millions of kids being dead before they are five years old.

Two kids who could end up in the category of dead will instead grow up in a rarefied atmosphere with an obnoxious mother who has more money than the GNP of some African countries.

This does in no way indicate that every poor orphan in the world will suffer the same fate as David and Mercy, nor does it mean that Save the Children execs are going to be put out of a job any time soon.

It may mean that the world will suffer the public personality flaws of two more publicity-hungry spoiled brats in a few years, but Paris Hilton … not an adoptee, by the way … will have faded into a Gabor sister by then and the rags will be needing new fodder.

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The next Annie Leibowitz?

Posted in Adoption, Cambodia, Children, Family, Fun, International Adoption, Island life, Older Parent Adoption, Seychelles, Uncategorized, tagged on January 16, 2009| 1 Comment »

Sam got a cool camera for Christmas from Uncle and Auntie … thank you!!! … and shoots and shoots and shoots. He has quite a good eye and takes some amazing pix, which has been no surprise considering his talents.

What has been a revelation, however, is what Cj accomplishes when she’s behind the lens. Of course, her model is top-class …

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I hate the turn of the year …

Posted in Children, Family, My Chinese Checkered Past, tagged , , on January 2, 2009| 15 Comments »

I can’t believe I am composing this post … especially after the last one.

I learned yesterday that my ex-husband, Scott, killed himself on Tuesday. He would have been 60 on the 27th of this month.

I have been in contact with his wife, Lauren, lending as much support as possible as she tries to absorb this shocking turn of events and wonders: WHY? WHY? WHY?

They have an 11-year-old son … now the same age as Scott was when his father died, also at 58, a tragedy he never learned to live with.

Scott and I were together for 13 years through the ’80s and early ’90s .. the formative years for my older kids … and our relationship was tumultuous, some would say toxic, for most of that time.

It was “Life in the Fast Lane” in every way, not unusual for the time … not one bit healthy, but also never dull.

He was an ad man, so we lived in a social whirl, drove fast cars, traveled the world, drank and smoked too much, and fought like caged ferrets … others referred to us as “The Scott and Sandra Show”, being so drama-charged in our interactions that it was hard to miss the “entertainment value” of our dysfunctional team.

He was an unfaithful spouse, a good-looking man-about-town charmer with a smile that lured women like rats to peanut butter. He was self-involved and often cruel … but I loved him for a long time.

In 1993, I bought myself an around-the-world ticket and left for a year. I needed to get my head together, and couldn’t do that while in the same house, or hemisphere, with him. My kids had grown and moved out and I felt I had completely lost the plot.

He threw a huge party for me, and gave me a compass. He pasted a photo of him inside it and wrote, “So you find your way back” across it.

I didn’t. I found Mark instead, so my return had me staying for only 3 months … time enough to pack what I wanted to take of my old life for my move to England, and to get divorced.

For the past 15 years, he would often phone when drunk and want to talk about our life together. I was the repository of memories … him retaining very few details … and he mined that in me when he could, asking for names and dates and places and recollections.

He contacted me two weeks ago, wanting to give some comfort over the breakup of this marriage of mine, and told me that it had taken him four years to get over my leaving. Whether or not that was some sort of “clearing the decks” act, I will never know, but there was no indication that anything was seriously amiss.

He left no note, and the questions fly around the thought of him at a million miles an hour from hundreds of people.

I cannot believe I end another blog with this, but RIP, Scott. You live in my heart, and always will.

I hate the turn of the year …

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