My Extended Family

It seems manage yesterday all the kids where little and needed me all the time. Now Francesca is married, with children, Kaitlin is living on her own with her daughter, and JJ and April live with them. I feel like it was further the new(prenominal) day we were all crowding around the dinner t adapted having a nice family meal, while can their become was off who knows where, drunk, high, spending specie he didnt really have to even spend. I break down and think how these kids ever do it all these years before with go forth us.Us universe myself and their uncle Scott, we had been to flapher five years by then and I knew this was the beginning of something howling(prenominal). If hardly I had known how much it would affect and heighten my life and theirs. I guess it happened gradually, the kids coming over for dinner, needing winter clothes, winning showers at my house and I always wondered where their father was. Then I found out, John was an alcoholic, drug addict who so mehow had custody of these extraordinary kids. I guess, I should have known how bad it was by how the kids acted notwithstanding I didnt.I hadnt known abuse like that, I was from a place where we had p bents and had dinner together, not 14 year elderly Frankie (Francesca) going into the bar and dragging her father out, which ended up being the event that at long last caused me to go and file for full custody of these kids. It was the trump choice I could have ever made. I remember register the papers and thinking , I am either going to get an irate phone call from John acting like he cares, telling me I go away never win, or he will say nothing and I will end up with these wonderful kids as my own.As I sat there in the philander building filing the papers it occurred to me just how much dish and drive in and parenting these kids where going to need and how happy I was to do it. But I should of known that the happiness was not going to last. It appeared to be a chemical fo rmula day August 18, 2009, the kids had just finished dinner, the older girls where going out and I just settled down by and by putting my boys to drive in when the phone rang. It was Patty, the kids grandma and the other rock in their lives. She was hysterical, something was wrong with grandpa and Scott had to get over there right away.I remember calling the kids and telling them to come home, anxiously awaiting word on grandpas condition, when I received the worst call ever. I know I turned around at the eyes of these kids who had endured so much already. Ready to crush there world as they knew, if moreover I had known what was to come, perhaps I could of , nothing, there was nothing I could of done and I need to deal with that. I looked at them and said, Grandpa, didnt make it, I am so sorry guys, everyone just stone-broke down, not sure what to say or do I did what I thought I could which was just be there, holding them as nigh as I could.The rest of the next week was a blu r. I thought it could not get any worse for these kids, thinking nates to how their mother left all those years ago, never looking back, JJ was only 3 years old then now turning 13 almost a man, I thought, how much more can these kids suffer. If only I had known. Its been about a week since Grandpa had passed, no one was really grieving the stress was so high, and of course it made John do more drugs, drink more alcohol and be less of a parent than he was before.Then the final box came or what I presumed to be the final blow. It was just over a week after grandpa passed, when the phone rang, a little after midnight, it was John, Patty, who was the kids grandma and wife of grandpa, had a stroke and had passed. It was like what, no way, how much can this family handle at one time. I remember thinking these kids are never going to be able to handle this, how as a family can we overcome this overly. Who was going to help me the way she did with the kids, yes they lived with me exclu sively she was my rock.Now my rock was gone, my family never really support what I was doing anyway so now , it was just me and Scott fighting to spare together a family that so desperately needed it. To lose both(prenominal) their grandparents less than two weeks apart, to lose my mother in law and father in law that way was so hard to handle for me as an adult. Let alone these kids who I know have gone done so much. We made it through though it was hard, tough, a mountain to climb, barely we did it, and we came out better and stronger than before.Things were finally looking up for all of us. John was finally trying to get his life on track, maybe too late in my eyes, but it was the stew that counted right. Now its been a year since Grandpa and Grandma had passed, the kids where doing great, Frankie just graduated college, JJ and April with the best attendance and averages they have ever had. John working on a family with the kids, of course he fail like I knew he would, his effort was a joke in my eyes but to the kids it was what they could get.Of course they love him he was there father but I just didnt want to see them get hurt anymore than they already where by him and life. He gets arrested for Felony assault on two woman that where doing nothing but having a good time. I heard the charges and new, no matter what this was finally what was best for all of us. The trial and everything else seemed to fly by, b before we knew it put-on was being sentenced to five years in prison and we all mat like we could finally just be a family. It was a simpleness to know he could no longer hurt or offense any of them into feeling sorry for him anymore.Now, its two years later, and I see, how lovely these kids are, how great of parents they are and I know thats because of what I had the heroism to do, to love these kids no matter what and be there for them, when everyone else failed them. I would like to say I changed them, but in all actuality they changed me, into the mother I am today. I would not change any of it for a second. Those kids are my family and like my sons and daughters and they always will be. They are forever my extended wonderful, goofy, haywire never change anything family.