-3- STRUGGLING WITH THE UNKNOWN DEMON My writings, my diaries and my poetry, were my only outlet by which I could express the pain and confusion that I faced as an everyday experience. As hard as I tried to just keep on going, to push myself through and past the physical difficulties I was having, I would inevitably stumble and fall once again. Looking back over the pages of my diaries, and the sheets of poetry both hand scrawled and neatly typed, I often find myself reliving the pain of those moments when thought and page met. Often, again, I find myself bewildered by the illegible scrawl of my hand or the true meaning of what I meant for I remember not the circumstances of that day or time. Here follows excerpts from my diaries and my poetry. The confusion I felt and the pain is often blatantly evident. So, at times, is my defiance in the face of adversity. DIARY. Sunday Exhaustion haunts me Refusing to let me be Tormenting my days, and nights Arising out of nowhere With dog like jaws, locked Dragging me down Struggle is futile.... Worse than useless Exhaustion feeds on struggle The body feels ill with pain Muscles scream in despair Rest is forced upon me Rest or collapse.... the choice is slim No task is easy No matter the level of enjoyment it brings Four hours and I am duly done in It is all a pity Grief runs deep Will I recover this time? ..... Or not? It is spring and my allergies further sap my strength I fill with frustration .... and longing I do not recall what it is like to be well... ---- 90-5 I sit in bitter feelings, weep I dream of things then cannot sleep Restfall comes and leaves in haste My life is felt in utter waste Confusion rises, mills, and writhes Frustration fills up and blackens lives I sit in bitter feelings, weep. To sing of spring song I long to do I dream of happiness anew The dance of summer waning fast Links of future bound now to past The effort seems only a waste of time My life has really never been mine To sing of spring song I long to do. So now I sit in angry loss My fate is but a die to toss My heart is crushed as tears do grow Unto quiet water's flow In anguish mounting to despair I search in vain for something there So now I sit in angry loss. Am I the fool that hopes and prays My heart it calls for peaceful days I want a place to call my own Secure and warm I need a home Not to loose again my place in life Uninvited in come pain and strife Am I the fool that hopes and prays. Punished for what I do not know Rings in circles cycles grow Past in present future last Close in spiral future past Have I the strength to start again To end this pain I know not when Punished for what I do not know. A road not taken paths to cross Without a map the choice comes loss Body and psyche, strength of mind Power of will and wants combined Battles fought and body wins Guilt is bought for unreal sins A road not taken paths to cross. P. Griffiths ---- DIARY. Monday (11:35pm) Wide awake at 11pm yet exhausted in the morning. Old song. Much too much stress. I'm stressed sick and I know it. Can't change it. Wish I could. I feel helpless about it all. Stresses and depressed + poor nutrition + no appetites + low blood pressure + wrecked sugar balance + asthma + allergies. I can't go on like this, slowly starving, I just can't. I try to keep going but each day gets harder to face. It's harder to get up each morning than it was the day before and I don't sleep well at all. What am I to do ? I am confused. ---- DIARY. Friday Exhaustion and dread haunt me. I cannot sleep for the pain in my body and the nightmares in my dreams. This agony must stop. I need restful sleep. We file for bankruptcy on Monday. I relish the thought of giving those bullying bastards pennies on their dollars. They can simply go to hell. I hate them all. I curse this bad luck. I cringe at the thought that I am to forever more remain poverty stricken. No, I want more. I deserve more, damn it. I've paid my bloody dues and all that stuff. I am fed up with feeling shame and guilt and pain and inadequacy. Damn it all, I want to feel alive - so very much alive. --- **** It seemed that no matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, that life itself had stacked the proverbial deck against me. I knew that the money I had to feed my family on could not possibly cover proper nutrition for the growing children and meet the requirements for working adults as well. The pressure from creditors had resulted in personal bankruptcy for Don and myself, and the trustees would not allow for expenses such as haircuts or school field trip expenses for the children. Any excess monies to the guidelines had to be turned over to the trustees. All pennies had to be accounted for, and special diets were out of the question. I fed my children, fed my husband, and underfed myself. ---- DIARY. Wednesday Worked today . Wasn't a bad day as days go on the slave line jobs. Got a $2.00 tip. But I got home, ate noodles and crashed for three and a half hours of restless bad-dream-filled sleep. I don't feel as if I've had much sleep at all right now. The work wasn't heavy today so I required less Aspirin to keep going. Tonight my stomach burns, even with antacids and milk. I need Aspirin to kill the pain enough to sleep. No use going to the doctor on it. Nothing can be done other than what I'm doing. Why bother wasting the time, again. ---- **** When I could not find work within the scope of the Heritage field, I would take any job that I could manage to find. If that meant working with my friend Sharion to clean houses, then that is what I would do. I took a job as a chambermaid at a Victoria motel, the average day described above, with the exception of the tip that is. Tips of any sort were rare. I worked four hours a day, the first hour's wages went into the transportation costs, the latter three went towards rent for the tiny, cold rat infested shack we lived in. ---- DIARY. Tuesday Exhausted yet wired. Memory like a sieve - pushing myself again beyond my bounds. Crazy time. Must work to eat and work has me too tired to think about anything else. I'm too pooped to pop! I can't get with it - I'm forgetting to do everything that doesn't pertain to direct survival. I can't remember. It's driving me crazy. I work as hard as I can and I ache all of the time. I'm so tense I can't sleep. I just want to scream and scream in terror and hopelessness. Things seem to be getting worse. The next time a person tells me to apply for a different chambermaid job at more hours or money I'll explode [in sheer frustration]! I can barely tolerate this job's hours - [as a part time motel chambermaid] I can't handle more hours in a week! And more pay usually means working faster -ie. harder- than I do with less range for error. I wouldn't last the first week. Argh! I lose ideas as fast as I compose them. I become FRUSTRATED because of FORGETFULNESS due to EXHAUSTION. I'm in a nightmare and I can't get out! I'm so scared that I don't know what to do! I'm stressed to the extreme. Oh why won't the gods at least guide me on what I should do? I need help..true help. ---- **** I was able to find a different job, with the same pay and more hours. Instead of working three or four days a week, I was able to work four hours a day, six days a week, driving a delivery van for a florist shop within a mile from my home. I also did any work needed around the shop when I wasn't driving, to fill in the daily four hours. Meanwhile the shack overlooking Langford Lake that we were renting had been put up for sale, and when the property sold we were once again looking for a place to live. Thankfully, the bankruptcy period had ended and we were not as restricted as to how much rent we could pay on that account. There was still the matter of a restriction due to how much we could bring in, and what was available in the very tight regional housing market. ---- DIARY. Saturday I am exhausted and weak. Dr. R. says to keep using the asthma puffer and if it does not help in a week or so to come back and he'll change the medication. I find it difficult to get around to using it four times a day. The cost is definitely a factor - I'm scared to run out of it. It's not my hypochondria acting up, it is my lungs. Dr. R commented on my never complaining about breathing problems before. I told him that it had always been sporadic in the past, and it had only recently become an ongoing problem. My lungs are not working fully at all, and Dr. R. feels that if I take the medication I may have enough wind by my B'day [Feb.23] to blow out the candles. I nearly coughed myself to the point of throwing up today over a whiff of ammonia. I've never had a reaction like that before. The "puffer" worked on the spasms, luckily. Dauna [a floral designer for the shop] said that from now on she'll do the windows and I'm not to even try them. What is happening to me ??? From my readings of late, it is no real wonder that I am exhausted. With limited lung power and low blood pressure teaming up on me I have no reason not to tire easily and feel fatigue heavily. My body tissues are oxygen starved. Poor nutrition compounded with stress is the cause of it all, and they are conditions over which I have little control. Most of the stress is due to lack of money, and the resultant lack of food and proper nutrition. To solve one allows for solving the other. But for now I am too weak to work any harder than I have been. ---- **** I had been told so often and for so long that there was nothing really the matter with me, other than my not trying hard enough, that I had come to believe it was true. In my readings and psychology courses I learned that someone believing that they are ill when they are not is called hypochondria, and hence I reasoned that I must be a hypochondriac. The only thing then, for me to do was to try and ignore my illness as much as I could. I tried to rationalize away the problems and the discomforts as much as I could. Even when I could grasp the true situation, I was helpless to do anything to remedy it. ----- DIARY. Sunday (10pm) Today has been a very rough day on me. My nose is out of sorts and everything smells foul. I spent most of today in bed. I slept late to awaken to a migraine attack that lasted until late in the afternoon. It left me feeling weak and exhausted. My belly is sore and @bowles troublesome - the usual with migraines. I feel a nagging ache all through me, a bone hunger. A hunger but I cannot eat[,the foods smell so bad to me that they are nauseating]. Even if I could, there is little in my cupboards suitable for me to ease my hunger with. I am confused. My mind spins and my dreams are crazed. I feel so utterly devoid of hope that emptiness envelops me. I just want to curl up in a secure little ball and give up on everything and everyone until things get better - to hibernate until better times occur. Last night an old fire flickered once again. Tough and mean, strong and in control, determined to succeed and have victory over adversity. Willing to resurface and battle for survival. Confusion resulted. I am torn. I feel fragile. I do not know which to believe. Each time I attempt to put my desires firmly in focus, determined to make my own reality and demand health for my body, my body fails me. The frustration is immense. I feel betrayed by my body and those bullies that push their ideas that mind rules the body. I do not know at all if I must work in spite of my body or if somehow I make those limitations occur. Self blame breeds shame. Too many voices. Too many ideas. Too much blame placed on the victim. Am I ill now because I pushed this body too far - too much stress coupled with too little nourishment? Or am I ill now because I am "sick" of a job that does not pay well enough and I resent it - as a way out of an impossible situation? Unable to bring myself to quit, I make myself sick to get a break? If it is limitations of the body then I must find work that will not push it so hard it breaks down. But if it is due to being "sick" of an inconvenient job, then a heavy burden of shame comes to bear. Shame that I would do this to my family when there is already such a burden on it. I do not need that shame. No wonder I had a migraine attack. I hate the theory that we make our own realities to some obscene extent. I feared that I would get sick again if I could not rest - and grow sick I did. But I hate feeling sick and self hate is growing because I did get sick. I hate myself for making myself sick, if in fact it was planned that way. I am very confused and unhappy. ---- **** That Don could only find short-term contract work put enormous pressure upon me to be to be working when he was not. It wasn't the best place for me to be working, in a florist shop when I had pollen allergies to contend with. The working environment was often an unpleasant one with the owner demanding I have the ability to be in two places at once and psychically know where deliveries should go even if all the information at my disposal was incorrect. The shop owner could be downright nasty at times, and she did her best to cheat me out of wages whenever she could such as denying me pay for statutory holidays. ---- DIARY. Sunday (12:05am) Another late night, another sore face. Sinus pain, mouth pain, jaw pain, tooth pain. All run together. Eating is quite painful at times. The sinuses are draining - got some decongestant. Need listerine for the mouth pain. Oh, God, I need so many things. It is difficult to decide what one must do without in the ways of foods and medicines. I've felt the symptoms of extra insulin in my system today [the sign of hypoglycemia flaring once again]. It has been difficult staying in control when every part of mind and body wants to act drunk [as it does when there is too little sugar in my blood]. I need a good six weeks of proper diet to straighten my metabolism out again, but I doubt if I'll even get that opportunity. Big changes in increased money inflow would have to occur for me to be able to afford the luxury of good foods. I feel condemned to a slow death of malnutrition and disease. I am bone cold tonight, yet the house is quite warm. Bone Cold. Another symptom of low blood sugar, low blood pressure; adrenal exhaustion. So the books say. Why doesn't any of the doctors and experts "remedies" help??? ---- 90-10 frustrations mounting and brewing growing greater every day again and again and again never completely resolved never completely overcome cycles begin and end only to begin again to repeat anew anger aggression and rage indignation of the soul insults and injury inflicted unhappiness unfolded and rejected to be spit upon again beaten down and cursed the very soul victimized again wish and hope futile efforts defined rejections compounded the fate of life denied alive yet dead inside a living hole of despair chained and oppressed equality and humanity denied defects defined ashamed P. Griffiths ---- DIARY. Thursday (1210am) It has been a long and shitty day all told. I got growled at by Boss Betty [of the florists' shop] as soon as I got in the door about how it's my responsibility to see that the orders are delivered even if the shop screws up the addresses and the phone book addresses are out of date, and there is no phone number on the delivery. The shop will be too busy to deal with such things. She expects too damn much for her $5.00/hr. I had already spent an hour crying, feeling ill, exhausted and hopeless. I didn't need to be chewed out when I rarely bring back flowers undeliverable. I do a damn good job at deliveries and her bitchy-ness was not called for. I felt like just up and saying if I am such a bloody awful driver then she should find herself another one so she wouldn't have so much to bitch about. One more insult today and I would have just up and quit. Any day now I am liable to do just that. Then there is the bloody [delivery] van. The damn thing keeps stalling in reverse -the idle is too low. The damn sliding door has been so difficult to open and close that I have to pull hard on it to open it and slam my body against it to have the back hinge latch right. Today the top slide pin sheared and I tore the door off. It gave way as I was opening the door so I ended up on my ass. I finished up the run anyhow but I hurt myself. Got back to the shop as Don showed up. There was a local run to do so Don & Joseph [Betty's husband and shop co-owner] took a look at the damage. I wish the damn bolt would have sheered on Gail instead [shop manager and owner's daughter-in-law]. No one seems to care if I was hurt. Betty wouldn't want me on compo [Workers Compensation]. Just another fall for me. One of these times I will break something and with each fall the odds go up that the next fall puts me in hospital. I've ben running on codine, caffine, and insulin buzz for most of the day so I may well feel more bumps and bruises when I awaken. I see Dr. Wingert [my chiropractor] tomorrow anyhow so he can survey the damage, if any. I usually screw up my back when I fall, and this time when I fell I twisted and now I hurt in all the places I didn't hurt last night. Fun. Don may drive tomorrow (today), if I'm all stiffened up. (1:10pm) Don went to work for me today. I ache all over and feel as if I was beat up. ---- **** The inevitable occurred, and I got hurt on the job. My body could take no more punishment and I collapsed. Don was unemployed again so he took over driving the delivery van and whatever else needed doing around the shop. He didn't like the job anymore than I did, but we needed that money. ---- DIARY. Tuesday (10:10pm) I am tired and achy after all of 12 hrs. out of bed. I managed to make up two batches of sugar cookie dough, two batches of fruit drop cookies and two pumpkin loaves. I also burned several stacks of garbage and many dropped tree limbs [that had dropped from the tall Douglas Furs that filled our park like front yard]. I took a swing in the yard [on the old rope swing hanging from a large tree branch] with the snow gently falling and only the sound of a woodpecker to be heard. I over-did it and my back hurts. ---- DIARY. Wednesday. (10:45pm) I slept poorly and have suffered all day from muscle spasms. My left shoulder and arm have been extremely painful and my face is tight and sore. Speaking is difficult and it is more difficult than usual to comprehend speech. There has been a bit of low back pain, but it is almost unnoticeable in relation to the severe pain in my arms, shoulder, neck and jaw. The codine does not help much unless I just vegetate. I cannot afford to be fragile right now. As I am, a stupid little injury has triggered another severe bout of "fibromyalgia" that will leave me suffering from debilitating pain for quite some time. For how long I do not know. All I know is that progress is slow and that my jaw is very bothersome. This thing hasn't stopped getting worse yet. Now what? Even if I intended on keeping that stupid job I doubt if I could manage it. No, I will have to tell Betty to start looking for another driver come the new year even if I haven't managed to get myself a better job. It won't be fair to them to injure myself again at any time, or if the weather will leave me not just achy but unable to function. No, if Betty doesn't fire me first I'll just have to quit and let the gods take care of me. ---- 90-14 tired of it all never able to get ahead always playing a catch-up game running hard finishing last ideas stolen promises lost tears withheld in shame angry being rage withheld brewing storms indignation unable to quit unable to advance stuck in a nightmare unable to decide what to do next who to call on no one to help to do it all pressure to make it right hands to help not there ideas to help not there all rests upon my head crazy, dizzy, confusing mess so much to do so much to decide can't see a beginning can't see an end need a break need a miracle pressures great and ever growing money, always money damned money never is there enough to do everything always needing more always the demands for more grow endless battle to survive culture based on money P. Griffiths ---- DIARY. Friday (11:15pm) It's hard to remember what day of the week it is. I lose track of the days. I am depressed. It is a gray, crawl under a rock and turn to stone type of depression. It is a numb unable to react depression. I feel frozen in time and space - unable to function or move. I have no control over so much. Not just control, but no way of having any effect. Double binds. Hopeless. Brain overload. Function is only a mask, a falsehood: an image not reality. ---- 90-17 more of the same old shit again why-for does it come more of the anguish and the strain it does not end before more has begun more of the same old struggles same play but another act always something to bring more pain here daily suffering is a fact the song that's sung is never new though words or tune do fade like colors changing only in hue still the piper must be paid what strength have I to overcome endless onslaughts of grief? battered by hunger and threatened by some soul stolen by a thief it is not enough just to survive by begging and by tears in despair one cannot feel alive smothered by one's fears to weep inside for days on end to meet with justice undone affluent faceless adversaries send cold hearted villains to bleed the stone inside I die bent no further can I go no strength to try what to do I do not know there is no one to help. P. Griffiths ---- -3.1- THE BIG RED HOUSE When the owner of the cottage we had been renting sold the property were given a 60 day notice to vacate the premises. Don was currently between jobs and I was working as a delivery driver for Lady Bug Florists of Langford, where I worked four hours a day for six days a week. Our family income level was such that we needed to find suitable accommodation for as cheaply as possible. Just as with previous housing searches we found that our cats were less of a problem as far as renting a place went than were our kids. Children were seen as trouble, and more ads said "No Kids" than said "No Pets". By this time we were looking for a house with four bedrooms or a full basement where rooms could be made. Mike Waring, our weekend son, was having great difficulties at home with his father and their frequent arguments had turned into fist fights between the six foot plus lad and his equally tall father. Only the promise of his being able to move in with us after we moved to a larger place had kept Mike from running away to the streets. Mike knew that to live with us he would have to go to school, and that his father would have to agree to pay for his room and board. Two weeks before the September 1st, 1990 moving day we still had no place to move to. Don spotted an ad for a house in Langford in the weekly regional newspaper and he called it right away. At $750.00 a month it was quite a leap in price from the $595.00 we had been paying for the cottage but we were no longer in a position to be picky. The house was being shown to prospective tenants that very morning, and the address was on Goldstream Avenue down the road from the cottage near the village center. As I prepared for work, Don went to view the house. We had already been turned down for several houses, duplexes and triplexes, one because we did not have a credit card to put the damage deposit on. I was not holding out much hope for this place either. I was quite surprised when Don called me from the house and told me to get down there as fast as I could. He knew that I soon had to be at work and if the shop owner, Betty, was in that morning and I was late that I would be yelled at. But he was insistent that the landlord wanted both parts of a couple to be there as he was interviewing prospective tenants on the spot. I hurriedly got myself out of the house, and onto my bicycle which I rode to work each day. I had the address of the house in my pocket but had not clued in as to what house was at that address even though I passed it every day on my way to and from work. When I got to the address, my heart skipped a beat. Just a week before I had taken a few minutes on my way to work to stop and admire this very house, wishing that it was available for rent and that I might have a chance to live there. Now I was getting that chance. The house was known locally as The Big Red House. The bright red paint of the house exterior stood out through the forest of 200 - 300 year old Douglas Fir trees that filled the 150 odd feet between roadway and house. It was built in the early 1920's in the Craftsman style, the basement built largely above ground raising the main floor five feet into the air. A broad veranda encircled one corner of the house adding mass to the look. On the black shingled roof a dormer spoke of a smaller second floor hidden under the high pitched roofline. The house looked far larger than it was, but compared to the tiny cottage we had spent most of the past two years in it was a grand mansion to behold, from the road anyway. Coming down the long driveway the decay of house and yard became very noticeable. Garbage was strewn everywhere in the nearly three acres of property surrounding the house, heaped in piles in places and barely noticeable in the overgrowth of dried grass and green Scotch Broom bush. There were many cars in the driveway, and the landlord was at the front door arguing with the tenant to be allowed in to show the house. Kim, the tenant, had not been making full rent payments for months, and the landlord had given her the choice of paying the back rent or move out. Instead she again paid only partial rent, and refused to acknowledge that by doing so she had agreed to vacate the property. She was given 90 days to pay up or leave, and she had 14 days to be out. Once again the landlord gave her the option of paying the back rent, and once again she said she could not. It was then she let the prospective tenants into the house. The mess outside of the house was nothing when compared to the filth and decay of the inside of the house. It was obvious that this was a party house, alcohol containers and condom wraps were everywhere, along with piles of rotting garbage. The house smelt of drug smoke, excrement, and decomposition. As I stepped over the pizza boxes and piles of soiled disposable diapers I did not see the house as it now was. I saw it as it once was, a magnificent house indeed. Outside of the house, the landlord was taking people's names addresses and phone numbers. I put our names in his book and told him about Don and myself, about our community work through the Goldstream Region Museum, that I was employed locally and had to rush off to work. I left Don to answer any questions he might have about us. I felt that all the place would need is a nice dose of TLC... and since old houses were my specialty I was confident that we could do the old place justice after years of neglect. It was not a question of what repairs the landlord was prepared to do, it was more of what he would allow us to do. I arrived at work some twenty minutes late, and luckily for me Betty was nowhere to be seen. The shop manager, Gayle, knew how hard I had been looking to find a place and she was crossing her fingers for me. I'd just have to quit work twenty minutes later than usual that day. It was while I was out on deliveries that Don called to say that we got the place if we wanted it and that we'd have to sign the papers that very day once I got off work. In order to pay the deposit on the house we had to borrow the money from Ken, who was working a summer job at the time. Without that loan we would not have been able to secure the agreement. Getting the house from the landlord and getting the house from the tenant were to be two different things entirely. Kim was making no effort to find a place to move to, or even to pick up the garbage let alone pack. We had to be out of the cottage before noon on September 1st and the new owners were moving in that very afternoon. We were being caught in the middle with no place to go. We were able to rent an empty storage locker for two weeks at the end of August, which we crammed full with as much of our belongings as we could fit in there. Come moving day, little was left at the cottage. Kim had found a motel in the community of Duncan at the expense of Welfare for herself and her children but had not packed one thing by the morning of September 1st. Nor had she arranged for any help to pack and move her things. She had threatened to make us throw all of her things out onto the street while she called media and police. The landlord not liking publicity dumped it all on my lap. So I had offered to store her things in one of the two bedrooms in the basement until she could arrange to come and get them within the coming month. She would not retrieve her things until mid-November. I could not take time off work come moving day. Preparing for moving had me already exhausted. We had arranged for a moving crew. My brother Garry had been loaning us the use of his Toyota pickup and for that day he was driver and mover. Mike, Ken, Chris, Don and Don's friend David split into two crews, with David heading up the crew at the Red House. While the mobile group brought our things in, the house group packed up Kim's belongings, drained and disassembled her water beds, and moved everything into the basement. Kim meanwhile packed up her personal items into her car and took off. By the time I got off work, I was ready to drop. The guys had set up a bedroom for Don and I upstairs and were busy hauling out the garbage and old shag rugs rotting with human and animal excrement. In the bedroom were the family cats, hiding under the bed. I climbed onto the bed and fell into an exhausted sleep for several hours. It took us three months to get the house into a state of repair and cleanliness so that I could stand it. Don took care of the damaged walls and doors, torn out electrical, and clogged plumbing. I was in charge of basic cleaning of the house and yard. Under a thick layer of dirt that resembled dark brown paint I found the old heavy varnished woodwork intact. The brass doorknobs also appeared painted under thick dirt. Kim had left her refridgerator for my use as I still needed to but one for this place. I had the stove and other appliances myself. The fridge was filthy and full of organic matter that had decomposed beyond recognition. But it was from under the fridge that came the worst smell. That smell was identified as that of rotting hashish, and there was about two cups worth of rotting material under the fridge. In fact the entire house reeked so much of the residue of hashish and marijuana that it took weeks of washing and painting to get it out. When the bulk of the cleaning was done, the landlord hired a fellow with a three ton truck to haul the garbage and junk we had piled in the yard to the dump. He took three loads to the dump. When Kim finally came for her belongings and cat she left the fridge, which I no longer needed, a broken washing machine, a broken clothes dryer, a broken dishwasher, several garbage bags of moldy children's clothes, three broken chairs and two old broken down couches. Once again we were left to dispose of these things ourselves. But the spare room was empty. Mike grabbed some of the discarded furniture for the room and claimed it for his own. Ken had claimed the large room beside it as his own, and Chris was upstairs in the smaller of the two bedrooms there. Mike's dad agreed to pay for Mike's room and board as long as he stayed in school. This is how Mike became our foster son and opened up the phase of our lives we joking refer to as the "Langford Youth Hostel". -3.2- CATCHING THE KIDS THAT FELL BETWEEN THE CRACKS Having a centrally located house and three teenage boys made for a great deal of teenage activity around the Red House. The forest surrounding the house gave it an insulation from the homes and businesses of the surrounding area. The kids could get noisy and not disturb the neighbors. A rickety old garage provided a place where the kids could have some secret privacy to party in away from the prying eyes of adults as long as they didn't get too noisy. During the summer of 1991, the Red House rid itself fully of the reputation as the party/drug central for Langford and became known instead as a safe house for young people in trouble. Although we worked in cooperation with the local police detachment (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) we had no help from any of the recognized agencies dealing with troubled youth. Due to my level of disability we could not be officially recognized and financially compensated, so any expenses incurred came from our own pockets. How it all started was simple enough. Ken was a computer fanatic and was deeply into the new computer bulletin board (BBS) phenomena, running his own BBS from his own phone line in his room. He met many people this way, a rather closed community unto itself. Mike, although interested in BBS chat rooms where he could converse with other people online, was into the emerging Grunge scene which was developing on the lower end of Vancouver Island at the same time it was developing in Seattle. (In trends, Victoria keeps pace with Seattle, not Vancouver B.C.) Mike was having a hard time at school with attention deficit problems, as was Chris. All three boys were active in Sea Cadets. It was through this combination of factors that they came into contact with the youth who were relegated onto the edge of society, the kids that were falling between the cracks of the social safety net. In the beginning, the boys would bring home their friends after school. They would talk, play at the computer, and do normal teenage things. As long as they were here and amused I knew that my kids were not out getting into trouble, and as long as the friends didn't cause trouble I didn't mind them hanging around. I had very simple ground rules: Don't steal from us. Don't smoke on the main floor of the house. Don't do drugs in the house. Don't engage in physical violence on the property. I declared the property to be neutral ground. The kids themselves soon declared the property to be sacred ground. Mike had done a massive public relations job on Don and myself. He had declared us to be the most understanding adults he had ever known, and the most fair. I didn't think we lived up to his ideal of us, but somehow he convinced his friends that we did. Don and I enjoyed talking with the young people. No topic was taboo and nothing seemed to shock or upset us. This is not to say that we were never shocked or dismayed, we just never got openly upset about most things. If all I had the energy for was to sit and have coffee and talk with young people then I could at least do that. For the young people that was more than good enough. On my good days I would putter about the yard and tend to my small but prolific organic vegetable garden. The garden provided for the makings for my large soup pot. It seemed like the kids were always hungry, and alot of the ones who dropped in looked hungry too. They didn't ask to be fed, let alone expect it. I could spot the dull hair and eyes of malnutrition and soup was something that I could make and offer. It didn't take long before I was awarded the title of having the best soup pot in all of Victoria. Some days I would make up a batch of baking powder biscuits to go with the soup. A friend of Don's who worked for the local foodbank began to bring us the bread donations that would not fit in the foodbank freezers for the last week of each month when the foodbank was closed. I had bread and soup for anyone who stopped by. Soon, the kids who had become regulars around the house began to bring around 'friends' of theirs from outside of the group that hung around the Red House. It didn't take long for me to learn that these "friends" were teens who had been just recently met, and who were in trouble of some sort. I dubbed them "strays", stray kids in need of attention. What I was learning about the lives of the kids did shock me. Here were the kids that the social safety net was designed to help... the abused, the neglected, the runaways, and the throwaways. The kids that were the regulars had grown to trust me, and to come to me when they had problems for comfort and advise. Now they were bringing their friends to me for this nurturing. They were even going out and rescuing other kids from drug houses and off the streets of Victoria and bringing them "home to Phyllis and Don". Some of these kids were in truly bad shape. They were the runaways who had no place to run to, sometimes running from abuse or neglect but sometimes it was an argument with parents that has sent frightened young men and women blindly on the run. Most sad were the teens who's parents had kicked them out and then when confronted by Social Services had said that the kids were welcome to come home, only to again kick them out again a few days after they got home. I know that some kids told this story as a cover story to their own "party on" attitudes. I also know from talking with a couple of the parents themselves that this game they played was true. The parent did not want the teen around and they did not want to pay Social Services to put them in foster care either. I would always do whatever I could to help the "strays" who came to my door. I would feed them, let them use the shower, and give them a safe place to sleep on a couch. If they needed fresh clothes I had garbage bags full of clean clothing that had been given to me by friends in the community just for the kids I was helping. I tried to work with the parents getting runaways to call home. Tears often flowed freely on both ends of the line. It got so that parents who called the local police station in search of their lost teens would be given our phone number to call, the parents being reassured that if their child was under the care of Phyllis at the Big Red House they were in safe hands. THE WORK ENDS As time went on, I became weaker and less able to look after myself let alone others. And as time went on, the teens grew into young adults who became more independent with lives of their own to live. The core group of about a dozen young people declared that they had "adopted" me as a parent and that I had no choice in the matter. Not everyone was saved, but most have their lives together. I am proud of these young people, if for no other reason than they are good kids who help others and are striving to live good lives at the expense of no one else. REUNIONS I lost track long ago of the number of young people that have been through my home. It wasn't unusual to have a dozen extra bodies around the place on any day in particular during the summer of '91. Nothing I have found to be as rewarding to me as when I was able to reunite a parent with a lost child. I remember the joy of these moments even though I cannot recall names or faces. For most of the kids, I don't think I ever knew their real names, only their street names. Not that it mattered. The long term success of my efforts has been told to me many times, and many times I have met a young adult on the streets who meets me with smiles of recognition glowing with love. I usually do not recall the face, but they know me and are happy to see me. I must have done something good along the line. One instance in particular of an on the street meeting will be forever etched into my very soul even if it too is lost into the brain fog of time. In the summer of '95, I was returning home from an early afternoon jaunt around the shops near my home. There on the sidewalk ahead of me was a well dressed young man accompanied by an older woman. His face lit up when he recognized me, and he said most happily "Hello Phyllis. It's so very good to see you. How are you doing?" I didn't recognize the fellow , but he obviously knew me. " I'm doing not too bad, all things considered", I replied as I patted the tiller of my scooter. He turned to the woman beside him. "Mom, this is Phyllis from the Red House, the lady I told you about who saved my life." The woman's face broke into a radiant smile as she reached for my hand. "Bless you, thank you. You gave me back my son." All I could do was blush in embarrassment and reply, "You are both very welcome." The conversation ended there, as the son glanced at his wrist watch and reminded his mother that their bus was due any minute and they had yet to get to the stop. We said good-bye and went on our opposite ways. In January of 1997 I still do not remember the boy or his story. All I know is that it was all worth doing.