7 years and Counting... (cont.)

This journey though has not been all fun and games, it’s had quite a toll on my family with stress and issues amongst my uncle and mother over visitation, seeing my cousin’s mother wasn’t in the picture anymore it was just one less worry my mom had to bare on her shoulders. Over the next few years it felt like a constant battle. Whenever Riely would see his father his behavior would change drastically over coming back home leading to huge temper tantrums, few in which resulting in an ambulance and police to come to our house to get him under control. This caused an enormous amount of stress on my mother for years trying to find an answer for these behavioral issues. I think it was shortly after he turned 7 the doctors had diagnosed him with ADHD. Once he started his medication for ADHD his behavioral issues had become less enraged and more manageable. He was having less and less fits and home and his teachers had noticed a drastic improvement in school as well. It has now been 2 years since his last tantrum. It was the day before school started, he was entering the second grade. I would say his last tantrum this last summer day before school was the hardest to get through. This was because he was so out of control and wouldn’t stop his fit we called my grandfather to come and pick him up. My mom packed up his stuff and handed him off to my grandparents to stay with till he learned it wasn’t okay to treat her that way. My mom was an emotional wreck and it broke her heart to do this but she knew she had to do it for him. He stayed with my grandparents for 3 weeks straight with no communication to us at all; finally he asked my grandfather to call my mom so he could apologize to her and tell her he really misses home. He moved back a week after my mothers birthday at the end of September. It was so weird not having him at the house for a month. After that incident we all had changed for the better. We learned to appreciate what we have more because of how fast it could be taken away. We learned to stop taking things for granted because it’s the ones we love that get hurt by it the most. I was an emotional wreck whenever the thought of him not being able to live with us anymore crossed my mind. Having him come into my life and experience all this has been life changing. It has shaped and molded who I have become today. I am a more caring and nurturing person than I could ever imagined myself being, and I hate turning people down when asked for help but I’m beginning to learn now to say no because there is just some people out there that will use you just to get something out of it. I respect my mom and look up to her every time I look at my cousin for taking him into our home to keep him from going to a stranger’s home. She knew that the road wasn’t going to be easy and it was going to have some ugly times, but she believed in not only herself but in us as a family, that if we worked together we could pull through whatever challenges life threw at us. I can honestly say now looking back at the last 7 years that I would not change anything in the world because of where that little boy has lead me to today. He is now 9 years old and in the fourth grade, his behavior has improved so much. It is truly impossible to think that a child at age 9 has already experienced more than half of us go through in a lifetime. As big of a pain as he can still be sometimes and even after all the hell this situation has put us through, I couldn’t love him anymore if I tried. I look to my cousin as my little brother now and will have been living with us for 7 years as of March 6th, 2010. It has been a remarkable learning experience and I wouldn’t have it any other way.