Thursday, August 31, 2017

Those Kids Who Wander Around...

Sometime ago there was boy who used to ride is old bike all over the place and I used to see him every once in a while, it was the places that I saw him that surprised me.....we would go to Farmington to the movie and he would be there on his bike, and he would go to Shiprock and he would be at the store there...he would ride that bike through the rain, wind and go for miles just to go somewhere.
I used to talk to him and he was bright, a smart kid and he was never with anyone. I asked him how he got to town and he would just shake his head and shrug his shoulders never answering.
After a while I would see his mother and asked her if he could stay with us since they lived way out in the sticks and she said no. She is a distant relation who I never saw with her son, he just kind of wandered around on his own staying with his grandfather who was an old man. I saw his mother again and told her that her son was a pretty smart kid and sometimes he stays over to our place, it seemed like a lot of times.
He was an easy going kid with a nice smile and each time I tried to take him and rasie him, his mother resisted. After a while I let it go...I ran into him the other day and we talked for while and he told me when he was small no one wanted him. He is full grown. I told him I wanted him to be my son but his mother said no. He told me you should have tried harder.
We sat for a long while and he grew up alone making IT to Portland and ended up on the streets there and had a hard time. He told me his mother did not want him but wanted his social security and thought that was what we wanted it. I told him that I explained to her that I would raise you as my own with any support from her or any money so I was not interested in any money but I did not know what the situation was.
He told me he had a hard life. He is a truck driver now driving between Arizona and North Dakota and has three kids. I said I know you are doing well now and are a good father. There are some things I regret and one of them is not being able to raise him as my own son. He looked at me and said, I thought no one wanted me. I said that is not true. You will always have a place here I told him. He was needing to talk to someone and we talked for some time and then he left. I can still see him riding that bike on them reservation roads as a kid, he rode a long ways to make a life for himself.
Later on in the day my grandson asked me to pick him at school and so I did and he had a girl with him, I didn't know her but he told me her name was Joe. I said that is a crazy name for girl, he didn't say much after that.
When i got home that night I thought about this girl and just before bed i asked him about her. He said to me in passing...she is my sister. That took me by surprise when he said that, he said his father has other children and she is one of them. I know his father by name but have nothing to do with him as he has never been around and never provided anything for my grandson, he is a stranger to me. I
learned that my cousin had a daughter and she had a child for this guy and Joe is her daughter so she is related to us distantly and yet I didn't know her and that is why I wrote that I am think I know everything and sometimes find out something I should have known a long time ago Anyway my grandson told me Joe has lived in seven foster homes as she has grown up and he said she needs a place to stay. Well we talked about last night and it looks like we have a new member of our family joining us...I will not make the same mistake I made a long time ago and let a child go on their own again...so that is what is on my mind today...

No comments:

Post a Comment