Failure Notice

Those of you who read the comments section of the blog are familiar with CaveDweller. She has shared information with our readers during the last few months about the difficult task of being a grandparent who is trying to raise a teenaged grandson. She has persevered and has had positive results, which we thought might be encouraging to anyone facing the same obstacles.

Because of its length, we are publishing her story in three parts.

Failure Notice:
Part I - Danny

Two-and-a-half years ago our then 12 year old Grandson, known from this point as "Danny," came to live with my husband and myself. He had been exposed to things no child should ever be exposed to. He called me in January, on my deceased Mother's birthday. At the first sound of his voice, I knew he was frightened.

I don't know if it was something in the sound of his voice, or just my "Grandmother's instinct." I had a very special bond with this grandchild from the beginning. It had nothing to do with his being my first grandchild. It had everything to do with my having custody of him for the very first year of his life.

My son and his first wife were not mentally capable of being parents. They were both unstable due to brain injuries they had suffered before they met. Danny's mother admitted to shaking him. I received custody of him. But the main objective in these situations, is to council and train the parents through "parenting" classes and then to place the child back with its parents in as short a time as possible.

My husband and I were unfamiliar with the court system and did not understand that we needed to file for permanent custody. So at the end of 1 year, Danny was given back to his mother (she and our son had since divorced), because she had completed her "Parenting Classes."

Needless to say, we saw little of Danny after that. A weekend here, a day there, etc. We stayed alert to any evidence of his being mistreated, but slowly concluded that his mother seemed to be doing a good job. At least it appeared that way....

We have gone back in time in our minds, over and over again, and tried to see what we missed. But we never saw anything out of the ordinary with him. NOTHING!

Now back to the day Danny called...He was unusually quiet on the phone. I thought I heard him whimper. It took a bit of coaxing, but he finally told me his mother had slapped him. That he was afraid his stepfather was going to start hitting him. He told me he could do nothing to please them. And that he was tired of always being alone.

He told me many things that day. In order to keep this from becoming a book, I will just say that Danny was due at his dad's(my son) the following weekend (his call was on a Tuesday). I called DHS and they made a visit to his school to interview him, and when he came to his dad's, through an attorney we filed the legal papers to keep him until custody could be determined by the courts.

During all the many court appearances, it was revealed by Danny that he had been sexually abused by a member of his mother's family since the age of 4 or 5. And she had done nothing to stop it. Custody was given to my son, Danny's dad, and he in turn signed legal documents allowing him to remain with my husband and myself as full legal guardians. Happy ending, right??? No...not then...not for a very long time....