Earlier today I tweeted about skating on a pond. After several "dangerously cold" days, the ice on the pond was thick enough to support us. All five of us went down to the pond behind Grandma's house. Mitchell set up a line of shoes to be one goal and used the hockey bag that I carry my coaching equipment in as the other. He added a couple of shoes and my hockey gloves to the sides of the bag to make the goals as even in size as possible. The we played a little pond hockey....Mitchell, Ruth and Monica against Marshall and me. It was a blast! Ruth has a pair of figure skates, but they hurt her feet yesterday. So today, she wore an old pair of hockey skates. Hockey skates differ from figure skates in a lot of ways, but most significantly hockey skates don't have toe picks. Every time she tried to use the non-existent toe pick, she fell down.
While we were playing, I had a rather amazing feeling of how wonderful life was with these four other people. Mitchell kept trying to get the puck to Monica so she could score, and Marshall let Ruth score. As we played, all of the kids would get these big grins on their faces and everyone was having such a good time just being with each other. When we were about ready to take our skates off, Mitchell and I raced. I just wanted to see how much faster he was than me. I actually was able to beat him the first time, but he was wearing my old skates so that his wouldn't need to be sharpened. He beat me fairly easily by the third race because my wind falls off so quickly compared to his. Then he started helping Marshall with how he took off from a complete stop. And Marshall was a willing student! All in all, the day was amazingly special for how simple it was.
Then came the complete reverse. On Wednesday night, we had a message on our voicemail from the mother of one of the kids who used to play roller hockey for me. We had seen them at teacher conferences recently, and they told us a sad tale of how their son had been arrested for possession. Now they were asking me to participate in an intervention. First I was asked to write a letter to their son, and then I was to read it to him during an intervention. I was given a document to read explaining the format for the letter. It also gave me directions on what types of things to say as well as what not to say. Section one was supposed to say that you loved them and tell them why. Use examples through memories. Section two was supposed to say how things have changed because of their addiction. Section three was to ask them to accept help. There was an example letter that was written by an addict's brother. I hadn't been involved with the boy for many years, but his parents wanted me to be included because I had had a big impact on his life as his roller hockey coach. It was also a time in his life where everything was going well, and they wanted to take him back to that time. I was supposed to be at their house at 4:00 today.
I got there about 5 minutes early, but they were already started. The boy's dad met me at the door and came outside. They had a professional to lead the intervention who had read each of the letters and ordered them so that they had the most impact. I was to read my letter after their daughter. When we entered the room, the boy's mom was reading her letter. Everyone was crying, including intervention target. That was a good thing because the whole idea was to touch something deep inside him and bring him back.
Once we had all read our letters, the boy agreed to accept help. I'm not sure that he knew it then, but that meant going directly to rehab. They left at 7:00 tonight for Tulsa. I discussed the situation with his mom while we were there. Her son had gotten with the wrong crowd in highschool and hid it well. By the time he'd graduated, he was no longer the child they remembered.
I'm truely thankful for my family, even more so after seeing another family go through the pain of an intervention. At least for them, the intervention was successful and they have hope that they will again be the family they had been. The interesting thing was how this boy came from a good family. There are lots of kids that I see doing things of which I don't approve, but they almost exclusively come from parents who, in my opinion, put to much emphasis on alcohol in their own lives. This just brought out that it can really happen to anyone. I just think that your chances are better if you teach your children by example.
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