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My Account > > Personal Information > > Lionheart
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All about Lionheart |
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| Joined: |
Feb 05, 2009 |
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| Location: |
The 13 Acre Wood | | Last visit: |
18-Mar-2013 |
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| Interests: |
Art, Poetry, Writing and Reading, People...not necessarily in order |
| Real Name: |
Dave |
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Many things are lost for want of asking
~English Proverb |
| Biography: |
I cannot direct the wind – but I can set the sails. I cannot control the waves – but I can set the helm, and so life has been, for better or worse a series of events both intended and spontaneous.
Vernon Saunders Law quotes, “Experience is a hard teacher, because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.”
What can I say of my life?
Only that I am what I am...a collection of experiences and encounters all of which have been shaped and moulded into a personality far too complex to be explained in a few paragraphs, and far too large to be unpacked into any logical observation.
Life has been long enough and the profusion of personal baggage has to some extent become much too complex and confused for my own good. Seriously, I’m really quite an uncomplicated person who conceals himself in a universe of diversion and on occasion I pull my head out of the sand for a gander at reality. |
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| Lionheart's recent Blog entry. | Thinking Aloud ( 239 reads) | Wednesday, March 13, 2013 (22:29:53) | | | Thinking Aloud
For some strange reason I’ve always thought life would slow down as I got older. I remember my grade five teacher Mrs. Scanlon talking about the year 2000. We were challenged to think about how life might be different in the future. We were asked to consider how old would we be? Whether or not we would be married, have children, or grandchildren? How would our cities look, and how would we travel about? However, to a fifth grader her questions seemed pointless and endless and I quickly zoned out after considering how old I might be. “Nah,” I thought to myself, “it will never happen…I would be way over the hill just like my parents…ha!”
Now here I am…way over the hill and wearily looking not too far into the future. These days I tend to look back and reflect when my busy life allows. I see the path I’ve travelled and I never would have guessed as a fifth grader that my life would take me where it has. What happened to all the plans and dreams? At one point I thought seriously about being the captain of a ship, spending hours pouring over charts, drinking coffee, and visiting ports…ach, what a fool I was. Of course even more foolish was the notion that I might be a rock star and have beautiful girls swooning over my every move. What a joke, I can barely sing better than a parrot, and my guitar playing would send millions running for the exits. Ah well…the nonsense of childhood whims, but its fun to dream.
Life hasn’t been totally unfair…just totally unpredictable, perhaps. I have been at the bottom of the ladder, sweeping floors and fetching coffees for an ungrateful boss. I’ve been at the top as a division head for a large television conglomerate handling budgets in the millions of dollars. Those days are behind and now I’m a foster parent working for peanuts with medically and mentally fragile kids. I drive a wheelchair bus for a couple of peanuts, I’m an artist and I enjoy writing when I can…for even less nuts. Who would have guessed I’d be here doing what I do…certainly not me!
Although I’m busier than I’d like, I suppose it’s not so bad, after all I have time to help kids that have little or no hope for the future. Personally, I think it is the most daunting job I have ever done. Certainly a far cry from an administration position barking out orders all day long. I mean its one thing to deal with a competent adult, but what do you do with a little boy who has been so traumatized that the only thing he feels he has control over is a bottle of his own urine which he hides under his bed? How do you reason with a little fellow who gathers scrap pieces of plastic and garbage and holds them to his chest as a treasure? How do you make friends with a child who smears his own feces all over the bathroom because he knows that he can, at the very least, predict and be in control of a bad reaction from an adult…any attention is good attention, right? How do you help a six year old whose sister has been adopted, while he has been moved from foster home to foster home because no one knows what to do with him?
Mrs. Scanlon, HELP…your class never taught me how to deal with all this. To be honest, I’m not sure I have any answers. I’ve struggled to do the right things, to be the best I can for these little guys but I’m afraid I fall way short of what they need and want. Sadly, over the years I’ve come to realise that I’m only dealing with the result of a far greater problem we have in society…parents, or should I say lack of parents. Where are the parents, and if they are present what are they doing to these kids? For the most part all these kids want and need are real parents…not perfect ones, just someone who willing to be there for them and be a father or a mother, give some leadership and set out some guidelines. Now I realize that a lot of parents are also broken in one way or another, many coming out of equally fractured homes themselves, but sadly, in the end it’s the kids who suffer the most for it. Is there a solution?
Well, as far as kids are concerned and according to a physiologist friend of mine, yes. She says that love and understanding can go a long way in the healing of a traumatized child. And it can take years of dedicated work to bring one child out and back into a normal way of life. Sometimes I like to think that God plays a role in the healing process as well…and to my surprise the good doctor agrees with me. I find it interesting to note that all of the kids I’ve had in my home over the years express a belief in God. Could a heavenly Father be the anchor that holds these little fellows together when they go through such rough times? Perhaps a little heavenly clout wouldn’t hurt, eh? Lord knows I need a good clout now and again, and maybe one day I’ll get to see a bad story turn good…then at least I’ll know it was a good path I chose.
In the meantime I’m left to wonder why things turn out the way they do, and to keep picking up the pieces of one broken relationship after another. Sometimes I wish the “Mrs. Scanlon’s” of the earth could have given us a little more than pipe-dreams of the future, maybe she could have told us the world wasn’t a very nice place for everyone...but then again I probably would have zoned that out too.
" Lionheart
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