Today, I went to visit Gilda's Club, named for Gilda Radner, who died from ovarian cancer. What a truly beautiful place! Small rooms furnished with comfortable couches and chairs, pictures on the walls, afghans and squishy pillows everywhere. A serene and welcoming atmosphere. Handicapped showers open to anyone in need, and children's rooms to break your hearts.
Gilda's Club is for people with cancer and for the relatives and close friends of people with cancer. The enormous kitchen painted red with yellow accents just feels like a family kitchen from the 1940s. A place where people gather to eat and talk. It's better comfort than all the comfort food ever, though it offers that, too. But because of it's location (Latham), it knows very few faces of color. So Gilda's is starting to work on outreach. They have a chapter in Arbor Hill and are starting to look toward Schenectady.
Come April 2010, QUEST will open its doors yet wider to host a permanent, additional location for Gilda's Club. We hope to offer transportation and we hope to get our kids and families involved as co-founders and volunteers. We would like to see Gilda's members also get to know our kids and families and do some serious integration of a different kind.
As some of you know, Fred Kindle was a part of QUEST along with his wife, Katie, right from our inception. Fred died recently from prostate cancer and I know of no better way to remember him and honor lovely Katie than by starting this chapter in their name -- it will be called Kindle's Korner. I can hear Fred chuckling over that right now.
Here's a shout out for Fred and a kiss for Katie. I am so glad to be a part of your lives.
Same obstacles
Many people (on another note) have shown concern about my struggle with other agencies. Again, the word kinship raises its ever present head. It's a constant Medusa in my life. As of yet, no help has come forth for my troubled and desperate youth. The formula which keeps getting repeated to me like a mantra, over and over again, "Every person has the right to equal protection and confidentiality under the law." When I respond, "And the children? What are their rights?" I get total stillness. If the parents cannot or will not act, it is up to the citizenry to step up to the plate. I cannot even address truancy with the schools, "I AM NOT KIN."
I was speaking to the mother of a young teen who comes to QUEST, talking about family issues etc., and this woman, this woman with many troubles of her own, spoke out to me about a young boy/teen. "He sounds so sad on the phone," She said, "Can't you help him in some way?"
And the Lord knows I wish I could. I've been trying for weeks, but I keep bumping into those same words, those constant obstacles. I don't know which is more constant in my life right now, my anger, my despair or my helplessness.
It must be my anger, because I got a phone call from the county attorney yesterday. I had made a call and left my message for an agency supervisor (at the suggestion I might add of a regional supervisor of OCFS). The person I called never returned my call and, in fact, totally without my knowledge or permission forwarded my voice mail to the county attorney. And boy, I got immediate action. In less than 24 hours, he called me and told me in no uncertain terms that I was out of line and quoted all of the aforesaid back to me. And the strange thing was, I did not call to receive information but to share my concerns and the reasons for them. And where was my privacy in all of this, where was my confidentiality, so to speak? It appears I had none -- none at all.
Do we really believe in the line, "It takes a village to raise a child," or do we say those things as platitudes as formulaic as those other words that are said totally by rote to me?
I have exhorted so many of you to say and do your part; was this empty rhetoric on my part? Was I speaking in vain, wasting my breath? Right now, it appears as if I was just doing a little song and dance to no avail.
Children are entitled to equal rights and protection under the law, rights equal to their parents' or caregivers' rights.
So, I'm asking all of you to say a little prayer for those unable to speak for themselves. I am asking you to remember the innocents in your hearts. I am asking you to step forward, take a stand, speak out loudly and clearly.
We must protect the children.
They are our link to everything that matters in this crusty, old world.
They are our future.
