Wednesday, July 23, 2003
This is Kyle's mom. This is a real crazy week. I volunteered for a two week art school at our church. It is from 7:15 A.M. TO 5:30 p.m., so I have not been able to update this blog like before. I leave early to go to work at my regular job and feel extremely guilty doing so. So I am not home all day.
I talked to my parents tonight. They are switching bedrooms because Kyle is up all night. I hope he is taking his pills. With this art school I haven't had much time to talk to him. I miss him terribly. He is the most remarkable person in that way. He has done the most horrible things to everyone in our family and yet we love him so much. I guess because he has also done the most loving things. He forgives like no one else I know and in that way we learn to forgive him. I need to take him to see the public defender on Friday. I have to leave the art school early which I regret. We are also trying to move so our house is in turmoil. I am sitting in Kyle's bedroom which is still not totally cleaned out. He plastered his entire room with pictures, stories, poems, songs, etc. His brothers would bring people in to show them. He did some very artistic things like 3 D posters, etc. But it is a nightmare to tear apart. He covered every inch of his room including the entire ceiling and closet. A lot of it is fascinating and makes me smile. And a lot is almost demonic. I hope I can talk to him tomorrow. I don't work tomorrow night but he probably does.
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I was thinking back on when Kyle was so popular. My husband took off work to sit in on his fourth grade class. It was the beginning of when he was getting in trouble. He had a wonderful teacher who we loved. She thought he might be ADD. My husband came home frustrated. He said the other kids wouldn't leave him along. They were all trying to talk to him and get his attention. They adored him. The girls all had crushes on him. He got so many valentines and one even bought him a big box of candy. He started drawing incredible pictures at that point, acting, and singing. He fell in love with the Chicago White Sox for some unknown reason. He obsessively collected baseball cards. Every spare penny was spent on baseball cards. To this day he has four huge rubbermaid storage tubs full of baseball cards. It was the first obsessive thing he collected. Our family store was next to a baseball card store and he couldn't go in without buying something. He said he felt so bad for the owner if he didn't. It was also the beginning of his extremely hard work ethic. In preparation for the weekend business, we had to pack containers of bait worms on Fridays. We would pack around 15,000 worms on a weekend. This was a huge job. Kyle outpacked anyone. We used to dance around packing them. It was actually kind of fun. We would put on music. He was incredibly fast. No one could even come close to his speed. When he got into fifth grade he made a friend with a boy with a disability. He had the use of only one arm. His sister was a clerk in the local grocery store and said Kyle was the first friend he had ever had. I can't even explain how compassionate he is. I remember his teacher saying how he could tie the boy's shoes because he couldn't do it and make it seem o.k. for him to be doing so. He absolutely couldn't stand for someone to be made fun of. He wanted me to correct every injustice. But he was also such a dickens to watch. He lit fireworks in his bedroom then locked the door so I wouldn't find out. He burned a hole in his rug and I couldn't get in to put it out. He snuck frogs home from his grandparents. He loved to burn things. It drove me crazy. He would burn toys. But he never hurt anyone. Until one day he got in this huge fight. More on that tomorrow....
I talked to my parents tonight. They are switching bedrooms because Kyle is up all night. I hope he is taking his pills. With this art school I haven't had much time to talk to him. I miss him terribly. He is the most remarkable person in that way. He has done the most horrible things to everyone in our family and yet we love him so much. I guess because he has also done the most loving things. He forgives like no one else I know and in that way we learn to forgive him. I need to take him to see the public defender on Friday. I have to leave the art school early which I regret. We are also trying to move so our house is in turmoil. I am sitting in Kyle's bedroom which is still not totally cleaned out. He plastered his entire room with pictures, stories, poems, songs, etc. His brothers would bring people in to show them. He did some very artistic things like 3 D posters, etc. But it is a nightmare to tear apart. He covered every inch of his room including the entire ceiling and closet. A lot of it is fascinating and makes me smile. And a lot is almost demonic. I hope I can talk to him tomorrow. I don't work tomorrow night but he probably does.
****************************************************************************
I was thinking back on when Kyle was so popular. My husband took off work to sit in on his fourth grade class. It was the beginning of when he was getting in trouble. He had a wonderful teacher who we loved. She thought he might be ADD. My husband came home frustrated. He said the other kids wouldn't leave him along. They were all trying to talk to him and get his attention. They adored him. The girls all had crushes on him. He got so many valentines and one even bought him a big box of candy. He started drawing incredible pictures at that point, acting, and singing. He fell in love with the Chicago White Sox for some unknown reason. He obsessively collected baseball cards. Every spare penny was spent on baseball cards. To this day he has four huge rubbermaid storage tubs full of baseball cards. It was the first obsessive thing he collected. Our family store was next to a baseball card store and he couldn't go in without buying something. He said he felt so bad for the owner if he didn't. It was also the beginning of his extremely hard work ethic. In preparation for the weekend business, we had to pack containers of bait worms on Fridays. We would pack around 15,000 worms on a weekend. This was a huge job. Kyle outpacked anyone. We used to dance around packing them. It was actually kind of fun. We would put on music. He was incredibly fast. No one could even come close to his speed. When he got into fifth grade he made a friend with a boy with a disability. He had the use of only one arm. His sister was a clerk in the local grocery store and said Kyle was the first friend he had ever had. I can't even explain how compassionate he is. I remember his teacher saying how he could tie the boy's shoes because he couldn't do it and make it seem o.k. for him to be doing so. He absolutely couldn't stand for someone to be made fun of. He wanted me to correct every injustice. But he was also such a dickens to watch. He lit fireworks in his bedroom then locked the door so I wouldn't find out. He burned a hole in his rug and I couldn't get in to put it out. He snuck frogs home from his grandparents. He loved to burn things. It drove me crazy. He would burn toys. But he never hurt anyone. Until one day he got in this huge fight. More on that tomorrow....
