Two holiday blessings

We had another call with Fiona this week.  The speaker phone at her therapists office didn't work so it was a "real" call with no one listening in which was neat.  She continues to sound excellent and I am so glad to have the regular contact.  She will call on a different day next week due to her school's party.  But she sounds happy.  There is a vocational component to her school and she will start by doing some kind of volunteer job at the school.  Once she has shown competancy and ability to handle that, she will move into a rotation of jobs within the community.  The 4 jobs she could move into are all ones that I think she would enjoy and that would match pretty well with her skill set.  Working with animals is one, working in an art environment is another and working with young children is the third.  I am so hopeful that this will work for her.  It worries me that when she is 22 the program ends.  She is 18 this Christmas and I don't want her to age out of a program without the skills needed to live safely and at least semi independently.

She loves the idea of earning money; she has seen gifts she would like to buy for Rob, KC and Lissa, so there is motivation there for her as well.  It just feels to me like a holiday blessing to have her in a place where she seems to be moving forward at a number of different levels.  She definately hit a plateau early on at the RTC that was close to us.  While there was the obvious benefit of our close promixity I would say there was a real threshhold in their ability to help her. That threshhold was reached really early, though she stayed there a couple of years.   The subsequent two placements made my hair stand on end (and by comparison made the close by RTC seem like she had been moved from heaven to he**) but I can so see the benefits to this program and the level of structure and learning they provid.e

Another holiday blessing came yesterday.  At Thanksgiving time there was a family that moved here who had nothing.  Their belongings that were supposed to arrive hadn't and the family which had a number of young children had no belongings except the clothes that they had been able to put in their car.  New to the area they hadn't been able to hook up with any of the agencies that would help provide a Thanksgiving meal.  My boss, myself and a couple coworkers got them a Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings.  We gathered air beds so they weren't sleeping on the floor and some kitchen necessities to borrow.  (a microwave, dishes, flatware) A TV, some videos, I sent some paper and crayons and watercolors for the kids.  Some of  the things were from my camping supplies.  Some were from my co workers camping supplies, and some we have saved over the years from apartments that have been vacated.  Sadly, there are all too often, people who come to us with their lives in ruins.  A fire.  A personal tragedy.  It isn't uncommon for some one to move in with nothing and a few clean blankets or some kitchen supplies don't sound like much but they can help a lot.  Anyway, the belongings finally showed up a couple days ago.  And a few days later not only had all the borrowed items been returned in pristine condition, but we received the most beautiful thank you basket of goodies from the family.  It wasn't the basket that warmed me so much as what it represented--the fact that they now were on their feet, feeling safe and stable and ready to give back to others.  That is the greatest blessing.