Traumaversary

Our family on our first meeting 4 years ago.

Thursday was our 4 year anniversary of the kids moving in - so Bear decided to give me a little present.

Bob had arranged to stay after school and get some tutoring. When Kitty got home from school I realized Bear wasn't home yet (he usually arrives home about 4:40 - a few minutes before the girls). I waited a little while in case his bus got stuck in traffic then called Transportation. Bear hadn't gotten on the bus. He had been at school that afternoon though because Kitty had seen him. The school was closed so I had no way of asking what was going on there.

When Bob called to say she was ready to be picked up I asked her to look around for her brother a little. I watched the sides of the road as we drove to the school to see if he was walking. I was pretty worried, but not sure what to do. Hubby wasn't answering his phone.

It was a little after 6pm when Bear called my cell phone from the house. I picked up Bob and we headed home (it's a 15 minute drive). Bear told me he'd been attacked and was all bloody and shaky so he was getting in the shower. I told him I'd check him out when I got home and would be calling the police. He did not want me to do this as he didn't want to "rat" on anyone.

When I got home he was already dressed. He did show me all the marks except the one on his thigh (because I’m female, even though I mentioned he was wearing shorts so it’s not like I would see anything), but he showed that one to the police and I saw it then. I did not see the clothes he was wearing at the time of the "attack," bought found the shirt later. No blood, three tears in the back and shoulder, and very dirty on his back.



The following is Bear’s version of the events.

Thursday, November 4th:

Before Bear’s last class of the day, he was walking with a friend who had been told not to hang out with Bear, because Bear was a “bad influence.” Mr. P (a behavior program teacher that Bear has had major issues with for over a year) came up to Bear and told him he should be in class. Bear told Mr. P that class hadn’t started yet and that he didn’t want to talk to him. Mr. P told Bear to talk to him, and threatened to make Bear talk to him. Bear got upset and stormed away, the friend stayed and talked to Mr. P. Bear was upset so he went to talk to the only person in the whole school that he trusts enough to talk to, Mr. V (shop/ag teacher) out at the farm.

When Bear was close to the farm, but had not seen Mr. V. yet, a boy named A stepped out from the portables and began harassing Bear about an old girlfriend, J, whom Bear dated 2 years ago and hasn’t seen in over a year. The boy accused Bear of having done something to J recently, and apparently J is dating one of A’s friends. Bear tried to ignore A, but then A attacked him and hit him repeatedly. Bear didn’t want to engage (even though he "knew" that after A had hit him twice that he had a “right to fight back in self defense”), and blocked A’s punches and then ran away.

Bear has possible swelling on his right eye (hard to tell because of his acne), a red mark approximately 4 inches in diameter on his left shoulder and a smaller red mark (2-3 inches in diameter) on his upper right thigh that will probably become bruises. A chased him until Bear ran through a barbed wire fence to the ranch behind the school (he has slight scratches on his arms from the barbed wire).

A boy named D was in Autoshop and saw a lot of A’s attack of Bear.

A went to middle school. with him, and now attends another high school. Bear described A and his car with lots of detail. Bear brings up a tragedy from several years ago in which one of Bear's "friends" (we're not really sure if Bear even knew the kid) was killed as they were coming home from Marley’s birthday party, and claims A was one of the kids in the car.

Bear did not know why A was on the high school campus, but assumed it was to
visit a friend. Bear stayed in the woods for a long time (over 2 hours). He went near the road when the buses left, but A’s car was still in the parking lot so he didn’t go near the school. Eventually he started walking home. D (the boy who witnessed the fight) saw him and picked him up and drove him home.

So that’s Bear’s version of the events. He had quite awhile to think about them. Most of what he said was consistent, but there were a lot of time gaps. I e-mailed this version to both of Bear's schools and asked them to help verify or disprove it. The police had also requested information that I hoped they could help with. I did give the deputy the heads up that Bear's version might not be 100% accurate.

I also listed my major concerns:

• that he says he didn’t trust anyone at the school enough to even go inside to call home (instead he ran away from the school buildings) – he also said he didn’t trust us/me enough to call us even if he’d had access to a phone.


• this happened on school grounds when he should have been in class


• that he’d had yet another run in with an adult that caused him to take off and skip class


• that I wasn’t notified by anyone that he was missing (not from class or the bus)


• that this boy or his friends might target Bear.


• regardless of whether or not it actually happened the way Bear said or if he had a more active role, he was still obviously injured.


• his last tetanus shot was apparently 7/06 so I’ll need to see if he needs a booster (the doctor said he doesn't).

The police officer required Bear to write out a statement (Bear hates writing and was very concerned about his spelling - Hubby told Bear that it didn't matter if he spelled attacked without a c, it still made sense.) We reiterated several times that Bear is now legally an adult and everything he wrote had better be accurate.

So we finally ate dinner, late, because I couldn't finish dinner while the deputy was there as I needed to be there to keep Bear focused and answer any questions. We all stood around the kitchen after dinner and drank sparkling grape juice from our wedding crystal champagne flutes (a family tradition) and ate bitter, flat chocolate yogurt cake with cherry pie filling poured on top (to mask the horridness of how it turned out *sigh*).

Happy 4 year anniversary!