To (finally) answer your question, Bear is scraping by. He’s skipping a lot of
school, but not to the extent that the school feels like holding him
accountable. He’s failing a class, but
it’s general ed philosophy and he doesn’t need it to graduate. The school apparently let him join the
extra-curricular wrestling team anyway, and UIL rules do not apply.
He’s having fights with his girlfriend and
doesn’t know how to handle them. He’s been
living with her married cousin mostly so I don’t know what will happen to his
living situation. The father of the boy,
Mike, that Bear was living with, committed suicide just after Spring Break, and Bear hasn’t been staying with the family ever since.
The father was an alcoholic and committed suicide. He and
Bear had had a falling out weeks prior to
this, so whenever Mike went to stay with his dad,
Bear had been going to his Gf’s
cousin’s house.
Bear has also occasionally stayed in the home
of a young teenage girl in the neighborhood (9th grade with
a serious crush on him). He apparently
really gets along with her dad who is everything
Bear wants in a father (likes
hunting, fishing, camping…). They only
have one working bathroom though, so
Bear looks pretty ragged. He’s asked to shower here, but when he left
(after we were sure he wasn’t coming back right away), we started trying to
repair the shower in the bathroom he used.
Currently there is a big hole in the wall (from years of water damage) so
the bath is unusable. We cannot allow
him to use the Master Bath due to his stealing and other issues.
He did spend the night once, just after he’d
shaved his head (*eww*). He claims he goes days staying up all night, and he
does look pretty out of it. He’s been
camping a lot and is covered in bloody bug bites. The weight loss appears to have slowed down
(he lost about 20lbs). He claims he’s
just not hungry.
He says he’s not seeing any side effects of
being off his meds, except that he’s “jittery.”
Honestly we don’t see him enough to see much difference, although he did
snap at me once, which he hasn't done in awhile. Most of the time he
sits quietly and watches TV or listens to music when at the house or a doctor
appointment. He answers questions when
asked, but is not volunteering much information. He seems to only contact us when he needs a
ride or a place to stay. He’s eaten with
the extended family a couple of times and brought his GF around one of those times.
Kitty is coming home for a 48 hour pass
this weekend for her 17th birthday, and then will be home for good the following
weekend. I cannot allow him to spend the
night while he is off his meds once Kitty is home.
We haven’t seen him enough to have a chance to make that clear.
He still thinks he’s moving to Hawaii with
his girlfriend’s family after graduation so has made no other plans. He found out Gary Job Corp is a closed campus
during the week so has ruled it out as an option.
The school appears to have written him off,
or they’re keeping me out of the loop.
Most likely the former.
I haven’t seen him in about a week. He texted on Thursday to see “Wazzup” and
told me he’s jury-rigged his phone to get it to work again, so I can get hold
of him again if needed… maybe.
That’s pretty much all I know.
Mary
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