Suicide Took My Full Time Job

We were talking the other day about how sad it is to see kids being neglected.  Parents not taking care of their kids.  I made the comment "Some people shouldn't be allowed to have kids."  Then I thought about that statement.  Decided I wasn't the best one to give advise because I lost Kaleb to suicide.

One of my co-workers commented something along the lines about how hard I tried with Kaleb.  I was always trying to find what would work with him.  She's right.  After he died, I got bored.  It took me a while to realize why I was so bored.  Kaleb was a full time job in addition to my full time job.  He was from the time he could walk.  From the age of 1 - 5, I can't count the number of times we said. "That's just Kaleb."  He was a handful.  It sometimes took more than one person to keep him wrangled.  He seemed to grow arms and legs.  He could be into everything and running everywhere all while talking non-stop.  He was different.  Not in a bad way, just different.  He thought differently.  He communicated differently.  Watching a Dr Phil episode once about find a kids currency and you'll find a way to communicate effectively with them.  I NEVER found Kaleb's currency.  It wasn't physical objects.  It wasn't sweets.  It wasn't money.  It wasn't affection.  I never figured out what made him tick.

From the time I got up until the time I went to bed I had to make "plans" for Kaleb.  When he was smaller, it was making sure he ate something because of his food texture issues.  Making sure he didn't escape the house or call 911.  (both of those things  might have happened) If we were taking a vacation I had to make sure there were enough hands to handle the 2 older boys and keep Kaleb out of "no access" areas.  Make sure he didn't disappear in stores.  As he got older, it was making sure he had some place to go after school, someone to pick him up, or the key to the house.  Make sure he didn't miss the bus and actually made it to the house.  I got called to school quite regularly for "behavior" issues.  Nothing really BAD just small constant things.  Talking, not doing his work, talking back.  Although he didn't view it as talking back.  He felt he had an opinion and should be allowed to share his side, whether it was an appropriate time or not. By the time he got into high school it was trying to ensure he did his chores, he had rides places, that he actually went to bed at night and wasn't on minecraft or netflix all hours of the night.  And for any of you that want to say "that's an easy problem to fix." then you never spent a significant amount of time with Kaleb.  Prior to Kaleb, I'd have said the same thing.  He had a teacher one time that told me "he'd break him" during our parent teacher confernces.  At first I was mad, then I realized, nah, Kaleb had this.  By the end of the year they'd just come to a mutual agreement to agree to disagree.

I loved him the same as I love all my children.  You love each child differently.  I'll be honest.  It's not that you love one more than others, there are just different kinds of love.  And you love different things about each of  your kids.  I loved his independence.  I loved his ability to talk to anyone.  I loved that he wasn't afraid of conflict, if he was passionate about something he was going to make you understand why.  We butted heads more times than I could count but I wouldn't change it for anything.  That is who Kaleb was.  It was his job to challenge me to be a better person and to work on my peace making skills.

Kaleb was in no way an innocent child who did no wrong.  He was a full time job.  I always said if I had Kaleb first he'd have been an only child.  People thought I was kidding but I wasn't.  I'd have never had time to try and have another kid.  It took all of us to take care of Kaleb.  Us, his brothers, my mom and dad, sisters & brothers, nieces, nephews, friends we all were fully invested in him.

That's the only job I've ever been fired from.  That was terminated suddenly with no planning.  The whole village that had worked so hard to raise Kaleb was fired.  We all have time on our hands.  Don't get me wrong.  I worry about my other kids.  But again, it's a different kind of worry.  I worry about them from an innocence aspect.  They might not know how to handle a situation.  Kaleb was more of a cause and effect.  He had no ability to reason out if I do this, then this will/could happen.  His ADHD was severe and through his special ed testing his impulsivity was off the charts.  There was no telling what he would try or do if the thought got in his head.  I was fired from this job because I didn't stay ahead of him.  I kept him semi-safe from the world and vice-versa but I didn't keep him safe from himself.  There was a chapter I missed covering in the book of life.

My boys will tell you, I was long on speeches and examples and what to do in this scenario or that scenario.  I never covered what to do if you are contemplating suicide.  I never said, come to me, come to someone and get help.  I'm done having kids but hopefully from this someone else will learn that there is another chapter that needs to be covered.  I thought the cover it up condom speech was difficult but I knew it was important so we had it.  I'd cover this one in a heartbeat if I could go back.