Aaron has court and who is Jess.

Aaron has court
Aaron called yesterday evening to let me know that he would need a way to court. It is a hearing on his shoplifting charge to see why he hasn't paid anything yet. Pretty simple and straight forward. I wish it wasn't snowing right now, it's going to make or a long drive. Although i love spending time with him, I'm secretly hoping they cancel court for the day.
We had an interesting conversation. Aaron knows that it is in his best interest to not come back to the city we live in. No guarantee he will stay away since drug court wants him back here at some point in a halfway house, but the fact that he understands he doesn't need to come back it tremendous! Him and some other guy that is in drug court also have been talking about getting an apartment together. The guy has a truck, so they would have transportation. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet. I'm not sure how I should feel about this. I'll keep thinking on it.

Who is Jess
I decided instead of answering in comments I would just put it in a blog. I know that Jess has absolutely nothing to do with my addiction blog but it felt good to be able to get my feelings out.
I met Jessica's mother, Alice in 1979 when she and her husband and only child at the time, Chris, moved in next door to the house my mother and I lived in. Over the years we became best friends despite the 12 year age difference. In 1985 we had babies 4 months apart. My first, Shane and her fourth, Jessica. In 1990 when Aaron was born and I was released from the hospital, I didn't go home, I went to Alice's house. Aaron wasn't even 24 hours old, but there was hardly ever a day that all of us weren't together. We watched each others kids grow up. Unfortunately in 2005 at the age of 50 Alice was diagnosed with stomach cancer and passed away. In October of 2010 a month after her 25th birthday Jess was diagnosed with the same cancer. She had surgery to remove it, but it was found in 14 of the 15 nodes that were tested and also in some fatty tissue. Although the doctors believed they had gotten all of the cancer at the time she was far from out of the woods. They told her it will come back. In November she went to a hospital in Tennessee and they found no measurable cancer and she was started on 3 types of chemo at the end of November. Two weeks ago Jess became unable to keep anything down and was convinced she had a bowel obstruction. During surgery to try and locate the obstruction it was found that it was being caused by a tumor. They placed a stint to keep the area open and make her more comfortable. There is now nothing they can do for her now and said she would be lucky if she has 2 months.

Depressed, sad, can't wrap my head around it.

It's so hard to understand, she is so young, life is so unfair. I know life was never meant to be fair, but how can it be this unfair. She's only 25. You took her mother 5 years ago. You don't need Jess too. I'm begging you to leave her here. She has a child she needs to see grow up. He's only 1. She doesn't deserve this. Nobody does, but especially not her. She was given false hope when she was told in November there was no measurable cancer. She was taking 3 different chemo treatments all the while it continued to aggressively grow inside of her. Now nothing. They can do nothing. It's only January. The time went so fast. Stay strong Jess. Please keep her comfortable. It's bad enough that she has to go. Please don't let it be painful. Let her be pain free and able to spend what time she has left with her son and not just wasting away in a bed. Let her for whatever time she has left.... Live.

Good time.

I picked Aaron up at 8am Saturday. We went to my mothers to show her how to use her new IPAD she got for Christmas. She doesn't seem to be as happy with it as she thought she would be but I think that is because she doesn't fully understand how to use it. She'll learn I'm sure. She was taking down her Christmas tree when we got there. She asked Aaron to do her a big favor and take the star off of the tree. I joked with her that I didn't tell him the real reason he was there was to work. He complained several times about how tired he was. Seems they stayed up well after midnight and he got back up at 5am. He said it felt like he had only been asleep for 10 minutes before he had to get back up again.
We did decide to go bowling  but had a difficult time finding a bowling alley to go to. The first place I called said they wouldn't have any open lanes until around 11. I called another place and they said they had open lanes and their games were cheaper so we decided to go there instead of waiting for the other place. We get there just to find out they don't open until 12pm. WTH, he didn't tell me that on the phone and it's only 10:30. So it's back to the other side of town to the first alley I called. We wasted some time at the pet food store so it would be closer to 11am by the time we got to the bowling alley. We get to the alley and Aaron  makes a comment about how many cars are in the parking lot. Now mind you there is a tournament going on, but he seemed amazed that there would be that many people interested in bowling. So we get inside just to find out they won't have any lanes open before 12pm. WTH, doesn't anybody know what is going on? I was told 11am. It's a good thing there are 5 bowling alleys in town. We eventually found one that was open with open lanes. The place we ended up at sure needs some major renovations. Aaron said he could see the lane was warped which explains the many gutter balls we threw. We laughed quite a bit at ourselves. No matter how we threw the ball it ended up, most of the time, in the left gutter. Aaron beat me by one point the first game, 42 to 41. I don't ever remember bowling so poorly. We decided not to waste anymore money at this place. So onto getting some lunch and deciding to try another alley. I don't remember the scores of the second and  last game but they were definitely better than the first game. I haven't seen Aaron smile that much in a long time. Gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. Hoping for many many more good times in the future.

New Year, new ways.

We had a great Christmas with Aaron home. He seemed to like his St Max medal, he has always been such a hard kid to read. Unfortunately me and Aaron weren't feeling very well which led to a lot of laying around. My daughter had to finish making Christmas dinner. Such is life.

So I won't call it a New years resolution but I have found something I want (need?) to change. Stereotyping, labeling, I have realized that I have become very bad about it. Aaron frequently had dark circles under his eyes. A former employee, an addict, always had dark circles in the morning when she got to work right after getting her methadone treatment. So now if I see somebody with dark circles under their eyes they are automatically an addict. Now of course in the head of somebody not living our (parents of addicts) lives, those people are most likely tired, didn't sleep well, possibly even ill at the time, but not to me. I guess what really made me take stock in my thinking was seeing the new Harry Potter movie. Ron Weasley (sp) looked like a major heavy duty addict. I have actually had trouble getting the look of him out of my head. Of course I know it is a movie and it was just makeup but it made me wonder, is this child star an addict in real life? So many of them are. This is not good thinking when you deal with the public. Surely we don't have that many customers that are addicts?

Today, I'm spending valuable one on one time with Aaron. I think we are going bowling after we go to my mothers and show her how to use her new IPAD.

Happy New Year!!!

P.S. I can't remember whose blog I read it on and didn't have time to leave a comment when I read it but, yes Aaron was an early walker too.

It's Christmas!!

Just wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!!
Aaron comes home for 11 hours today. Can't wait!!

A great day!!!

Aaron called Friday afternoon and asked me what I was doing on Saturday. I replied with "picking you up?"
He was able to come home from 10am until 6pm. Saturday was his grandfathers birthday and my mother had planned a little get together with cake and ice cream. While driving back to the house after picking Aaron up he asked if I had let them know he would be there for the birthday party. I told him no that I thought we would surprise them, so we came up with a plan. We went by their house with Aaron ducking down and dropped him off at the corner. His sister and I proceeded to the house and went inside. Aaron waited a couple of minutes then came to the house and started knocking. He didn't stop knocking and annoyed the hell out of my mother who was starting to cuss before she could reach the door and make whoever was there stop that damn noise. My daughter and me were nutting up of course knowing who was on the other side. Mothers reaction when she finally got the door open and seen Aaron standing there was priceless. She was so happy to see him. She told him she was ready to beat some ass for that knocking.

Aaron looks great!! He sounds great!! He made the comment that if they told him he could go home tomorrow and not come back that he is not ready. He knows HE IS NOT READY!!! It was so great to hear him say that. He is actually "getting it"!!! I don't think I could have asked for a better Christmas present.

I will not allow it!!!

Aaron received some mail from the county attorneys office. I wasn't going to open it but then decided that I should in case it was something that he needed to know about before his visit on Christmas. It's about the eighth bad check. I knew there were eight, but he has only been charged with seven. The letter shows it was from back in May. Why was it not presented with all of the others? So he has until Dec. 27th to pay it in full or they will issue an arrest warrant. It really pisses my off. The CA knows Aaron went into drug court, he himself had to approve the deal. So I will be making phone calls today to see how to take care of this. As a retail business manager I have gotten to know the woman that runs the bad check division very well over the years. Hopefully she can help me. I WILL NOT ALLOW THEM TO TAKE HIM AWAY FROM REHAB!!!!!

Regarding my post asking for opinions. Yes, I asked for opinions on buying a gift, but no where did I ask for opinions on religion. I have always tried to keep an open mind about a lot of things. Religion included. I'm not catholic, but who is to say that Aaron will not pursue that direction as his mind is opened up in rehab? The comments actually served as a reminder as to how closed minded people can be when it comes to religion. Their religion is the only one allowed and all others are going to hell!! Not in my world!!