some things survived

We went to meet with our lawyer, who is absolutely lovely, on Thursday afternoon. She said that she has some jurisdictional concerns about what we are trying to do because with Little J being a new resident of this province, provincial law is confused about which province actually has legal control over the situation. Her previous province says they don't want to hear the case because she no longer lives there; the current province says she's not yet a legal resident because she hasn't been here a full year. So we're kind of falling through the cracks right now, but the lawyer is going to work on how to get around that. She said we might have to go to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Apart from that, however, she seemed to think our chances are very good of securing full custody. The caveat would be that if her mother was able to prove she was off the drugs and had a safe home for her, that custody would be returned to her. Of course, if that was to be the case, we wouldn't disagree in the least. The only reason we're doing this in the first place is that her mother is on drugs and can't provide her with a safe home. So it sounds hopeful. As long as the lawyer can figure out how to wangle her way through the jurisdictional confusion.

Things are going well with Little J right now. She seems to have settled in at school quite nicely and made some friends. She is also happy with her part in the extracurricular Drama production she's working on now that she's realised she'll be dancing and singing in various numbers throughout the show and will be more involved than she expected she would be. Hallelujah, I am so glad she seems to be doing well. We are still working on getting her some counselling so she can talk with someone about all these stressful changes in her life; as much as we encourage her to talk to us, we want her to have someone with whom she can talk about us if she wants to. I finally feel a little more optimistic about being able to protect her legally.

As for C, I am feeling more and more concerned about what will happen to her. Losing custody of her daughter, if that happens, is going to be horrible for her. And I don't want to destroy her. I want to help her get better, which is the very reason I worked to move her out here in the first place. I want to help her to get well again but right now things seem to be a bit rocky. She has been kicked out of two recovery homes so far and I pray she won't be kicked out of a third. But yesterday when she called to say goodnight to Little J she asked if she and I could talk because she needs some advice about a problem she is having in the current house. She didn't explain it in any detail because she was using a phone in a public room - so I agreed to pick her up this afternoon and take her out for a coffee so we could talk. I have no guess as to what's going on (C is always a surprise to me) but I'm hoping against hope that whatever it is, it can be managed so she can carry on with her recovery plan.

There is, of course, some fear that C will panic about the upcoming custody hearing and kidnap Little J and go on the run with her. It's a very strange thing, living life with these kinds of worries. It's hard to believe that such a short time ago my world was so small that it really only contained me and my husband. And now it has grown to include this child, her mother to some degree, their cat, their hamster, Big J, and our four dogs. And to think we've been considering having a baby of our own!



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