Come Back With a Bonus Excerpt: A Mother and Daughter's Journey Through Hell and Back

by Claire Fontaine

  “She’s just lost, Malka. She’s lost and let’s hope that somehow she finds her way.”

  I was once Malka. I blamed Talia for “corrupting” Mia, I hated the “garbage” at the Promenade fountain who sold Mia drugs. I couldn’t even bring myself to go there until a few months ago, on the last day of the Focus seminar. Lou gave us a challenge: we had to go out on our own and break bread with a stranger. I knew immediately where to go.

  There were two smoking, jittery girls at the fountain who looked like they slept on the concrete beside it. They were rail thin, coarse-mouthed. One looked at me with suspicion, the other with delight.

  “You mean, just for breakfast, no bibles or lectures?” She grinned and stood quickly, as if I might retract my offer of lunch. She was short, her oily, blonde hair clung to her head, and her clothes and skin had the ground-in grime of being on the street a long time.

  She ate very little but she did drink two huge lattes. She poured nearly a cup of sugar into each and seemed glad I didn’t say anything. Only an addict eats sugar like that.

  She couldn’t sit still, picking, scratching, wiping her nose. She avoided my eyes. It was as if she’d forgotten how to look at someone being kind to her. She talked about her boyfriend, about the place they were going to get where she could sleep a whole night through.

  “I’ll sleep on the floor, as long there’s a door I can lock.”

  “Is there a shelter you can sleep at where you feel safe?”

  “Yeah, but they’ve got a lotta rules. I like my freedom.”

  Her freedom to use. Shelters don’t allow drugs.

  “When was the last time you slept at home?”

  “Two years ago. It was worse than the street. I used to worry about my little sister, but she’s gone now, too. When I have my own place, I’m gonna find her.”

  She smiled as if she really believed it. She has to. How else does a sixteen-year-old girl who lives like this survive? She stashed the leftovers in her pockets along with two handfuls of sugar packets. I gave her money I knew would go for drugs, but at least she wouldn’t have to beg for it, or worse.

  I’ve gone back there several times, but I’ve never seen her again. I hope she found a place to sleep with a door she could lock.

  Mia will be home in a few days and I sign onto the Link to share the news. I haven’t spent as much time on it as I used to. Tonight, I’m reading about the challenges of a kid’s coming home. Parents often post their home contracts, which I always print out to study for what might work when we create our own.

  The last seminar is one parents and teens take together, creating a Value Frame and Home Contract that students take back to fine-tune during their final phase at the school. Issues that come up as the contract goes back and forth usually mirror what went on in the home before, and will when they come home. It has consequences, rewards, and levels linked to family, school, friends. It requires great commitment, because during Level 1, your kid is with you every minute they’re not in school. Which often means they go to work with you. Kids usually finish the contract in six months to a year.

  The most important vocabulary word David teaches in this seminar is “bummer.” It’s the word parents learn to use when their teen starts manipulating and whining because you’re holding them to the contract, one they helped create.

  “But Tiffany’s parents don’t care if she’s in by two!”

  “Bummer.”

  “Don’t you realize how much easier your own life would be if you let me drive myself to school? You guys are so program, it’s fucking ridiculous!”

  “Bummer.”

  “This is so unfair!”

  “Bummer.”

  A highlight of the seminar is the look on the kids’ faces when David tells them that turning eighteen is Independence Day…For Your Parents.

  Thus, the Exit Plan. It’s for kids eighteen and over who are out of alignment with the contract or the family’s values. For most it means they get a few hundred dollars, their bed, desk, and see you for Sunday dinner. It is a loving send-off—we love you but we don’t support your actions. For some kids, the real world gets them back on track. They have no idea that that little ringing thing in your home comes with something called a phone bill.

  This final seminar is where you can really see the difference between parents who took the seminars and those who didn’t. You see the latter’s ineffective way of interacting with their kids and you see your old self. You also see the sadness and disappointment on their kids’ faces. They know they’re going home to deal with parents who are like Level 1 kids, who blame, control, and manipulate; who don’t see the countless subtle ways they don’t keep their word; parents who think getting honest feedback means being made wrong.

  I saw a few of my fellow Focus attendees at our Parent/Child seminar. Two were ballerinas who were so tightly wound, one Focus staffer actually told them to unclench their buttocks. They’ve become different men, hugging their kids openly, crying without embarrassment when appropriate. Amazing what a pink tutu can do to a man. And it’s not until it’s pointed out to me that I realize I’m not wearing black.

  One grad who was very popular on the Link has just relapsed, which is discouraging to everyone. It started when he began hanging out with his old friends. That and dating are usually the trigger. The parents got that sinking feeling when he got a pierce, then a tattoo—minor things for most teens but red flags for ours. They did a random drug test that came up positive. He’s young enough that they stuck him back in Spring Creek. The kids were shaken by his return; he had been a role model and mentor.

  I’ll be signing off the Link once Mia is home. I’m ready to focus on my own family for a while. I treasure the parents I’ve come to know and will stay in touch with several. Together, we struggled through a process of self-examination and transformation that will always be one of the biggest blessings in my life. I have learned so much from them about integrity, commitment, courage, and love. About possibility and staying connected to your heart. They will remain in mine always.

  One of the most remarkable things I’ve witnessed in these families is the power of our words, the power of declaration to create reality. We really do speak our lives into being; it’s one reason “languaging” is stressed in the program and seminars.

  Trish, the mother I called for a Morava referral, left a kids’ seminar at Spring Creek with a declaration to make a difference in the lives of children less fortunate than her own. She’s opened Starshine Academy in Phoenix, a charter K-12 school that uses the program’s principles of accountability, integrity, and self-discovery, along with financial literacy. It’s already been selected by the UN to host their international art contest for kids and Thunderbird, The Garvin School of International Management has chosen to promote the school’s mission internationally as a means of economic development.

  Karin recently finished another seminar on finding purpose and vision, where she made a declaration that resulted in her starting two successful ventures within a year.

  “Oh, is Barbara going to have a field day with you, Claire,” Karin says of the facilitator. What would have been a warning in the past is now an enticement.

  But nothing drives this principle home more than a declaration Mia herself made, when she was only seven. I’d recently gone through some of my old journals and found a page on which Mia had drawn flowers. This was highly unusual as I kept my journals private, it would have been quite out of the ordinary for it to have been left open for her to draw on. The flowers drew my attention to the entry on that page:

  December 1990. I finally had it with the hair battle every morning and vowed to cut her hair. She vowed to run away. I asked her where she’d go, who would take care of her, she was only seven. “Well,” she said, “I’m running away when I’m fifteen! And I’m going to write it down so I won’t forget it!

  “How are you going to hold up when you’re being dangled off the edge of a cliff? Are you gonna start crying wh
en you’re lost and freezing?”

  Gravel Pit sounds like a picnic compared to this. Sunny, Brooke, and I were rounded up an hour ago, along with the rest of the people graduating, for a process known as Trail of Lights. Processes are confidential, so I don’t know why Max is telling us about it, other than to scare us to death.

  I haven’t seen much of Max lately, but he hasn’t changed. He’s as cocky and aggravating as ever, though I now find it more endearing than annoying.

  “There’ll be lots of staff around to help because you’ll be blindfolded. How will you treat them? Will you depend entirely on them, will you push them away, attack them because you’re cold and tired? This process will bring out your weaknesses. If you’re lazy, you’ll want to give up, if you’re stubborn, you’ll take on too much by yourself. It’s a very physical process, reacting from pride or anger or fear could be dangerous.”

  We try to look calm, but we’re so tense we could shit stone, and Max knows it. Everyone jumps at the sound of a gunning engine. Chaffin walks in, all business, and nods at Max to wrap up.

  “By the same token, this process will bring out your strengths. You’ll find traits within yourself you underestimated or didn’t realize were there. Use them, they’re what will carry you through.”

  Well, that was one hell of a pep talk.

  “Okay, kids, let’s go!” Chaffin announces.

  A blindfold is placed over my eyes and I’m led outside and into a vehicle. After the first few turns I have no clue where we are. I feel the van stop and hear the door open. We’re ushered outside and someone takes my hand and we walk a ways on what feels like concrete.

  Suddenly, the ground changes to softer footing. We must be in the woods. I automatically lift my free arm out in front of me, I know how dense these woods are. Still holding someone’s hand, I walk unsteadily for about thirty minutes.

  “Follow the music!” I hear Chaffin’s voice call out from far away. What music? Then I hear a light, twinkling sound, like glasses being played or wind chimes. It’s too far to tell which direction it comes from and the blowing wind doesn’t help.

  “Follow it! Come on! Don’t lose it, you’ll be left behind!” he calls.

  I think it’s coming from my left. I drop my guide’s hand and spin toward the music. Arms outstretched, I move toward it, my hands clutching at the air to make sure I’m not about to hit a tree and moving my feet as fast as I can without falling.

  Wait, I lost it! I stay still a moment, straining to hear. There it is again! It’s somewhere directly in front of me. I break into a run, but the ground changes and I trip and fall. I feel the ground to get a sense of the terrain—snow, roots, and rocks. Then I realize the ground I’m patting is practically vertical.

  “Staff…” I call out. “Can someone help me?”

  From the darkness, someone takes my hand and helps pull me up, then guides me along by placing branches in my hand to pull myself up the slope with, warning me in advance of the root or rock in my path.

  It feels like I’ve been hiking and listening for the music for hours. My fingers and face are numb. When I finally hear voices and feel heat from what can only be a fire, I nearly cry from relief.

  “Sit here,” someone says to me as they guide me backward.

  I feel a log behind me and sit, palms pointed toward the fire in an attempt to thaw them out. I hear Miss Kim’s voice. I didn’t know she was here!

  “What came up for you guys tonight?” she asks. “What held you back, what’d you realize about yourself that can potentially hurt you?”

  People start calling out, I get too angry too easily, I give up too easily, I rely on other people too much, I think of everything as a joke.

  I hear Sunny call out, “I realized I whine waaay too much. I got really annoyed with myself because I wouldn’t shut up!”

  If Ruza could hear her now, our little lesbian who cried when the kakao ran out.

  “I should have asked for help earlier,” I say.

  “What’s that about for you, Mia?”

  I can feel Miss Kim smiling, she already knows the answer. Who knew that warm, little hand in mine was hers?

  “Trust. I’d rather hurt myself than trust someone and be let down.”

  Someone removes my blindfold. On logs around a roaring fire are the same fifteen people I was with back in the cabin, except we all look different. Faces and hands are marked with dirt, small cuts from branches, clothing is ripped and dirty, hair is wet from the snow. Behind us stand staff, the flames casting mysterious shadows on familiar faces. They’re all there, Miss Kim, Mr. Greg, Miss Marcy, Cameron, Chaffin.

  “At your feet you’ll find ten note cards and a pen,” Chaffin addresses us. “On them, write the five most important people and five most important values to you.”

  Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” starts playing in the background.

  “At the end of this song you’ll burn one card. What do you want to hold onto, what will you give up?”

  The song ends. I look down at my cards. My five values are trust, love, happiness, peace, and respect. My five people are my mom, Paul, my cousin Rosie, Bubbie, and myself. I start with my grandma, taking the card with her name on it and casting it into the fire. I threw her away the first time I found out Brian was a skinhead and remained silent.

  After each card we throw into the fire, a new song comes on for us to listen to while deciding what card to burn next. When it comes time for that final card, everyone tenses up. People don’t want to let go of this one. As we all burn the most important person to us, we shout out who. My mom, my dad, myself, my best friend, they all go up in flames.

  I watch my last card’s edges catch fire. I want to jump in and grab it out of the flames. It’s unbearable to watch the word “Mom” burn until it disintegrates into ashes.

  “I won’t throw her away, I won’t!” Brooke cries.

  I look through blurry eyes at Brooke curling herself around the card clenched in her fist. It reads, “My baby,” the one she aborted.

  “You already did, Brooke,” Chaffin proclaims. “You all did! It’s so hard for you to burn a little piece of paper but you had no trouble doing it to the real thing back home! What’s going to keep you from doing it again?”

  We’re all silent, staring into the fire.

  “Come on, what will keep you from doing it again?” he asks gently. “What did you learn about yourself tonight? What qualities do each of you possess that will keep you strong, help you follow your path?”

  A petite girl stands. Something about the short, dark hair and the slight slouch reminds me of Samantha. I think about the night she danced around to Bananarama and send out a silent kiss to her, wherever she is.

  “I realized I can endure a lot more than I tell myself I can.”

  As I think about Chaffin’s question, I realize that for once, I didn’t argue with myself. Normally, my inner voice is a running angel/devil debate. In the past, my instincts would have been to get angry and impatient. As soon as I got frustrated, I would have quit and called the process stupid. Tonight, my instincts were to be patient, to listen, to ask for help when I needed it. I listened to the voice that said I could do this.

  I raise my hand.

  “I realized that I trust myself not to be a fuck-up anymore.”

  Chaffin nods. He holds out his hand to grab a red-hot piece of ash flying from the fire.

  “This fire’s filled with your friends, your family, your values. It’s a ruined pile of everything you threw away. But beneath it all, beneath the ash, beneath yesterday’s choices, is a gift that’s yours to rediscover.”

  We listen to him in wonder. Buried treasure?

  “Well, don’t just sit there, dig!”

  In a frenzy, we dig where he points at the edge of the fire pit, with anything we can find, sticks, rocks, our shoes.

  “I hit something!” a boy’s voice yells.

  We crowd around him and work together until out of the smoldering emb
ers we clear away a metal chest. We pull open the lid and find labeled packets. I spy the one with my name and snatch it out.

  “Before you open these, grab a candle and light it, then take your packet somewhere private to read.”

  I light mine and find a spot with the fire to my back and the lights of our cabins far, far below me. I recognize my mother’s handwriting on the first envelope I pull out.

  Dear Mia,

  This past year you have tested our strength, our will, our faith in ourselves, but never our love. That was, and always will be, unconditional. It is what has given us courage through the darkest times, it has been our light. You’ve shown us the light that love can be, and what true courage is. You’ve always had more of both than you realize. Do you remember the trip we took to Williamsburg when you were eight? I’ve always loved walking in the woods at night and one night I decided to walk back rather than take the bus with you and Paul. You were terrified and told Paul, “Don’t let Mommy go!” The forest was pitch black and I could hear you hollering and begging Paul to go save me. He was angry with me for going and wanted to wait with you by the bus stop, which was brightly lit. So, you did something almost no child would do. Your love for me was greater than your fear, which was HUGE, and you left Paul and ran down the street into the woods to save me from whatever demons you thought were lurking there to get me. You grabbed my hand and said, “I’m here, Mommy! I don’t want you to be alone.” And so we learned from you, Mia, how much strength and courage love gives us, how it can light our way through the darkness. And now you must do that for yourself, be your own beacon.

  With all my love and support, your biggest fan—Mommy

  Through everything, I was still her little monkey, her little girl. I have always thought of my mother as my hero, and here she is making me feel like one!

  We return to the fire red-eyed and blissful. The process makes complete sense now, and it’s so powerful in its simple metaphor. We blundered our way through the darkness to rediscover what was always within us. I think of my brave little self running into the dark to save my mom, much like she ventured into the darkness to save me, and feel happier than I think I ever have.