I have never been to the apartment complex where our boys used to live. I have the address and I plan to go there eventually. Our oldest is the only child who can really remember what life was like there. When he is older, we may go back and look around.
Many of us drive by the squalor of inner city tenements every day. Most people would not want to visit such a place. It is far too dangerous. Many innocent children call these places home. Their lives are in danger every day because of violence, abuse and neglect.
An attorney was appointed to represent our boys when they were taken into foster care. She was required to visit the apartment in which they had been living in order to give the court a recommendation as to whether it was a suitable place for the boys to stay.
The lady who was renting the apartment was pleasant and said that she wanted to keep the boys. Her connection to them was the fact that her deceased husband had allegedly fathered one of them. She was unemployed, as was the man who was living with her. He also had a prison record.
The apartment had very little furniture. It did have a television set, video equipment, sound equipment, and a lot of movie and music discs. It was evident to the lawyer that this grown woman valued entertainment, but not comfort.
The apartment manager told the attorney that the apartment was very active at night with many people going in and out at all hours. The attorney concluded that the apartment had a lot of drug activity going on. Walter has described to me what sounds like drug use by adults.
He has also related a scary story. One night, the door was kicked down by a group of policemen. All of the adults were put on their faces on the floor and handcuffed. They were taken to jail. My sons, who were toddlers, watched the entire event take place.
The attorney also told me that there was very little food in the apartment. The boys certainly exhibited all of the signs of knowing what it was like to be hungry when we met them. Walter remembers, on one occasion, eating dog food.
Unfortunately, these conditions are the norm in the ghetto. The birth mother lived in the same apartment complex. She liked to come by occasionally and see the boys. The lady who was keeping them was evidently taking the welfare checks for the boys and spending most of the money on herself.
If the boys had survived to adulthood, they probably would have wound up in prison. My boys have been rescued from the life that they were born to live. Most of the children born in these kinds of places are not so lucky.
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