More on Madaya (finally finished!)

Thanks for all the support and love in the last entry.

Sometimes I wonder if I am just the crazy one and no one sees things from my point of view. But thanks to all of you, I have confirmed that either we are all crazy, or none of us are – I don’t care which.

A couple of you asked who Madaya is.

Madaya is my god-daughter. Her mother has been in and out of prison for about 4.5 of Madaya’s 7 years. And for most of  her time between prison stints, she was using drugs – alcohol, cocain, extasy, you name it. Madaya’s mom, Janelle has 5 kids by 5 different men. The youngest one was adopted out the last time Janelle went to prison. The other four are living with their fathers and are not allowed to talk to or see their mom. Madaya is the exception. She talks with her mom regularily on the phone. Madaya is also the only child that has lived with her mom for any length of time. Her oldest daughter stayed one summer. When her father found out what was happening at the house (drugs, sex, prostitution) he yanked her right back home where she belonged. The baby lived with her as well for about a year before being adopted out. The other two girls, Taylor and Bria, have never lived with their mom.

Janelle was realeased from Federal Prison in Texas early last fall after serving a little over one year on a parole violation for drug trafficing charges. Her first stint in federal prison came only days after she gave birth to Madaya. The authorities delayed her sentence to accomodate her late-term pregnancy. After she had Madaya, she went to prison and Jarette, Madaya’s dad, had sole custody for a couple years while Janelle was in prison.

Since Janelle has been out of prison this second time, she has been prostituting herself and openly admits it. She is proud of herself. She has been in relationships with several men. A couple of whom have beat her. She has also used drugs and openly admits that as well. She is no longer on parole since she served out her sentence so there isn’t the constant monitoring you would hope for for someone that was just released from a federal prison. She has also gotten pregnant and used drugs since being out. And then had an abortion – probably her 3rd or 4th abortion.

Janelle has also promised to come and visit Madaya on several occassions since being out. Twice Madaya and Jarette went to the train station to pick up Janelle when she was supposedly on her way. Twice they left the trainstation with a brokenhearted Madaya because mom never came.

The sick thing is that Jarette is probably just as screwed up as Janelle. What Jarette has going for him is that he is just a hell of a lot smarter than Janelle. He manages to do a lot of dirt and never get caught. He is manipulative and wise. He is one of those people that if he would have actually applied himself, he could have been a brilliant, brilliant man. I am sure his IQ is easily above 145.

The only reason Jarette allows Janelle to have any contact with her daughter is because he uses Madaya as a tool to manipulate her. He wanted her to come home to be with him. He wants to control her. And abuse her. And beat her. I have seen Jarette and Janelle come to blows on several occaissions. And on several occaissions, one or the other has called me to come and get the kid(s) because things were "about to get ugly."

So it was my regular routine several years ago to go and get Madaya, or her older sister or the baby – whoever happened to be there – to take them away from the chaos and violence. I would call the cops. The cops would come. Things would be "handled," and then it would happen all over again.

Jarette has an education and used to have a decent job. But I don’t think he has worked for a couple years now. He just smokes pot all day and does who knows what else. I asked Madaya once how many nights per week she slept at her dads house. Her answer was one or two days per week. Not sure where she goes all of those other nights. But what I am sure of is that he is out doing stupid shit the nights she is not there – sleeping with women, selling drugs, who knows. And he brings these random women around Madaya.

At one point several years ago, I had Madaya for a month and a half. Janelle and I were friends when she first was released from prison and was actually making a contious effort to work on her recovery and better her life. She had found a job, enrolled in school, and stopped using drugs. But as she began to revert back to her old lifestyle her and I lost a connection. One day, shortly before we stopped speaking, Janelle called me and asked me to come and get Madaya while she went to a movie.

Janelle never returned. I didn’t hear from her or the father for a couple weeks and had no way to get ahold of them. I tried going to their houses to no avail. I called the cops and the cops said she could stay with me until they figured out what was going on. They found Janelle on a horrible crack binge and Jarette was out of town. I was her caretaker for another month or so before the state returned Madaya to her parents.

Way to go system. You screwed another kid over.

Anyway…I lost touch with Janelle, Jarette and Madaya eventually. At one point, Janelle beat me up because she believed I was trying to hit on her boyfriend-du-jour because he asked me for help marketing his store. It’s the God’s honest truth that I would never be interested in any of her men, OR hit on them. But in her drug induced haze, she believed what she wanted to believe and beat me up.

I made a very difficult decision to walk away at that point. The only reason I endured as much as I did at that point was because of Madaya. I didn’t want to lose her. The state had been involved on several occassions, as were Janelle’s parole officers, and child protective services. Each and every time they would eventually give Madaya back to her mom.

I felt like there was nothing else I could do except protect myself.

One day last summer, on a hunch, I decided to look Janelle up in the federal prison system registry. She was back in prison for parole violation.

I decided to send her $50 and believed I was doing so anonymously (I had never wired money before) and thought she would never knew who sent it. I figured she was down and out, and probably didn’t have anyone that even realized she was gone let alone that could send her a little bit of money.

The next day, I get a call from an unknown number.

I answer it and a male voice mutters something quickly. When I say "excuse me?" He slows down and repeats himself. "Janelle says thank you for the money. Madaya wants to see you."

It was Jarette.

I was thrilled and never imagined this outcome – even if I thought she HAD been able to tell who sent the money.

So starts the communication over the last year or so when I have been able to see my god daughter.

And so starts the vicious cycle all over again.