Isaiah – our worries about our grandson

I am scared out of my mind.  A few days ago, a young boy was found dead in Wylie Park, which is someplace in the vicinity of Dallas, Texas.  The boy, who has not yet been identified, was estimated to be 6 years old, grossly underweight, and a special needs child.  No obvious trauma was found on him, but they have not released his cause of death yet. 

What does this have to do with us? 

We have a 6 year old grandson named Isaiah.  He is a special needs child, suffering from Atypical Cerebral Palsy and Epilepsy.  He has family in Texas, near the area that this boy was found. 

Why don’t I know if it is him?

In 2008, our daughter’s parental rights (and those of the father) were terminated for three of her children.  That leaves us out in the cold, information-wise.  We were kept up to speed up until the date of her parental termination.  After that, we don’t know what is going on.  Before that event, we knew our granddaughters were in foster homes where the foster-parents wanted to adopt them.  We also knew that Isaiah couldn’t keep one stable home.  It seemed nobody in California wanted to adopt him.  His medical needs were too great a burden on them. 

My wife has contacted the hotline advertised on the news to report our suspicion that this may be our grandson.  I emailed the chief detective on the case (had to do a little research to find out who that was) with a picture of Isaiah and a brief explanation of our fears and our history.

We tried to adopt our grandchildren.  We were disqualified because of my wife’s disabilities, medications, and the state of disrepair of our house at the time.  We have since moved, but the disabilities have grown worse, and the medications have been added to.  My mother tried to adopt the kidlets.  No go.  For reasons we don’t understand, her name was stricken from their case WITHOUT HER KNOWLEDGE in mid-2009.  She called the case-worker, after not hearing from her for a while, and found out she had been disqualified.  No one will explain why.  My wife has an aunt and several cousins in the Fort Worth area.  I don’t know if they tried to get the kids or not.  We were so confident that my mother would get them that we never seriously pursued whether our aunt or cousins would be eligible. 

I know I’m not exhibiting any emotion in this entry.  Right now, I feel empty.  Last night, I was unconsolable, sobbing.  I don’t know what will happen later today.  I keep imagining our precious grandbaby being starved and left to die by a lake, and that image is EXTREMELY difficult and painful.  

I have no one to talk to about this, except my wife and our roommate.  That’s why I’m posting here.  We’ve decided not to tell our daughter about our suspicion until we find out something definite.  We figure we can spare HER a trip to crazyville and take the trip in her place.  Seems like the right thing to do.  It seems like something parents should do for their child, spare them possibly-unnecessary pain.  

Our daughter is on Facebook, so I can’t post anything there.  She follows me on Twitter, so I’m out of luck there.  As far as I know, she’s not on OpenDiary.

I’ll post more as I know more.  Please pray for our family.  Particularly for the wellfare of Isaiah.