It was 2:00 A.M. and something woke me up. It’s one of those things where a mom just knows something is not right. I went downstairs to check on my 17 year old daughter. She was gone and the window was wide open. Fear and anger both filled my heart. I looked on the bed and found her cell phone. I opened it and checked her text messages to find out where she might have gone. What I found made my world fall out from beneath my feet.

Her friend had sent her text message about being drunk with her. The rules are no smoking, drinking or drugs as long as you are living in my home. And no breaking the law either. She had been disciplined a year earlier when I had found her smoking pot at a party. We had talked about the dangers of beginning this road and the dead end it led to.

I thought she had made some different choices. She worked as a Certified Nurse Assistant at a Retirement Home, was a senior in High School with just 6 months to go to graduate from High School and receive an Associates Degree from the local University. This would have ensured a scholarship to finish her nursing degree without having to pay any money.

She came home at 3:00 A.M. I pulled her aside in my room and we had a long talk. I was informed that she would smoke, drink and do drugs because she was looking for herself and there was nothing I could do to stop her. With tears in my eyes I told her that if she was going to make adult decisions like this, then she needed to leave home and live like an adult. I had three

other children that I was responsible for and rules are rules. I told her that if she left, I would always be there to listen to her, to love on her, to hold her when she was hurt, to give advice if she needed it but I would never pay for her mistakes. She chose to leave.

This was probably one of the most heartbreaking moments I’ve ever experienced as a mother. I love my children fiercely and I want what is best for them. To ask my little girl to leave before she was ready was the most difficult decision to make, and when she left I was depressed for months. But I know I did the right thing for her.

The first night in her apartment, I received a call from the police. Could I please pick up my daughter as she was with a friend and they were stopped right before they parked in the driveway of her apartment? She was stoned, drunk, cigarettes on her, and breaking curfew. Luckily she was a juvenile and this would not be on her record in 3 months when she turned 18.

The judge pardoned everything except the cigarette charge; she had to go to counseling and take some tobacco use classes. At 18, the day after she received this pardon, she was stopped at the grocery store’s parking lot and booked into jail for selling Ecstasy. She was kicked out of high school and she forfeited her ability to get the two year degree at the university. She lost her CNA certification and her job. She had embarked on a very difficult hill that she must climb to succeed in life. I cried – my baby really wanted to do this the hard

way and all I could do was keep praying for her and talking to her and letting her know that she was worth gold to me.

Throughout this journey, I never stopped telling her that I loved her. I continually pointed out all the good points in her. We talked deeply about issues and choices and roads that we follow and how to leave them. I saw a little hurt girl who had no self-esteem and who was looking for acceptance in all the wrong places. She knew that I understood what she was going through, that it broke my heart to see this beautiful girl take the hard road, but that I would never let go. Never.

This isn’t the end of the story. She is now 19 and still paying for her mistakes. But she is growing. She wants to return to school. She worked towards her General Education Diploma, and now she has goals for the future. My daughter and I have a very beautiful relationship. She is coming over to my house more and more. We have deep talks and she actually thinks I’m the “wisest mom” in the world. I hold her when she cries. I give advice (cont'd from the print edition) when she asks. I accept her where she is on her road and understand that she has to make her own life. I never hesitate to let her know that I don’t agree with her choices, but I still accept her where she is. She knows that my door is always open and that I will listen, and listen, and listen.

I love her – she never has and never will doubt my love for her. She knows that I have faith in her that will never be shaken. As long as she lives, there will always be hope.

                    

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