from: Miracles and Mercy by Carol Hobby
I don’t even know where to begin with this convoluted story
called my life. My only hope is that I
have a strong faith in Jesus Christ that helps me make it through the day. Some
people think the story of Job in the Bible is a myth, a legend, an untruth, but
I can tell you that bad things happen to people who try their best to be
upstanding, moral human beings. As a child, I feared the Lord, I feared my
teachers, and I feared my parents. I must have missed parenting 101 because
somewhere along the way I missed getting that message to my children. My boys
are all grown men in age, but they skipped that lesson on how to be and act
like an adult.
My middle son has managed to live on his own. And he is also
the only one to live 4 years away from home during his college years. They were
not the easiest years for him and he developed some annoying habits but for the
most part he learned how to live off Ramen Noodles and do his own laundry. He
has a mortgage and a car note and partially understands a budget. He has refuted the theory of the middle
child.
But my oldest…. I have been through hell with that one. He was always the brightest child. In fact,
he was chosen for an accelerated first grade/second grade split class because
he could already read when he started school.
He could identify letters of the alphabet before he was a year old and
started reading between 3 and 4 years old.
I did not do anything out of the ordinary to encourage his
precociousness, except offer him flash cards and a Speak and Spell. His was
yellow, not red like the one in ET. I read to him and rocked him nightly.
In 4-year-old kindergarten he was frequently in trouble.
Once while sitting in the Principals office, he read a note on her desk. When
she sat down, Matt asked if it was true that the class could bring a toy to school
tomorrow. Surprised by his inquiry, she asked him who had told him that
information. Matt said no one and pointed to the note. “It says right here:
‘Children may bring a toy from home to kindergarten tomorrow.’” After our behavior discussion we both agreed
that Matt was getting in trouble because he already knew how to read and the
program did not challenge him.
I often wondered what factors contributed to his feeling and
behaviors during his pre-teen and teenage years. He was born with Phase 3
bilateral reflux which was detected after running a high fever at 12 days old.
The doctors assumed it was a form of meningitis and performed several spinal
taps before noticing the abnormal urinalysis. He was monitored for 5 years and
even participated in a study at the Center for Development and Learning
Disorders at UAB. His early giftedness was observed and noted during his
sessions.
Matt was a very well-mannered and obedient child. He did not
have to be scolded frequently and he followed the rules for the most part until
he was about 14. Then life took a swift change of course. He went from a
complacent, compliant child to a sneaky, deceitful teenager. My first clue that
there was trouble ahead came during a weekend youth retreat at Gatlinburg. I
had volunteered to go as a counselor along with another adult friend and about
8 kids from our church. We were scheduled to attend the conference session at
night but the youth were given some free time to shop in the afternoon. When
time was up, the other counselor and I learned from his friends that Matt had
been
arrested for shoplifting less than $10 worth of merchandise.
His excuse was that he saw everyone leaving him so he rushed out the door
forgetting he had unpaid items. Whatever
the reason, the other counselor and I had to pool our cash and come up with $85
to bail him out. We made the trip home with no souvenirs and no fast food on
the way back.
Tennessee sent the case to Alabama where Matt was required
to meet with a probation officer periodically. They suggested we see a
counselor so this is where the process officially begins. I have said to many
of my friends and their children, “Stay out of the Criminal Justice system at
all cost.” Once you are in the system it is hard to avoid further
confrontations. It’s like you name goes on some kind of list of usual suspects.
Bad things seem to follow. In Matt’s case, bad things followed him for over 15
years before his big incident that send him to prison.
His dad and I decided to take the courts suggestion and take
him to a counselor. At the time there was a huge psychiatric practice that saw
many, many patients with Blue Cross insurance. They were like the big obstetrical
practices in the 1980’s that saw so many patients it was impossible to make a
relationship with any one doctor. I remember the frustration in waiting hours
to see a doctor only to spend the first 15 minutes of my visit recounting my
prior visit and my medical record. We knew there were mental issues with our son,
but this way of practicing medicine was giving ME mental issues. Not until
Matt’s arrest just prior to his 18th birthday did any medical
professional suggest he might have a drug problem that was affecting his
behavior. They ruled out ADHD and assured us he was depressed and suffered from
social anxiety. Matt had failed to make the school basketball team and his dad
and I had noticed his change of attitude with the reality that he would never
play basketball at the next level. I think they made their conclusion based on
the information we had given them.
I remember one visit when Matt was scheduled to meet with
his psychiatrist. He did not want me to be in with him in his session so I
stayed in the lobby. He had a list of questions to ask the doc, but I knew he
would use every excuse to get finished as quickly as possible. When he returned
to the lobby in about 7 minutes, I was furious. I saw the doctor in the hallway
and proceeded to give him my thoughts which were not pleasant at that time. His
hallway diagnosis: “it looks like you are the one who needs medication, Mrs.
Hobby.” I learned from my experiences that there is not much you can force on
an uncooperative fifteen-year-old teenager.
Their rights begin at age fourteen and there are people, not parents,
who will enforce their rights. So, we were not able to make Matt take a drug
test. At that time there were no home tests. Our only recourse as parents was
to withhold privileges, which led to numerous confrontations and arguments and
eventually more arrests.
Matt’s first arrest in Alabama came just 2 weeks before his
18th birthday. He was in his car with 2 other boys. They were
attempting to make a phone call at a pay phone in a convenience store parking
lot in Argo, Alabama when they were stopped by the police. The owner of the
store though they might be trying to break in so he called the law. When the
officers searched the car, they found marijuana and drug paraphernalia so all
three were arrested. Before the judge,
Matt took the punishment for all three since it was his car. I remember the judge
had made them sit in the courtroom while a man was sentenced to life in prison.
I know he had hoped it would be a wakeup call. It might have been for the other
two, but it was just the beginning of a life riddled with problems for Matt.
Prior to his arrest in August, Matt had failed to walk with
his class at his high school graduation. We had found pot in our house and
confronted him about his drug use. After we laid down our rules and the terms
of our punishment, Matt decided to run away from home. He stayed gone for
several days missing school for almost a week. When we located his whereabouts,
which were not too far from home, I picked him up and took him to Bradford. He
was not happy but once again, insurance would pay for his stay in rehab. He
finished the program there and returned to school with a medical excuse for all
the days missed. His dad and I met with each of his teachers and they agreed to
give Matt the minimum of makeup work so that he could graduate. There is
something to be said for applying knowledge and intelligence early on in the
educational experience because teachers tend to favor those who work hard and
persevere from the beginning of high school. They perceive a given level of
excellence that follows even when the student begins to perform below their
expectations. In other words, Matt started ninth grade as a straight A student
and whatever work he did was perceived at a higher standard even if it was not.
He had mastered the art of deception and he found a clever way to BS his way
through high school. He even found a way to successfully change his grades even
before there was a need to hire a computer hacker.
His manners and good grades, along with the fact that his
mother knew most of the teachers from her years of substitute teaching, opened
doors for Matt that would not have been opened for other students. Even the
feared assistant principal, Mr. Wilson, gave Matt some slack he had not given
to other students. Matt was likable, polite, and most teachers loved him. Which
is why his failure to walk at graduation was such a disappointment. He refused
to take a makeup Civics test for his government class. All he had to do was
take the test. Maybe it was a control issue. Matt has a photographic memory. He
can read a page, or basically just see the page, and it is imprinted in his
mind. So, retaining information is not a problem for him, at least it was not
at 17 years old. He had the knowledge, he just refused to take the test. So, he
failed Senior Civics and did not graduate. I insisted he get his diploma so he
took a correspondence course from the University of Alabama to complete is
requirements to graduate.
Matt’s stay at Bradford was only the beginning of a long
list of facilities and programs he would attempt on his way to sobriety.
Bradford was a forced intervention and Matt did not want to go. He played the
sympathy card and worked the system well, but as I have learned, it takes more
than one attempt at rehab. I remember those long trips to visit Matt, nothing
compared to the ones to come. Oak Mountain seemed like a vacation trip away.
With all the somberness at this time, the Hobby family still managed to find
our sense of humor. On one visit with the boys we stopped at a Wendy’s on the
way. They had a promotion advertising a meal in less than 3 minutes. Of course,
ours took 10. When I got up to the window to pay, the lady said “Sorry about
your wait (weight) ma’am.”
From the back seat I heard Jeffrey reply, “Are you going to
let her talk to you like that, Mom?” I stalled for a moment but when it sunk
in, I exploded with laughter. We all did! Leave it to Jeffrey to always make me
laugh!
So, the August arrest followed the stay at Bradford. The first try at Rehab did not take. It was just the first of many to come.
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