It don’t matter to me…

The dove soap felt good on her skin as she washed in the deep soaking tub in her bath. Filly loved the smell of it. It was the soap her dad’s mom had kept in the bathroom at her house on the highway in Belfast, N. C. Filly could not remember the shape of the bathroom or where the sink was, but she could remember the shape of the soap, the shape of the two transoms at the top of the doors that opened up, and the smell of the soap when she took a bath or washed her hands.

Children remember a lot of things, and some of those things that hold the most lasting memories for Filly involved smell. Beautiful delicious smells like the orange rolls her mom made from scratch, or the smells of the country air when her dad took them all on bike rides, or the smell of morning sunshine and wet tobacco leaves slapping on her hands as she looped them during a harvest.

Filly was thinking about children who were not with their birth families and wondered what those children would remember. She thought of two different children… The child that might get adopted, and the child that for sure would get adopted. One from another country and one here in her country.

The local child had family that was drug involved. The child had been removed once already from their home of birth. Filly had been able to figure out who the child belonged to because she understood how AI talked.

The files that were supposedly scrambled to keep things private, were …like a word salad.
If the child’s name, for example, was listed as Franklin Rose, on the form, and had a mother named Tennessee Rose, and lived in a town called Parish, Filly had figured out that the real child’s home was Franklin Tennessee and the child’s real name was Parish. It had taken her hours to figure it out, but when she did, the match seemed unmistakable. That child might have to go back to the home of birth. Even though removed twice from parents.

Filly had wanted to know what a person looked like who cared so much about drugs that they did not contact the government agency which had taken their own child. What a person looked like who was so addicted to drugs that they had lost another child at birth due to the same problem.

Filly had learned that the case worker for removed children, has to look at the case as new each time and once a removed child has been returned back to their birth home. Each time after that, when they are removed, it is again a new case, and in the court systems, looking at just the new or allowed evidence like they do in a criminal case, is supposedly for the benefit of not prejudicing the court. Each crime is a new set of evidence.

But with a child, each crime is NOT new to the child. The evidence gets stacked on the child, on top of previous criminal behavior that originally affects the child. Filly wondered why multiple chances are given to some criminals and not to others. And meanwhile, the child is growing up and being influenced in a negative way.

She also wondered why the governments wanted the potential adoptive families to be willing to “zoom call” the birth family, which would allow criminals to see the faces of those caring for their child, which seems to be lunacy, and would seem to invite aggression towards the foster family.

In contrast, the child from another country who is being adopted has no ties to the birth parents other than the records the court keeps. The courts apparently post adoption proceedings publically, giving parents the right to protest before the child is formally adopted, but once the adoption happens, the adoption is final and the birth parents are out of the picture. The new family only gets possession the child after the adoption is final.

Adoptions without contact of the birth parents happens often in some countries when the child being adopted has no listed Father, which makes lineage determination a problem. Countries that depend on accurate lineage in order to award work or other financial considerations, do not want to keep children who will never be awarded fruitful work because of lack of lineage. In some countries if a child is not adopted by the age of three, they go into the orphanage instead of being made available for adoption.

It might seem harsh, but the goal seems to be to give the child the best and fastest chance of success in the best culture for its state in life. Lack of blood lineage in some cultures is not held against the child. Filly had seen such children thrive.

And in other cultures, having parents who used Meth or alcohol or who were abusive, also did not have to get held against the child. The child that she had met who was adopted, remembered going with foster parents to church underground in a tunnel. Liked to dance. Liked to cook. Had formed great attachments. Had been well taken care of by the foster family and had cried and missed them when placed with an adoptive family.

The child locally, who had lived in a meth home, did not seem sad to be gone. Had not seemed to form attachments. Might have to return to that environment multiple times. Would that make success in life, less likely?

Filly thought that parents should have the ability to repent and have the potential to regain the right to parent their own children. But in her view, there was a sharp law of diminishing returns. It seemed to her, that putting foster parents and their families at risk of pain and suffering, was a huge negative. And giving addicts multiple chances, and treating each offense as new, when it was not new to the child, seemed detrimental to a child’s health. Filly wondered what RF Kennedy would think of this problem regarding drugs and health.

Filly thought about the big picture. The peace of the world started with peace in the home. Filly had seen people getting snatched in the streets in Ukraine, and forced to join a war that they did not want to fight in. Taking people out of a peaceful environment and putting them in war was the reverse of taking children out of a war environment (drug environment) and putting them in a peaceful home. Ironic… Why would the same country that wanted to take children and put them in a peaceful place, also want to keep supporting a country that was making their home NOT a peaceful place.

The main purpose of government in a republic is the defense of citizens against criminals, both foreign and local. The criminals that citizens must be defended from, in the case of drug use, are the parents, and in the case of Ukraine, is their own government. The goal of government is peace because of law and order. A man abducted in his own country to fight an illegitimate war, does not have life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness.

With regards to children, Filly had heard about the children, missing, who were being trafficked as well, victims of terrible immigration practices and perhaps also victims of poorly run Children’s protective services. Government should be about protecting children, not trafficking them. Those abusing their positions in government need to be identified. Government needs to be revamped and streamlined and abbreviated. The war needed to be abbreviated as well. Speed was essential…and Filly was not thinking about drugs with regards to speed. She did not use drugs.

The children of those war inflicted countries, or meth environments, might not ever be able to remember beautiful smells. Filly had spoken to a man from Ukraine when he had come to fix her broken refrigerator. He had said that his home country was a beautiful country with grass and parks and paths to walk on. He had left Ukraine three years earlier, when his daughter, a beautiful and accomplished gymnast, had hurt her knee. She had gone first to Romania and then had come to the States to get surgery.

Though they missed their home country, they did not want to go back. They did not believe that Zelensky wanted to end the war and felt he wanted it to continue. He profited from the war at the expense of the citizens. They did not want to live in a war torn country.

They had chosen peace…like the fresh new smell of the dove soap. Filly thought of the smell of dove soap as she drove home, listening to songs that reminded her of children being put in foster homes because of neglect or abuse. Thinking of songs as a reflection of foster care or adoption gave her a new perspective on the probability of some songs being written with this in mind instead of being written to talk about boyfriends or girlfriends. They seemed to tell the story of fostered or adopted children…

Fire and rain, (from the perspective of a Meth head talking to the child who got taken away by CPS…)

Just yesterday mornin’, they let me know you were gone
Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can’t remember who to send it to

I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you again

Won’t you look down upon me, Jesus?
You’ve got to help me make a stand
You’ve just got to see me through another day
My body’s aching and my time is at hand
And I won’t make it any other way

Oh, I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you again

Been walking my mind to an easy time
My back turned towards the sun
Lord knows, when the cold wind blows
It’ll turn your head around
Well, there’s hours of time on the telephone line
To talk about things to come
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground

Oh, I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you, baby
One more time again, now
Thought I’d see you one more time again
There’s just a few things coming my way this time around, now
Thought I’d see you, thought I’d see you, fire and rain, now

Or maybe another song written from the perspective of a non reformed drug addict…to their growing up child…It don’t matter to me..by Bread?

It don’t matter to me
If you really feel that
You need sometime to be free
Time to go out searching for yourself
Hoping to find
Time to go to find

It don’t matter to me
If you take up with someone who’s better than me
’Cause your happiness is all I want
For you to find peace, your peace of mind

Lotta people have an ego hang-up ’cause they wanna be the only one
How many came before it really doesn’t matter, just as long as you’re the last
Everybody moving on and try to find out what’s been missing in the past

And it don’t matter to me
If your searching brings you
Back together with me
’Cause there’ll always be an empty room waiting for you
An open heart waiting for you
Time is on my side
’Cause it don’t matter to me

It don’t matter to me
It don’t matter to me
It don’t matter to me
It don’t matter to me

It don’t matter to me
’Cause there’ll always be
An empty room waiting for you
An open heart waiting for you
Time is on my side
’Cause it don’t matter to me

But Filly knew, it does matter…and in spite of the words of the song, time is not on the side of the meth or the addicted drug user.

It matters to the child. Life … a good life, Matters.

Children want to remember something good. Filly wanted it to be something beautiful fresh and lasting, like peace, symbolized by a dove or like the smell of dove soap. It mattered to her.

“Instruct a wise man, and he will be wiser still;

teach a righteous man, and he will increase his learning.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,

and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

For through wisdom your days will be multiplied,

and years will be added to your life.”