The Saratoga National Cemetery, where my granddad was buried, doesn�t do burials on Sundays. And since Monday was a holiday, they didn�t do burials that day either. So the burial was scheduled for Tuesday, which left us with a free day in between.

So we decided to take a drive to New Hampshire to see my cousin, James. Some history is necessary.

My mom�s parents divorced when she was a toddler. My grandmother remarried and had three children with her new husband. My granddad raised my mom himself, and he never remarried until 19 years ago, when he married Rose.

My mom was several years older than her two half-sisters and half-brother, and they didn�t really grow up together. Still, they were the only siblings she had.

The youngest of these siblings, Laura, had a daughter who was just two years younger than me. She ended up divorcing her husband, and for a long time, it was just her and my cousin, Mandy. But Laura had a lot of problems. Namely, she was in and out of rehab for abusing prescription drugs.

Then 14 years ago, when Mandy was an adolescent, Laura had aother child � James � with a man named Jim. Nobody knows where she met this guy, but he was a loser. According to her sister, if you met him in a dark alley you�d run the other way. You get the picture.

Then a couple of years later, Laura had another child � a girl � with a different man. And a couple of years after that, she had yet another boy with yet another man. So at that point she had three young children and a teenage daughter. It�s worth it to note that shortly thereafter, when she was about 18, Mandy had a child herself, thus perpetuating this downhill pattern.

Anyway, like I said, Laura had a lot of problems, and the kids were taken away from her several times to be placed in various foster homes and the like. Then, about five years ago, she overdosed on Tylenol with codeine and died.

Again, the kids were shuffled around from one place to the next. Eventually, though, James� father resurfaced and took him. The other two kids � who knows who their fathers are � were adopted by a wonderful family and are now living comfortably with them.

But James was a different story. We had never had much involvement with the kids before, and then when this stranger father took him off, we sort of lost track of him. At one point, he was living in a commune of some sorts. Somewhere along the way, they had to leave New York because the authorities were going to take James away from his dad. They�ve pretty much been at loose ends for several years.

Then around May in 2002, my mom got a phone call from her mother asking if we would take James in. This certainly came as a surprise, and we didn�t really know what to think. The story we were told was that his dad needed a few months to get back on his feet and was asking us to take James for the summer. We had reservations about getting involved in the situation, but we went ahead and made the arrangements and flew James out to California in June. The poor kid arrived with little more than a pair of pants and a couple of worn-out T-shirts.

He�s a good kid. Considering all that he�s been through, he�s doing remarkably well. That�s not to say he wasn�t annoying, though. He really had no social skills. How could he? He�d pretty much raised himself. He hadn�t ever had a positive role model in his life.

So he spent the summer with us. That was the summer right before B and I got married, so I was living at home too, and I had recently started a new job, and I was a little � uptight. He really got on my nerves. I loved him and I cared about him, but I have to admit that he drove me crazy, the poor kid.

I can only imagine what it must have been like for him to find himself living in my parents� house in the middle of Orange County, considering the life he�d led up until then. My parents bought him new clothes, gave him an allowance, sent him to summer camp. He swam in the pool, went to movies with his buddies, ate three square meals a day. In a way, he must have felt like he�d died and gone to Heaven.

Of course he wanted to stay. As September crept closer, he started dropping hints and then he finally asked flat out. My parents went round and round with it � should they let him stay or send him back? The issue was much more complicated than that, though. For one, my parents had just retired and, selfish as it may sound, really weren�t that excited about raising another child at that point. Also, if he was going to stay, it had to be official, as in adoption, which was quite involved. And lastly, he DID have a father, and even though he�s a loser, he does love his son. We were fine with inviting James into our lives, but we really didn�t want to deal with Jim and his myriad problems.

So when the time came, we put him on the plane and sent him back to his dad. I really didn�t think that was final, though. I truly believed that he�d be back before we knew it.

But that didn�t happen. He went back, and he and his dad have been flitting around from place to place ever since. At times, we didn�t know where James was. No address, no telephone number. Then all of a sudden he�d resurface, in Vermont, then in New Hampshire. It was disconcerting.

So that brings us to this point. We had received some e-mails from James a couple of months ago saying that he was in New Hampshire but didn�t have a phone. When we found ourselves in the general vicinity with a day to fill, we decided to make the drive and pay him a visit.

So we all � my parents, my brother, my grandmother, B, and I � piled into our rented mini van and drove the three hours to New Hampshire. We didn�t even know if he�d be there, since we hadn�t been able to call (he doesn�t have a phone). We sent an e-mail saying we were coming, but we weren�t sure he�d get that either.

So we found this dinky little town in the middle of Nowhere, New Hampshire and got a man at the gas station to point us toward the right street. We drove up the street a ways, and there, standing on the sidewalk waiting for us, was Jim, James� dad.

Oh. My. Gosh. He looked like a homeless person. He had scraggly, somewhat long hair pulled into a little ponytail at the nape of his neck. He had a long, scraggly, graying beard � the kind that isn�t trimmed or kept up, the kind that grows all the way down the neck. He was wearing ragged clothes and shoes and was smoking a cigarette. But he smiled when he saw us.

Then James came out. He looked pretty much the same, just a little taller. He needed a haircut. He�d put a fat, claw-like earring through his ear. His clothes looked a little dingy. His shoes looked like they were about to fall apart. But his eyes were the same � these brilliantly blue, crystal-clear eyes. They�re the first thing you notice when you see them, and I can�t help thinking they look a little sad.

They led us into their �apartment.� From what I could tell, this so-called apartment is really the garage of a larger, run-down house. It had three sections � I won�t say �rooms� � one of which held the computer, TV, and a couch, one of which held a single mattress on the floor where I assume they both sleep, and one of which had a kitchen of sorts. It was the ghetto.

It was immediately awkward. There wasn�t enough room for our whole crew, and everyone just bombarded James with 100 questions: how is school (fine), are you playing any sports (no), do you have a girlfriend (yes), what do you do with your free time (just hang out), etc. He wasn�t very forthcoming with information, but I think it might be because he just didn�t have much to say. I mean, the kid doesn�t have anything. He goes to school. He comes home. If you can call it that.

My grandmother smothered him with embarrassing questions: Do you have enough to eat, sweetheart? Do you have warm clothes, hon? Why don�t you ever call your Nana? Don�t you know I worry about you, honey? Are you keeping warm? Are you eating enough?

Finally, we convinced him to go get some lunch with us, although he swore that there wasn�t any place to get anything to eat in the town. We got to the main road, where there were several different fast food joints, but he wouldn�t tell us where he wanted to go. He kept saying he didn�t care. So we chose McDonald�s.

When we got to the counter, he didn�t want to order anything. We knew he hadn�t eaten anything, so we ordered for him. (He ate every bite.)

He was just embarrassed. All of a sudden, these people, who he knows live the �good life,� descend upon his world and try to fix everything in a two-hour visit. I can�t imagine what it must have felt like to be there, knowing that we were judging his situation, judging his dad, feeling sorry for him. He�s only 14, but he has his pride. Plus that, we had sent him back to this life. We had rejected him. Of course, that�s not what really happened, but I bet that�s how he felt.

It was awkward for us, too. We didn�t want to embarrass him or make him feel bad. We weren�t there to hand out charity. But we wanted to help in any way we could, and we only had this short window of time to do it. We wanted to buy him a few things, so we went to WalMart under the guise of picking up a few items we needed.

We kept asking if there was anything he needed or wanted � clothes, shoes, school supplies? He said he didn�t need anything. Obviously, we knew better, but again we didn�t want to make him feel like a charity case. B finally took over and took him to the underwear section, where he threw some undershirts, boxer shorts, and socks into the shopping cart. At the checkout line, B also picked up a shaving kit and extra razor blades, since we�d noticed a couple of hairs starting to sprout on James� chin, and we certainly don�t want him to end up looking like his father.

We tried to talk him into getting a haircut (they had a hair place at WalMart too!) but he wouldn�t go for that, and we didn�t want to push it. So at that point, we just drove back to his apartment, hugged, and said goodbye.

Like I said, it was a very awkward exchange. But I do think that, in spite of it all, he did appreciate our visit. And we needed to visit. It just seems like a hopeless situation. There�s really not much we can do for the kid. We can�t give him money because he or, more likely, his dad would just waste it on stupid stuff. We can�t change his situation because he has a dad who is unwilling to actually, say, get a job and provide some semblance of a life for himself and his son. I suppose we could offer to take him back to California, but I don�t know if that�s something he or his dad would even consider at this point. Plus that, all the old issues (adoption, etc.) are still issues that have to be very carefully weighed. It�s not like taking a kitten home.

I don�t know � I go back and forth between feeling guilty over the situation (because I was a proponent of sending him back last time) and feeling like it�s out of our control. But the truth is, he doesn�t have much of a chance to make much of himself. He doesn�t have any sort of role model nor any resources to try to make something better for himself. And right now � at age 14 � is a critical time for him. It�s a miracle that he�s made it this far without getting hooked on drugs or dropping out of school or getting someone pregnant. But I feel like I have to knock on wood, cross my fingers, and pray really hard that he can make it another four years relatively unscathed. Maybe that�s the best I can do.

That kid has been through so much. As a really little boy, his mom used to leave him in charge of his younger brother and sister while she did who knows what. She used to send him � as a four-year-old! � to the grocery store by himself. Then he was shuffled around from one home to another and then, when he went back to live with his mom, she died. Then he was sent to different foster homes before being split up from his brother and sister and whisked away by a father he barely knew. Then his siblings got adopted by a perfect suburban family while he lived in a commune. His �wealthy� aunt and uncle �spoiled� him for a summer but then sent him back to the ghetto. And those are just the things I know about; who knows what else he�s been through that I�m not aware of?

So that was Monday, our President�s Day. Cheerful, huh?

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Working at home - Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004

Toronto - Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2004

On the way to Toronto... - Tuesday, Nov. 09, 2004

A Good Day - Monday, Nov. 08, 2004

Another letter - Thursday, Nov. 04, 2004