A dialogue can be a conversation, a writer’s device, an exchange of ideas, or a teaching tool.  Experience has shown me a dialogue with God is all 4, possibly at the same time, and definitely not for the faint of heart.  Over the past 40 years I’ve had many dialogues with God — some mundane (as in “please don’t let it rain on the picnic”), some ecstatic with joy (these usually feature tears), some beyond desperate (more tears — but the hopeless kind), and some just listening (as in, what am I learning here?). 

The following recollected dialogues concern a little boy I met 35 years ago at O’Connell Youth Ranch.  OYR is a level 3 lock up facility just east of Lawrence.  It’s a home of sorts for troubled boys — troubled by family situations, circumstances, the children’s welfare system, and sometimes trouble with the law itself.  I worked there evenings as a tutor. By day I was adding elementary certification to my teaching degree, a slog of 45 credit hours at KU.  Back in those days, the only thing “on line” was the laundry — one had to physically attend classes on the hill.  The principal at my children’s elementary school suggested I apply for the job at OYR and I jumped at the chance.  He was on the OYR board and had created the position there, using “homebound education” funds.  We needed the cash and I wanted the experience.  My husband worked days and he could mind our kids until bedtime.  I was lucky. It was a good fit.

The little boy was Billy. He was 10 years old when he came to OYR.  His trouble wasn’t the law.  He was a “failed adoption.”  Billy had fetal alcohol syndrome.  This impairment creates a disability currently called  ID — intellectually disabled.  At the time it was EMH — educable mentally handicapped.  Billy also had anger issues.  Billy and his younger brother had been adopted together but a few months later the family decided they didn’t want Billy after all.  He arrived at OYR the day before Thanksgiving.  The very next day, Thanksgiving, he arrived at our house.  As I welcomed him, I pulled off his stocking cap and he looked up at me and gave me a delighted grin. He was adorable. I can still see that happy smile. It was along the lines of love — or shift — at first sight.

We often hosted OYR kids on the holidays.  Some boys, the ones with families, got to go home for a few days; but the boys without homes, and the young, idealistic house parents (whose own homes were often in Texas or New York) had no family nearby.  It seemed simple to us to just invite these folks out for Christmas dinner, Easter dinner, Thanksgiving dinner,  or our 4th of July Picnic.  We had a pretty big dining room table, and our own extended families were back in Chicago.  We were familiar with lonely holidays. After a year or so it seemed right that we should be Billy’s support family, the place where he would spend his school holidays — it would give him some continuity and the house parents fewer kids to watch over the school breaks.  Finally, it made sense that he just come live with us as a foster son.  He was 12 and our daughters were game.  But it was just such a huge step.  I didn’t want to mess it up, quit halfway, or ever “send him back.”  How could I commit?  I knew I wasn’t up to it.

“It makes sense, God,” I said one day, “But I know I can’t do it.”

“Aha! You are absolutely correct. That’s what grace is all about,” came his quick and clear reply.

Billy moved in with us a few months later.

He took well to country life.  We got him a bike and he loved to fish.  He loved the animals we had (chickens, a horse and pony, a dog and some cats) and he adored being outside.  He tenderly bottle fed and raised a litter of abandoned kittens, spending his own allowance money on the formula.  He did well in school.  He was active in Special Olympics.  In high school he got a job sacking groceries at Dillon’s and banked his paycheck every week.  Steve suggested he try Wrestling, telling me Billy only had to know 2 or 3 good holds to do well.  He made the team.  His junior year we helped Billy find and buy a car. Billy arranged to drive a neighbor boy to school to help pay for the gas.  He even got and wore glasses — something he said he would never do.

“I’m grateful,” I said to God one fine summer day.

God didn’t answer. But I am pretty sure she was smiling.

On his 18th birthday, Billy drove to school, on time as usual,  but he didn’t come home.  Some worried calls and connections on the police force told us he was seen driving around town with a carload of pals.  We found out he didn’t show up for school or work that day and that he had emptied his bank account. He called us two days later.  He was in the Mass Street Dairy Queen parking lot, out of gas and out of money.  The friends were gone too.  I went to pick him up.  Steve took the car to gas it up and Billy drove home with me.

He was silent for a few miles. Suddenly he piped up from the back seat, “People can be pretty bad.” We rode on in silence for a while, he reliving his adventure and me hoping to find the right words.

“They sure can,” I agreed, cracking my window a bit.  He smelled as bad as he was feeling! “Tell you what, when we get home, just take a shower and get some sleep.  We’ll talk later,” I said. I was glad he was safe. I hoped he’d learned something helpful. “That worked out okay,” I muttered to God and myself. But again, God just listened. He was being supportive. He knew what was coming.

Billy went back to work and school but things were different after that.  He wanted to see his mom.  God hinted (no dialogue needed) that Billy had been told since he was 5 years old he could “do what you like when you’re 18.”  So we arranged for him to meet up with his mom.  She worked at the Denny’s on Metcalf as a waitress.  She was open to seeing him.  They visited more on the phone and suddenly he wanted to go live with her. She was open to that too.   It was 3 weeks until high school graduation.

“Can he finish high school here in KC?”  I asked her. It was Billy’s senior year.

“We’ll look into it,” she said. 

Billy moved away the next week.  I was happy for him — sort of. It was a quiet summer. But then in October he called out of the blue.

“My mom’s crazy!” he said.  “I’m gonna go live in Milwaukee with my sister.”

“Did you get to school?”  I asked.

“No,” he replied.  “We couldn’t find it, or something.”

I asked God to keep him safe.

I think I got call waiting.

Within the year Billy called again.  The sister was crazy too.  He was going to come back to Lawrence and finish high school.  He could get SSI but would need a payee.  Steve agreed to be payee on one condition — Billy must be in school or have a job.  Billy returned and got a small rent controlled apartment in Lawrence.  He enrolled in school and had to repeat his senior year.  He was included in a KU special education graduate program called the “self determination project.”  They taught the kids how to make their own way and make their own decisions.  This included sex education, and they showed the guys how to put on a condom, using a banana for “practice.” 

 “Hmm,”  I told God.  “I’m sorry but I can picture that condom covered banana on the nightstand right next to the creaking bed!”   

“No comment,”  said God.  She was mostly just listening.

It didn’t matter anyway.  That spring Billy graduated high school at age 20 and a few weeks later a female self determination classmate named Tricia moved in with him. The following spring she had a baby girl.  They brought the baby out to meet us one night, but Billy complained the baby cried an awful lot, especially during their favorite TV shows..  That made him mad. With all the excitement of life Billy didn’t have time to find work and his school days were over.  He was on borrowed time with Steve.  He was still collecting SSI.  Steve had to follow through.

“I can’t be your payee anymore, Billy.  You’re not looking for work or training for a job. I can’t help you buddy.  Let me know when you get a job, ” Steve offered.

But Billy never got a job.

After that, Billy began to slip away.  We heard the baby was placed in foster care.  The state tried to reintegrate the baby with Billy and Tricia but eventually their rights were severed.  Then we heard Tricia’s Mom moved in with them and Billy couldn’t handle it. They broke up. Billy dropped out of sight.  Another year went by. One day I got a call from Topeka.  I could hear a baby crying in the background and a man’s voice hollering, “Shut up!”   It wasn’t Billy hollering — Billy was telling me he was heading to Arkansas. He’d heard there was work there.

All I could say was, “Okay Billy.  Keep in touch!”

But to God I said a lot more, sometimes with tears.  “All those years — all those people doing so much, working so hard to help him,”  I said.  What a waste, I thought.  So much for  GOOD WORKS.  I wasn’t mad or sad.  Just humbled.  I quietly gave it all to God.  Just let it be.  “I don’t know what to think,”  I said.

 God didn’t either, I guess.  He didn’t say anything.

We heard nothing for 7 years.  But one day the phone rang.  It was Billy!  He was living in Wisconsin.  He’d been bouncing around the country, finally finding work with a carnival traveling all over the south and Midwest.  All the heavy lifting and long hours had hurt his back, and when the carnival pulled out of Eau Claire, Billy watched it go.  He’d found work at a Burger King and was having trouble with his roommate. He wanted to ask his Dad a question.  I thought, Billy, your dad’s been dead for 20 years,” but then realized HE MEANS STEVE.  Steve took the phone.

Billy began calling more frequently then, and a few years later we got an invitation to his wedding.  He was marrying a girl he met at Burger King.  We went to the wedding and we were introduced to everyone as his parents.  I danced the Mother/Son dance with him.  He wore a baby blue tuxedo and a huge grin. Billy took well to married life. A few years later he brought his wife and (by then) 2 kids to visit us.  He wanted to visit the Youth Ranch and was full of questions.  “Do you still have those red dishes?”  “Do you still make homemade Macaroni and Cheese?”  “Do you still go to the little country church?”  He calls us regularly and always calls on Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Christmas.  He loves to tease Steve and calls him “The Old Man.” Billy has 3 children now and he’s a night cook at Denny’s.  Tiffany, his wife, has extended family nearby and she works as a supervisor at a factory that makes medical equipment.  Billy’s working on getting disability (bad back) and proving his Cherokee bloodline to receive tribal benefits.  They live happily a small trailer and he has no teeth.  But he still has his sweet smile.

I  dialogue with God these days about many topics but when it comes to Billy we mostly just sit still and feel good . God kindly lets me know we didn’t do anything special and with a smile he reminds me we aren’t going to get any kind of upgrade over this.  It’s just all in a life’s work.   We just met a little kid at a tough moment and tried to help.  And it somehow worked out.

“Thanks for everything you’ve taught us. Thank you for all of it,”  I say softly.

“I know, kid,” God always says.  “You’re welcome.”