Dawn Update

Sorry, dear readers--there's Internet trouble at Chez Maritza, which delayed this post. Here goes:

I saw Dawn's mom at the Guadalupe Mass at Holy Cross on Friday night. She came with Angel. Dawn didn't want to come because she didn't take a bath this morning?...something like that, which I didn't catch clearly. I do know she likes a long soak, especially in the winter.

I got to church really late myself, after the fun part--the dancing. Bummer! I didn't see Dawn's mom with Angelito until the sign of peace. After Mass, she asked me if I wanted to go get something to eat downstairs in the hall and I said sure. So we went down and got plates with chicken in mole, rice, a tostada and a tamal. Angel really liked the music--the marimbas were playing, and he was banging along on the table. I played a little table marimba with him, and his mom and I were cracking up watching him.

After we left, she gave me a ride home--she's got a car that works, mas o menos--and she told me a bit more about Joey and Dawn. She's working weekends now at a Food 4 Less (not the one here in our neighborhood), but she's working 11 to 7 and she doesn't like it because that leaves Joey unsupervised all weekend long. She's been trying to get him to stay with his dad but it sounded like that's not working well--I'm not sure if it's because Joey won't go or his dad is busy or some of both.

This is all leading up to the big news about Dawn. It probably won't surprise longtime readers of this blog to hear Dawn will not be staying at Big Picture. Her mom is supposed to come in to school on Monday to sign her out and work out the details of transferring her to another program. Her mom couldn't remember the name of the new school, but supposedly it has early morning and evening hours so students can work during the day. Dawn and her mother agree that she wants to work and should be working to help support the family. It sounds like Alfredo and her teachers support this because she has continued to be iffy about attendance and classwork

Of course I'm really disappointed, but since she and I have hardly been in contact--I think we have spoken less than five times since August--I don't have the right to say a danged thing about it. All I know is that Dawn's chances of ever getting a high school diploma are about to drop substantially.

Will she even show up at the new program? Is it really any good? I don't know, and at this point I also don't know if I have it in me to push much to find out. I hope she pulls a Meg and finds herself happy and working hard in her new school, but I somehow suspect the road for Dawn will take a few more twists and turns--Meg didn't get back in school right away and being out for a while and really understanding what a dead end life is without a diploma made her much more motivated to go back.

When Dawn started at Big Picture, I chose 2009 for a four-digit sequence I use all the time in honor of her graduation year. It was sort of a promise to her, and myself, that I would be there when she crossed that stage. She might cross a stage and get a diploma yet, but it won't be that one. I'll be there at Big Picture in June, crying happy tears for all the graduates, but part of me will be crying other tears for Dawn, too.