Jessie- the human yo-yo

Jessie is back home. She's kinda been home and been leaving since she graduated in 2005. Leaving invariably entails a boyfriend she's moving in with. The latest one has been messing around, so she moved back home. Then he moved in there (next door to us). Their plan was to make another go of it. The day they moved, Jessie left him. Two days later she went back. She came home again a day later. I never know if she's coming or going. None of this is new to her mom Frieda. I think this has been the story of her life too. Frieda has tried to explain to Jessie what her boyfriend is up to, but what I'm so impressed in is that she has never ruptured her relationship with her daughter even if she disagrees with her choices- to the point of letting the boyfriend move in with them. I'm not sure how healthy all that is, but I do know that Jessie could have very easily ended up on the streets these last couple of years, like so many of her friends- but instead she knows she always has a home to come to.

Jessie keeps leaving because she doesn't like the fighting. She keeps coming back because she is accepted, cared for and welcomed.

Life at our neighbor's is very different when Jessie is not there. She is the youthfulness and vitality. When she is there, the cousins often come to play with her all day. She is the one in the pool, the one dragging everyone else to play volleyball, the one taking kids to the park. She's also the homeless teen magnet- always hanging out with some other misfit, slow or homeless teen. She brings acceptance and love to many people, but she herself is unsettled.

I wrote the above post yesterday. Today we found out that one of Princess' old neighbors was shot last night in her home. She was 16 years young with all of life ahead of her, stopped by a bullet. She was found by a sister who lived with her. Another sister who raised them (and lives on an adjoining lot) told me she was killed by her boyfriend, that she was going to break up with him and that he'd threatened to kill her if she left him.

When I drove up into the driveway at home, Jessie and Frieda came out to talk to me asking if I'd been to the victim's house. Jessie already heard through friends about it being the result of a jealous boyfriend (although this has not been made official or reported in the media). She said that her friends were warning her that she would be next and confessed that her boyfriend has told her the same thing- that if she goes out with anyone else he'd kill her.

There are so many roots to this problem, but one of them is most definitely a lack of a true father to these teens. So many girls can't even imagine a different life than what they have seen generationally and live socially.

Lord bring comfort, peace, love and guidance to this family and to Jessie and so many others in the community affected by this tragic end to a beautiful young girl.