Rebellion

It's March! And the light at the end of the long, dark, and smelly sewage tunnel that has been my quest for the M.D. is brighter than ever. This month I am finishing my final course, Radiology. After that, I am free to do what I please until graduation in May. During this current month, my instructors have already made it clear that they only expect me to be present for about 2-3 hours daily. Never one to disappoint, I've managed to whittle that down to about and hour and a half on average . For the time being, I'm on easy street, and I have a lot of extra time on my hands. It's the perfect time to step things up a notch with Jamal since I'm departing shortly after graduation.

Since I have a bit more energy for the fight, I decided that once again, I would look into Jamal's grades. Around noon yesterday I gave Grandma a call to get permission to go to the middle school to pick up his report card. Before I could even get to that, she unleashed a half hour of grievances of her grandson's most recent behavior. He has been growing bolder, and more rebellious in recent months. As her health continues to fail, she is finding that he defies her more frequently on matters of school work, television, video games, and clandestine exploits with his buddies during school hours. She has also grown quite uncomfortable with his accelerated interest in females. As I listened, I tried my best to empathize with her, but I couldn't help but feel that some of it was probably a natural response to being young, under the influence of volatile hormones, and wanting to be one of the guys. I can't imagine what it must be like to live alone with a 72 year old disciplinarian when you're only 13.
Anyway, she's been through this before (she raised 10 children, and a few grandchildren) and feels as if she no longer has the energy to go through adolescence all over again with Jamal. She is open to moving him out of the house, and he has expressed a desire to leave, but all of the potential destinations would offer living conditions that are the same or worse than Grandma's. It's a difficult situation to say the least.

Before I left for the school, I told her that I would take Jamal home with me and spend some time with him. It won't fix everything, but it might allow him to let off some steam. Her narrative on Jamal's rebellion kind of reminded me of my 5 month-old beagle, Louis. He has a way of acting out if he doesn't burn off his extra energy each day. He's chewed into walls, humped legs and arms, bit, ran in circles, and whined incessantly as a response to neglect. The two met a few weeks ago and really hit it off, so I thought it might be mutually beneficial to get them together again.

I was fortunate to have a number of lively conversations with Jamal (for a change), and even had the chance to counsel him on some major issues during the course of our afternoon and evening. I'll cover some of that in other posts over the next week.