For many years after I started ATN, we had a tradition of gathering many of the families together on the Fourth of July and having a picnic at my home, followed by watching our local parade and fireworks. We did this for several years in a row, and when we moved to Illinois, it was one of many, many things I missed. We even came back to Kansas one year and celebrated the holiday with one of the families … the most consistent of our holiday guests.


Last year we were in duplexes and just recovering from a wedding, so I didn’t have a place or the motivation to plan such a party. This year I am busy with the conference and really haven’t made as many local connections of families as I had made in the past. The one family that has always attended was going to come spend the day with us, but their own life situation right now precluded that—kids that are too squirrelly and overwhelming right now to think about going to a party. So for today, we are just hanging out here, which isn’t such a bad idea given that Steph has a very sore throat.


I have many fun memories of those July Fourth parties, including the story of the twins … I’ll call them “Kate” and “Ashley”. They joined their family at age five. At that time, their mom thought Ashley was the healthier of the two, and Kate was the most disturbed. As time wore on, however, that flipped. Kate grew up to be a pretty on target kiddo—Ashley did not.


At one July Fourth party, we were all sitting in lawn chairs watching the parade as depicted in this photo. Kate and Ashley and some of the other kids occupied a blanket right in front of the lawn chairs. As the floats went by and the people on the floats threw candy, the kids scrambled to collect all that they could. And then, Ashley would go back to the blanket and hide her candy under the blanket but in plain view of all the adults watching her! She figured as long as the kids didn’t see her, no problem. And as long as she wanted to believe it was hidden, no problem! She was at least Beth’s age at that point—well to the age when she should have known better.


Not long after that I kept her for two weeks respite on an emergency basis. Her mom was visiting our home for an ATN meeting and her mom was so depressed and so over-the-edge with Ashley that I was afraid if I didn’t keep her, mom would do something really serious—to herself or someone else. Shortly after that Ashley went into residential.


Years later I surprised the mom by showing up at her wedding, and I saw the twins for the first time in ages. They were 19 years old. Surprise, surprise, Ashley was still a mess. We took her home with us to give her a chance to regroup and start over—but she didn’t. She didn’t last more than a few months and she was a total squirrel. She stayed in Amy’s room and that was too funny … Amy was looking in the mirror far more than she wanted to admit.


I haven’t heard a peep from Ashley or her mom since Ashley took a bus home from Chicago back to Kansas … and that was over two years ago, at least.


I hope you have a great holiday!