A Christmas not to forget

This Christmas brought a few surprises this year. Our daughter's friend from her old school showed up at her grandparents door. Samantha had not seen this boy in three years.

I will tell you how they met. Our daughter was eight years old when they became friends. She was being bullied by a grade fiver. This boy came to her rescue. He was also in grade five. He did not like seeing Samantha being bullied, so he defined Samantha, and got into a fight with the bully. This happened three more times. The bully would not leave Samantha alone. Finely her friend had had enough of the bully. He beat him up pretty bad and ended up suspended. I did not like the idea about beating the bully up.

We went to the principal and asked why she would not put a stop to this bully .Then we asked "why the bully had not been suspended"? Why did she only suspend our daughter's friend. All she could say "is our daughter's friend had gone to far, when it came to protecting her."

We decided to show up at the school while school was in. We were told that we were not aloud to show up at school. We were breaking the schools rules. After we stopped showing up at the school our daughter was beat up by five girls. One of them was her best friend. We pulled Samantha out. We had it with this school. Samantha's friend from grade five had only been protecting her. After he was gone, she became an open target.

Our daughter is always trying to help out animals and kids, that are a lot smaller then her. The problem is she is not a fighter. She try's to protect the animals, and smaller kids, by talking to the bigger kids who are pushing the smaller ones around. That only gets her into trouble.

Well, if you are anything like my daughter, and myself, the last thing you wanted to do is fight. We have told our daughter from now on if you see someone getting pick on, go get a teacher.

Samantha's friend who was in grade five lived in a foster home. A short time after he was kicked out of school. And his foster father had a heart attack and passed away. His foster

mother could no longer take care of him so he was shipped out to a new home. Since then he has been brought to quite a few homes. On Christmas eve he had dinner with our whole family. I asked him if he had enjoyed himself. He looked at me and said "it was just like being around a family." My heart warmed, and I felt great. We started talking about what had been happening since he was last in Oliver. He said "one thing that will stick with me and forever," it broke my heart. "People think just because you are their foster child that when they get tired of you they just ship you out. How can people be like that. He is just a kid. I have heard people say that a lot of these foster children have a lot of problems. Well I wonder why? if they feel like it's just a matter of time before they are shipped some were else, and that they will never be loved.

By the end of the night I felt better, because I knew that we had made at least one good Christmas for him. He felt like he was part of a family. That made me feel good if only there was more we could do.

I know we will see him again. We like him even if he has a bad pass. In our hearts we know that all he needs is to feel like someone think of him as a person with feeling.

By Juanita Fraser