Can you stand the Rain

As stated my nephew has returned to my life. He was away for three years. When he left it wasn't under the best circumstance. He was heading on a path that our family did not approve of.So rather than be in or visit my family members in jail, we asked my nephew, what could we do to change the things happening in your life right now? What would make you happy right now? Being that my family raised him he was under the impression that the grass may be greener if he went to live with his mother.Partly because, although we never approved of his mother ways; I can honestly say that we never bad mouthed her in front of him.There was a reason he was with us but sometimes people need to find out the truth themselves.

So now that he has returned, he is a little older, hopefully wiser and fully aware of why he did not live with his mother the first fifteen years of his life. I can see the change in him. I hear him in our conversations and I read into what he is not saying. I know it was rough. Many a day I wanted to go get him. I wanted to drive up there and kick his mothers ass. But still felt that he needed to understand. He needed to be grateful for the "family" he had. He needed to see the difference in being loved and wanted and just being.

My mother took his absence the hardest. Like all her children she worried about him. I think she worried more though because we knew from jump what it would be like, where he was going. Knowing her pain was the hardest thing for me to deal with. But we made it. I feel although he is only 18 he understands now, that the rules that were in place were there to protect him. I pray the trails he has gone through has strengthened him. . I pray for his safety. He has his whole life ahead of him and so much potential, I pray he realizes this.