Jenny's journey

Ashore, Winter, 2003 by Pat Wittberger

As I picked up the telephone receiver, the tremulous voice at the other end was that of our youngest child, 19-year-old Jennifer.

"Mum"--the tone made my heart sink once more, as it had countless times in the past four years when Jenny would call us for help. "Mummy, I'm in Las Colinas. I've been arrested. I've had an accident ..."

Las Colinas is a women's detention facility in Santee, a small township of San Diego County, a short distance from our Alpine home. Being 19, Jenny, of course, had been charged as an adult.

"An accident?" I asked. "Are you hurt? What happened?" Now my despair was tinged with anxiety.

"I'm OK," she replied, "but my car is totaled. Can you tell Daddy? They say he can collect me soon--or, can you come?"

"Why were you arrested?" I then asked. "Were you--are you--on something?"

A mumbled affirmative response followed. "But come for me; I don't want to be here," she pleaded. I could detect hysteria rising within her throat.

"I can't come now," I explained. I have Meghan here today." Meghan is our oldest daughter's child. "I'll call Dad and find out how we can help you. Stay calm," I urged, realizing the authorities wouldn't tolerate a dramatic outburst of panic from this young person.

"OK, please help, Mummy," came the response. "I have to go now--someone else needs the phone."

"Alright, don't worry; Daddy will call the police."

"Mum?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry," came a whispered apology, with tears very close to surfacing.

Yes, she was scared; she realized the consequences of her actions. Thoughts crossed her mind that, as an adult, she possibly could be facing some time in this place--jail. We would learn just how serious this infraction of the law was after contacting the authorities.

I immediately called my husband, Russ, at his office, and, just like I knew it would, his voice conquered the quivers in my stomach. I'm fortunate to have the sort of husband, who, no matter how occupied he is, can switch to a "take control" mode in a crisis. With our youngest child, there had been many emergencies from the time she turned 15.

Drugs misuse ... addiction ... how on earth had we gotten to this place in life? Like so many parents before us, we were asking ourselves, "What have we done? Where did we go wrong? What has happened to this precious child--the only one of our six children to be 'planned'?"

Conceived in much love, she had been welcomed as the daughter for whom we had hoped. Knowing Jenny would be our last baby made her even more precious. Her siblings were delighted, even though they were at an age when they rapidly were leaving the nest.

Steven, at 20 years, was at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom. Rob, a 19-year-old, had joined the Marines and was on duty at the border of northern Thailand and Cambodia. Elizabeth, who was nearly 17 at Jenny's birth, gleefully observed, "A sister at last. I've always wanted a sister, and now I can help take care of her!" which she did. She also used the baby as a "model" for her college Child Development classes that she was taking toward a teaching degree. Gary and Scott, at 16 and 14 years, respectively, thought Jenny was quite entertaining as she progressed into a toddler. They never balked when occasionally asked to babysit.

So, here we had an accepted, happy, intelligent child, whose development was rapid and whose each new skill was greeted with kudos. At age 3, Jenny started attending a Montessori pre-school, from where she progressed into a private-school education in San Diego.

It became apparent Jenny had a very dramatic personality and was gifted in the arts. She wrote and illustrated stories from age 8 before trying poetry. Her main activities were horseback riding and swimming, but history, anthropology and archeology were passions. With an acute sense of the ridiculous, Jenny tended toward the wry John Cleese British type of humor--perhaps inherited from an English mother and vacations spent in the U.K. Theater was her chosen profession, although she later really thought she'd be of more service working with teens as a psychological therapist.

Why then was someone mature beyond her years--intellectually and socially--tempted to try drugs? Was it peer pressure ... a sense of daring ... adventure?

Marijuana began Jenny's downfall--she tried it at age 14. Simultaneously, we moved to the central California coast because of Russ' career [in the radio industry]. By this time, the two younger boys were in the Air Force, Elizabeth had married, and, for quite some time, Jenny had been alone. Our rejoicing to be moving from the "big city" temptations of drugs shows how ignorant Russ and I were then.

Let no one say that marijuana isn't dangerous, addictive and a gateway to more potent substances! It lowers barriers otherwise not thought about. For our daughter, it took little time to discover where this drug was available for weekend parties, and she soon started experimenting with other drugs.

In the beginning, we didn't realize what was causing our daughter's unpredictable behavior. We attributed it to the move, although she made friends easily. When questioned, she said she was depressed, so we treated these symptoms. We even had her best friend from San Diego come and live with us for a year.