Norma's Volunteer Story, Part 4

This is a series about Norma, a woman who becomes a CASA volunteer. It is fictional, but based on real events. Each Wednesday we will update the blog with the next segment. At CASA we always need volunteers, but right now we are extremely low on volunteers and there are hundreds of children in the South Plains who are waiting for a special person like Norma......like you. Please call 806-763-2272 if you would like to be that person.

Norma:

“That is what the pre-service training is for Norma,” Peggy said when she voiced her concerns during the interview the following week. “We encourage you to talk with your friends and family. Speak with anyone who has done volunteer work with us and attend the training. It gives you more information to make an informed decision as to whether or not this is for you,” Peggy said.

“That makes me feel better. I would like to know more about what I would be getting myself into and whether or not I am even compatible,” Norma said. She filled out the paperwork, including the background check. They talked a little more and before she left, Norma signed up for the next pre-service training class. This was the second step of the process, before Norma Jackson’s world changed. She didn’t know it yet, but the next few months would change the way she not only looked at the world, but how she interacted with people and more simply, the way she loved.

 

Officer Jim Gooden:

“Car 22, come in! Over!” the radio squawked in the stillness of the evening. Officer Jim Gooden had been on night shift every evening this month.  So far, everything had been fairly quiet tonight. It looked as if it might not stay that way. He sighed as he reached for the handheld radio and responded to the call from dispatch.

“Dispatch, this is Car 22. Go ahead, over,” he said.

“Car 22, please respond to 2250 Willow Grove Avenue, apartment 24B for a noise complaint, over,” the dispatcher responded with the instruction that would change Officer Gooden’s entire night.

“Copy that dispatch. ETA is approximately ten minutes. Over and out.” Officer Gooden replaced the handheld and pulled out into traffic. When he arrived, he reported to the address given to him by dispatch. It was a neighbor who had called in the noise complaint. He took the statement of the neighbor and headed across the hall to knock on the door the neighbor had pointed out to him. He knocked once and identified himself as a police officer. There was no answer so he knocked again, this time harder. A thin, young boy opened the door just a crack. He appeared to have been crying and Officer Gooden could hear at least one more child, as well as an infant, crying from somewhere back in the apartment.

“Son,” Officer Gooden asked, “what is your name?”

The young boy sniffled and ran a hand under his nose. “Ben Harris, sir,” he replied quietly.

“Are your parents home, Ben?” asked the officer.

Ben bowed his head so the police officer would not see the hot, salty tears forcing themselves through his tightly squeezed eyelids.

“No, Sir.”

“May I come inside and wait with you until someone comes home?”

Ben nodded his head in mute acceptance and shuffled back a few steps as the officer came inside. This was not the first time his mother had left them alone. This time was different though. She had left on Tuesday night to go get formula for baby Rose, and it was now Thursday night. This time she hadn’t come back. He couldn’t keep Robert and Rose from crying and now the police were here, and they were going to take them away.  Mom sure was going to be upset with him whenever she did come home.