On today's episode of FAFO--bit different today

June 26, 2025

No column today, kittens. I don’t know if y’all know this, but I’m a court-appointed special advocate (guardian ad litem) for kids who have been removed from their homes by Child Protective Services. I represent the child’s interests in court, and, if they’re old enough to express their wishes I tell the court. I talk to everyone involved: teachers, psychologists, doctors, therapists, foster parents, etc and then I make a recommendation to the court as to what is in the best interest of the child. That could be family reunification, termination of parental rights, placement with family/fictive kin with parents, etc. It isn’t easy, but as a child/teen so many decisions were made on my behalf and no one ever asked me what I wanted. I do realize they wouldn’t have acted on what I wanted but it would have been nice to be asked. It feels very lonely, and I hope that by doing this, no child has to feel alone. I’m on their side: not the parents’ side, or CPS’s side. It’s a big responsibility.

Part of our duties include seeing the child once a month, and that’s what I’m off to do today in my newest case. We serve several counties around us and we go whereever the foster home is. I’ve been to foster homes in Hillsboro, Buffalo, Round Rock, Houston and Katy. Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonopah. This is a very complex case, so I also have to chase down doctors and the like.

All this is to say no column today because I have to go out of town. But I ran across this poem and it’s just too perfect, so I hope you dig it.

“Stand ye calm and resolute,

Like a forest close and mute,

With folded arms and looks which are

Weapons of unvanquished war,

And let Panic, who outspeeds

The career of armed steeds

Pass, a disregarded shade

Through your phalanx, undismayed.

Let the laws of your own land,

Good or ill, between ye stand

Hand to hand, and foot to foot,

Arbiters of the dispute,

The old laws of England—they

Whose reverend heads with age are gray,

Children of a wiser day;

And whose solemn voice must be

Thine own echo—Liberty!

On those who first should violate

Such sacred heralds in their state

Rest the blood that must ensue,

And it will not rest on you.

And if then the tyrants dare

Let them ride among you there,

Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew,--

What they like, that let them do.

With folded arms and steady eyes,

And little fear, and less surprise,

Look upon them as they slay

Till their rage has died away.

Then they will return with shame

To the place from which they came,

And the blood thus shed will speak

In hot blushes on their cheek.

Every woman in the land

Will point at them as they stand---

They will hardly dare to greet

Their acquaintance on the street.

And the bold true warriors

Who have hugged Danger in wars

Will turn to those who would be free,

Ashamed of such base company.

And that slaughter to the Nation

Shall steam up like inspiration,

Eloquent, oracular;

A volcano heard afar.

And these words shall then become

Like Oppression’s thundered doom

Ringing through each heart and brain,

Heard again—again—again--

Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number—

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you—

Ye that are many—they are few.”

--The Mask of Anarchy, Percy Bysshe Shelley