so long, farewell

as i write this i am full of so many emotions. the primary emotion being relief. the secondary emotion being extreme sadness & heartbreak. we said goodbye to carrot top today as he walked out the door handcuffed & escorted by a police officer. we have told him from the beginning that he was in charge of his placement. and on our side, ben & i said to ourselves that we would do everything possible to help him to succeed. but the sad part about this job is that it is not entirely up to ben, carmella, angel & myself. because if it were, carrot top had enough potential to make it. he just chose not to. and no matter how many times we continued to teach him the correct choices to make, the end came because of just that. a choice. (well, okay, several choices) so to try to stay away from the negative things, i will talk about the things i will miss/the good things about carrot top:

1) his sense of humor...when he chose to be, carrot top was a riot. and he could take a joke too. we loved to joke around with him.
2) his kindness to caleb...he was always bringing home little trinkets for caleb & loved to give him high-fives.
3) when we would listen to the radio in the car & he would bust out all the words to some random song like "another one bites the dust" by queen, or "jesus take the wheel" by carrie underwood. he really knows a lot of music.
4) every morning hearing him yell out, "BOOM BOOM BOOM!" while he was taking a shower
5) some of our best days with him were on thanksgiving and christmas eve. he acted so good that it actually became a holiday for us even if we were still working. he helped cook, helped clean & was a pleasure to be around.
6) watching him learn dance moves from fantasia & then they would perform them for all of us.
7) surfing lessons. you had to give him credit for trying.

a dedication: this is a song that we would often hear him singing while he was "cleaning" his bedroom. we thought it was fitting for the current situation as well.