A 2nd Chance at Childhood

They talk all the time about the problems kids face trying to grow up in a world of broken homes and violence and a lack of parental supervision.

Shane and Michelle Oblonsky, ages 12 and 13, have seen all that and more. They have huddled against a childhood that has dealt them darkness and tragedy, first with their parents’ divorce, then the slaying of their mother, and then, earlier this month, the death of their father.

“These kids have been given such an awful, awful break,” said Lisette Silverman, who, with husband David, will ask a Superior Court judge to appoint them the legal guardians of Michelle and Shane.

“He’s gifted and athletic. She’s a 4.0 student. They’re good kids, so bright. What’s missing in their lives is some security, something to fall back on.”

It could have been a recipe for two more troubled youngsters, unwanted and unwatched, on the streets of California. Instead, friends, parents of friends and school officials in this tight-knit community are pulling together to give Shane and Michelle a port from the storm and a second chance at childhood.

Their father, Vietnam veteran Joel Oblonsky, and mother, Sheau-Fang Chang, divorced in 1987, according to court records.

The children stayed with their mom in her house in the Florecita neighborhood of Pasadena, near the edge of the Angeles National Forest.

“She was an entrepreneur. She was real strong financially and always trying to get ahead,” Sgt. Paul Gales of the Pasadena Police Department said of Chang, an accountant.

In early 1993, a former boyfriend came to Chang’s house while the children were at school, Gales said. Bobby Dean Parker apparently was despondent over the breakup of their relationship.

After a lengthy conversation, Chang was stabbed repeatedly with a buck knife, Gales said. In what police described as an unforgettable 911 call, Chang related in detail what had happened to her as she lay dying at the age of 41.

“She was losing blood, she was losing consciousness, but she told us who did it,” Gales said. “It was almost as though we could hear her die on the 911 tape.”

The 911 call failed to save Chang’s life, but it provided crucial information that enabled police to track Parker to Las Vegas.

He was brought back to Los Angeles County, where he pleaded guilty to a voluntary manslaughter charge and is serving a 12-year prison sentence, according to the California Department of Corrections. Police considered the sentence relatively light, but said Parker had no criminal record.

*

Michelle and Shane went to live with their father in Seal Beach in a two-bedroom apartment. They attended Oak Middle School in Los Alamitos.

“Their father was very interested in his children,” said Barbara O’Connor, the school’s principal. “He got them involved in baseball and tennis. He was like a kid himself in many ways, and liked to play with them. They were always off on an adventure, playing together.”

Oblonsky had suffered nearly a year from pancreatitis, eventually ceasing his work in electronics. In December he was admitted to the Veterans Administration Hospital in Long Beach.

By then, Shane had befriended Lisette Silverman’s younger son, Alexander. The Oblonsky children spent a lot of time at the Silvermans’ beachfront house, sometimes spending the night.

They were on one of those overnight holidays the Saturday after New Year’s Day when a nurse came to the Silvermans’ to tell the children that their father was in a coma and not expected to live.

For David and Lisette Silverman, who were raising three children of their own, there wasn’t a second thought about what to do. They knew they could draw on teachers, school officials and coaches for the support Shane and Michelle would be needing.

“There was never any question, when you think about the alternative,” said David Silverman, 27, a shipment scheduler for a steamship company. He feared that the children would be split up and shuttled between foster homes or institutions if no one stepped forward.

“If we could have 10 more like them and could give them all what they need, we would do that too,” he said.

On Jan. 6, doctors removed Joel Oblonsky’s life-support systems. He was 51.

Relatives came for a memorial service and then left, approving of plans for the children to live with the Silvermans.

The Silvermans and the Oblonsky children struggled with decisions over living arrangements and logistics. Bunk beds were moved in, chores were parceled out and the Silvermans adjusted their schedules to incorporate two more children with active lives.

On top of it all, they had to deal with another kind of loss. In a misunderstanding, the children’s belongings from their old apartment were thrown away by cleaners, and with them went some important memories.

“There were a lot of things I wanted that were important to me,” Michelle said. “Like Jacques, my stuffed monkey that my dad got me when I was 5, and other things.”

*

In spite of young lifetimes of adversity, the siblings hold vivid and pleasant memories of traveling with their mother, and of encouragement from their sports-minded father.

“He spent a lot of time with us and took us to all our sports,” said Shane. “He came to all my games. He even was a coach for football and baseball.”

The children recite the facts clearly and articulately; they are more subdued, as young teens and preteens can be, when discussing emotions.

“Emotions, they have no meaning to me, maybe because I have so many that it is physically impossible to count,” Michelle wrote in a poem, one of many she has written. “Mentally it might be possible to count, but it will take some time. But time goes by so fast.”

To provide a base of stability for Michelle and Shane, the Silvermans and school officials are emphasizing the foundations that had already existed: neighborhood, friends, familiar activities, sports and school.

These days are hectic at the Silverman household--and crowded. Beside the Oblonskys, there are Lisette Silverman’s sons from a previous marriage, Andrew, 14, and Alexander, 12; and the Silvermans’ daughter, Ariana, 5.

Lisette is continually taking inventory of the kids--”1-2-3-4-5,” she counts out loud (the missing one is usually Ariana).

“We’re a family,” said Lisette Silverman. “We sit around the dinner table at night. We say grace. We’re committed. But for Michelle and Shane, we think we need to let the dust settle before someone says, ‘These are your new parents.’ ”

The Silvermans hope that in time everyone will get the hang of functioning as a family. And, they hope, the lingering pain of loss will give way to a growing bond of love.

In time.

*

A fund is being established for the Oblonsky children. For information, contact officials at Oak Middle School in Seal Beach, (562) 799-4740, or write the school at 10821 Oak St., Los Alamitos CA 90720.