Scars
Fairly random stream-of-consciousness from today...
On Sundays the project kids go to the oratory - all the shelter kids, plus lots of neighborhood kids, come into the largest of the shelters. There are sports fields, and usually they just have free play in the morning, then an in-house soccer tournament for a couple of hours in the afternoon, lunch, catechism classes, and Mass. Today I was there way early, since we had a baptism (one of the kids' kids, so cute!) and so I had a lot of free time with the kids before anything organized started. And I was sitting around just chatting with a couple of the kids, one of them is this really sweet guy. He's 16 but looks more like 13, and is just really tender-hearted. He's soft-spoken and often kind of fades into the background amid the noise and overall rowdiness of 60 teenage boys, but he's often the first to offer to help, and we've had some really good conversations this year. So we were sitting on some steps, just talking, and he was sitting a couple of steps above me.
I knew this kid had been through some pretty tough stuff at home, both from what other folks had told me, and what he himself had shared. And of course it made me mad, and made me feel all maternal and protective, because that's what happens every time you hear these stories. But then there's a part of you that sort of files it away - you don't forget, but you're not thinking about that during every interaction you have with a person. It's never acceptable, but on some level it just becomes a fact of life.
So today, we're sitting on these steps, and usually the kids wear long pants, but today he was in his soccer uniform, and his legs were just at eye level. And I noticed that they were covered in scars. Not huge ones, but sitting there, you could see all these cuts, and burn marks, and other old wounds healed over. And seeing that physical reminder, literally in my face, it just hit me again, with full force, as strong as when I first came here and saw an abused kid for the first time. The anger that anybody could do that to another human being, especially a child, especially this child. And the wanting to just be able to make it all better, and knowing that I can't, and that sometimes the best we can do is help them live with the scars. I just wish I could do more.
On Sundays the project kids go to the oratory - all the shelter kids, plus lots of neighborhood kids, come into the largest of the shelters. There are sports fields, and usually they just have free play in the morning, then an in-house soccer tournament for a couple of hours in the afternoon, lunch, catechism classes, and Mass. Today I was there way early, since we had a baptism (one of the kids' kids, so cute!) and so I had a lot of free time with the kids before anything organized started. And I was sitting around just chatting with a couple of the kids, one of them is this really sweet guy. He's 16 but looks more like 13, and is just really tender-hearted. He's soft-spoken and often kind of fades into the background amid the noise and overall rowdiness of 60 teenage boys, but he's often the first to offer to help, and we've had some really good conversations this year. So we were sitting on some steps, just talking, and he was sitting a couple of steps above me.
I knew this kid had been through some pretty tough stuff at home, both from what other folks had told me, and what he himself had shared. And of course it made me mad, and made me feel all maternal and protective, because that's what happens every time you hear these stories. But then there's a part of you that sort of files it away - you don't forget, but you're not thinking about that during every interaction you have with a person. It's never acceptable, but on some level it just becomes a fact of life.
So today, we're sitting on these steps, and usually the kids wear long pants, but today he was in his soccer uniform, and his legs were just at eye level. And I noticed that they were covered in scars. Not huge ones, but sitting there, you could see all these cuts, and burn marks, and other old wounds healed over. And seeing that physical reminder, literally in my face, it just hit me again, with full force, as strong as when I first came here and saw an abused kid for the first time. The anger that anybody could do that to another human being, especially a child, especially this child. And the wanting to just be able to make it all better, and knowing that I can't, and that sometimes the best we can do is help them live with the scars. I just wish I could do more.