Knocked Back to Reality

I began today wracking my brain for what write, what to enlighten my readers with today and I couldn't come up with anything really pertinent so I went back to folding, stapling and mailing brochures. When 2:30pm rolled around one of my favorite kids came in for homework help. He's 8 years old, a handful and has a few learning disabilities so patience is key with him.

He came in today with a huge grin, ready to fight me about doing his homework. So after 30 minutes of arguing over everything under the sun and holding his shoes for ransom, we finally began his addition problems. During which time he kept leaning back in his chair and tilting the legs back...I told him time and time again to stop leaning back until I finally told him, "if you do that one more time, you'll lose computer privileges." He looked at me blankly and I responded with, "do you know why I keep telling you to stop?" Again, he offered me a blank stare and I proceeded, "it only takes once for you to lean back in your chair, slip and smack your head against the wall." Then he said something I don't think I'll ever forget:

He turned to me, as if looking past me and said, "my cousin is dead." He took me by surprise, so I responded with, "what do you mean?" This boy gets confused easily and as I said, he has learning disabilities so sometimes he doesn't mean what he says. He went on, "My cousin went to the store to go get books like the ones I got and when he got outta the car some people shot him. I went to his funeral." You can imagine my shock...I said, "I'm so sorry J'Ron. When did this happen? Are you OK?" He looked at me, completely unphased to the magnitude of what his words meant and said, "he's not coming back."

My heart broke. This little guy, who I've gotten to know as if he's my own, didn't understand the concept of death and what "a shooting" even meant. My eyes got really watery (of course, it's me, duh.) and he looked at me, climbed on my lap and said, "what's wrong, Miss Katie?" I said, "nothing, J'Ron, I just get sad sometimes."

I'm not sure if a revelation has hit me yet or if this story even has an over-arching social justice/human rights conclusion but it's something that hit me, struck me very hard and I thought I'd share it with you. I guess the idea of this post is that you never know where a kid or person has been or what's happened to them. I'm here...I'm here to do God's work, to be his hands, eyes and heart. It means that I sometimes have to hear some sad stuff...some real stuff that forces me to remember that this year isn't just a "volunteer year", it's a year to add so much substance and worth to not only my, but other people's lives.