Wanting a new family….

On the last week of school I was triggered by something that happened. Rarely do I feel like this but this situation reminded me of something I used to do as a child. It was like looking in the mirror now as an adult to how I felt as a child. We have a family in the class I work in that is a very close knit family. They came to our class and shared stories about their families and the legacy each one had. The grandparents came in and shared stories with us about their lives and how they live. As I said the family is very close to one another. The children in our class listened to the stories and we passed around a talking rock and they could ask questions or say something they liked about what was said.

One of the children looked at the mom whose children are in my class and said I love you and want you to be my mom. Every time the child sees this mom he says he loves her. Even at a very age this child knows that his family is not so good sometimes.

That was something I did as a child. Anybody that was really nice to me, I wanted to be part of their family. When I stayed with my girlfriends mom we went away and stayed in a Hotel. When the week was up I begged her to let me stay and live with them. When your home is hard you look for what you see as good. It was like looking in the mirror and it broke my heart. The family had no idea why this child was saying that.

After school was over that day my teacher brought up the instant and it was hard to fight back those tears as I remember doing the same thing. I realized that there are many children who feel like that everyday. They wish that they could live in a family that they would feel love in and cared for. Where there was no pain. How many children in my school feel that everyday or any school in our city. That’s the part of my job I hate even though I totally understand why they did that. I want to just wrap my arms around them and never let go but that’s not how our world works. All I can do is love them and build up trust with them in my class and let them know through that, that I’m a person they can come to.