Spend Yourself {Day 25} :: On People ...

Friends came over last night and we sipped coffee and they talked about family... how it can be sad sometimes and just feel all wrong. They told about parents who left gaping holes.

How mixed-up love can sometimes go bad and leave you wide open ... lacking.

And we talked redemption and healing and the evening ended with Jesus.

But I couldn't help but think back to last year:


I'm at work on a Wednesday and I walk through the locked metal door. That all-star therapist peeks her  head out and stands to meet me. I adore her and she doesn't give herself enough credit. The work she does...

She pulls me aside to tell me that "my girl" is waiting for me today... to be ready. I haven't walked on the hall yet. I call it The Gauntlet because once I step across that line into visible space, they descend. The teenage girls who live here all day, every day, will flock like gulls and I need a report from the off-going crew. Then I'll take a deep breath. Go.

"She just spoke with her mom," the therapist says. "She will give up custody. Just isn't invested."

I sigh, drop shoulders.

"You just need to be prepared," she tells me. "And I'm glad you're here tonight. For her."

I nod. I know.

And when I step onto the unit, I see her there in her usual place. She is pacing, leaning into the cinder block wall ... shoulder rubbing, holding her up as she goes. This is what she does when she needs to work through a moment, to decide what she will do next.

I know her. She will pound her fist and the tears will come. And after that it depends on who is around, to talk her down ... or up. And it could be any one of these sensational staff who does either.

It is like Russian roulette.

I walk to med room, count narcotics. Check all things check-worthy. I hear her. She is pounding now and this is always the part when they look to me.

"What do you want to do , Ms. Abby?"

And when all eyes are on me I wince. I am not a decision maker but this job has pushed me, like a shove in the back with whiplash, into a leader role. This hospital policy will allow for "hands-on" if a child is unsafe and this is a big deal.

Because this is some one's child.

Whether they want to relinquish custody or not ... this is some one's child.

And I sometimes wonder what I am even doing here.

I should be home with my own.

And so I don't jump too quickly. I know she can work this out, but she hits the side of her fist on hard wall now. She keeps breaking her hand and how do I not get excited, talk her down?

What do I know of mothers who abandon?

I decide to join her. Find her stride. Wave everyone off. We will do this together.
Tears are streaming and she says she's trying to use her skills. She bites her shirt and I laugh and tell her not to eat through another one-- her chin all tucked inside with wet ring on cotton. We threw her other shirt away just last week.

I tell her to stop pounding, tell her I don't feel like sending her out again for x-rays. She smiles and it's a good sign. She links both her arms around my one, latches on tight. We are in step and she slows ... asks if she can show me something. I wait to be invited into her room and when I enter in and look, I am stunned.

There on four walls, nearly top to bottom, are pictures: of mothers and babies.

Mothers holding babies. Mothers cradling babies. Mothers kissing babies.

White walls covered in mother love and I am blown away. On every picture, ripped from trendy magazines, she has written her name. She has named them ... given every infant on the wall her own birth name.

They are all her: held, cradled, kissed.

This long neglected seventeen year-old girl sits on edge of bed and tells me how she feels. She used to shut down, flail, and fight. She couldn't make a request ... didn't feel worthy of one. She used a pacifier to soothe herself to sleep. And now? I listen and realize how far she has come in these months. She has made poor choices, yes, but she is learning.

She pulls up sleeves, shows me her pain in black ink-- every wrong word in every which way. This is what she calls herself and I offer to help her clean up, to help her replace those words with words that are true. We walk to sink and make water warm...find good soap.

I  rinse black expletives and hurt down the drain and soothe with encouragement. Compassion.

I glance up for paper towel and her affirmation list catches my eye: her reminders displayed in a prominent place.

1. I am lovable
2. I am a good girl.
3. I am safe here.
4. I can ask for what I need.
5. I can say how I feel.
6. I am beautiful.
7. I will be a good mother...

I will be a good mother...

I read her ball-point scrawl on paper on mirror and I am undone. I hold my breath and my face gets hot and these white walls are moving.

How inadequate I can feel at this mothering profession and here I am, linking arms with a girl who just wants the time back ... just wants it to look different.

This mother-longing has worn her right through, hollowed her out, laid her bare.

And I brace myself in that moment, one hand on counter and one hand on hers.
I look her straight in the eyes and I tell her.

"You will be." I say. Her eyes ask the question.

"You will be a good mother."

She falls apart and falls into this shoulder and this mother-nurse plants feet firm and waits out the storm.

And I know this lacking will end with her. 

Because He can make all things new and He can graft us in to new family and she can be the first to offer a different kind of parent-love.  

That night she waits at her door, leans into hallway and asks to say prayers.

I enter in again and she takes the lead.
She says the Lord's Prayer.
She reads Psalm 145.

"One generation will commend your works to another... the Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth."

I turn out her light and tell her she did great work today.

And she sleeps under dreams on walls of what could have been ... dreams of what will be. I marvel at how far she has come. I offer her up and I am spent ...

And this is how it goes.

Because we spend our whole lives on people. We don't always relate, but we enter in. We don't always know what to do, but we walk alongside. We point people back to Him when they become muddled, hazy grey, and we ask them to do the same for us. We offer hope. We live out this hope together, side by side, every single day. Because, really, this is what life is about.

People.

And it was all for the love of people that He came down ...

Work on a Wednesday... when a story becomes so much more

I'm at work on a Wednesday and it is bedtime.

These kids on this unit are babies. And these halls will officially close in a matter of months and around here we are in high gear ... trying to get these babies out of here and into real beds-- under real roofs.

Because on this hallway everyone is between the ages of 6 and 11 and the higher-up folks would prefer they move out of treatment centers and into families. I can't say that I blame them. Don't get me wrong-- we treat these little people like our own and what they have here is good. For some, it is the best they've known. But this isn’t the place for the long-term and they do need to be in homes-- where meal trays don't come on the hour, where life is larger than this hallway, where they can sprawl on the rug on a Saturday morning and just ... be.

Next door, the hall is filled with big kids twelve and up. And I'll be there permanently when these doors close, when we get these guys settled elsewhere. And over there they are too grown in so many ways, wise beyond their years and it is sad to see their true age in their eyes.

But here, it's just like my own house in a lot of ways. Behaviorally speaking, many of these kids stalled out around age three or four and so they throw tantrums (really good ones) and they throw objects and they kick and bite. And they scream when they hear “no” or “not now” and they are picky eaters and bedtime can be a full-on disaster.

We know that routine and consistency and patience and compassion go a long way-- allow for security and decreased anxiety-- and so we do our best to stick to these ideals. And at bedtime I have become the nurse who reads stories. The staff says it isn't in my job description … that I have important paperwork to complete, official people to call.

I think about my own little people at home, secure and sleeping sound. And this story-reading is a no-brainer, really.

I can offer this.

For thirteen weeks back home, I show up on Wednesday mornings at church. I walk through that open door to be with all-star women and learn about Esther. At noon, I pick up my babes from the nursery, then rush home to feed peanut butter and jelly before leaving again in scrubs.

And my shift starts at 3 and I am there for the bedtime disaster. The air literally changes as the anxiety creeps up the hall. And as the lights go low, little faces appear at doorways needing water and snacks and hugs and a little assurance. The staff and I, we feel like the crazed woman in that gopher game with the giant rubber hammer and just when one babe settles in another pops his or her head into the hall … “Can I have some milk?”

We talk and figure out how to lessen nighttime tension. We find they are simply being rushed. Their peace can’t keep up with our adult pace. They can’t transition well and when we rush them into bed the anxiety rushes in as well. They just need more time to let minds catch up withbodies. They needed tuck-ins. They need stories.

One boy loves Magic Tree House. This little wispy, whimsy guy can’t sit still for a million bucks but he can tell you about bats and sonar and lizards and dirt.

Another stuttering sweetheart loves Spider Man. For another, it is Junie B. Jones and it is worth every minute to watch her giggle at Junie’s antics.

And one little gal just loves the classic tales: Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Gingerbread Man. So when I ask her what we are reading I already know and I chuckle to myself before we start because it just doesn’t get old.

She is seven and a tiny tank of a girl with mini biceps and a belly and braids in rows with beads … and a mouth like a little sailor. She falls asleep with the radio too loud on a too grown station and I wait ‘til she snores to turn it down, or off. So many of them do this-- fall into sleep with loud music in ears, radio literally propped on pillow. And I wonder what they have trained themselves not to hear in the background.

When we read the Ginger Bread Man she changes it up a bit and we sing together every few pages ... after that deviant dough-man meets the farmer and the cow and the sly fox.

It sounds like this … more or less.

Run, run as fast as you can!
You can't catch me I'm the-
Wiggity- wiggity- what- what!?
You know’! I 'm the ginger bread man!

And we say it loud and we bounce a little with for-real rhythm, our hands in the air, fingers pointing and punctuating each wiggity-what.

But when I leave bible study the first Wednesday and head into work, I wonder if they know the story of a girl named Esther.

When bedtime descends, I ask this little darling if she would like to hear something new. I tell her it is, in fact, a classic. I pull a chair next to her desk and I tell her what I know from that morning back at home.

And she is hooked.

For the next three months I come in on Wednesdays and tell a little orphan girl about an orphan named Esther ...who lost her parents, was raised by an uncle, who was esteemed for being true to herself, who became queen, who saved her people. And this tough little cookie is taken by a girl.

And she waits for bedtime and she grabs my arm and she brushes teeth too fast and forgets to flush the toilet and dives into her bed on the first prompt.

She needs to know what happens next ... so long ago.

I tell her it can be her story too. Not the queen part … or saving her people per se ... but the part about being alone and brave and a little lost, wondering what will come of all this mixed up life.

Because even a seven year-old needs to know she has a purpose and a hope and a future.


A seven year-old needs someone to tell her to hang on for the good part … that she is worthy of a story with a good ending.


That the God who wrote that script is also writing hers.


That she has not been forgotten.


And long after the thirteen weeks are up, she is still retelling this tale to me. She knows this story-- Haman and Mordecai, the decree, the fasting, Xerxes and the scepter...

When we finally close up our doors in February, we have spent the last few weeks with just 3 or 4 children on the unit. It kind of feels like family and one by one, they are placed in new homes.

It is hard to say goodbye.

They are so small, this bunch, and it's impossible not to wonder ... what will become of them?

So when a co-worker feels a tug on the strings of her heart, she is brave. In an uncommon but heroic staff-act, she trades in her badge for this little Esther-girl and they walk out on that last day together.

I watch her leave with her little family and there is a little skip in her step and they are sort of simpatico.

And I smile and laugh out loud as it rings in the air here...

wiggity- wiggity- what- what...

I marvel at her story that is already written and I offer her up with the thanks.

Because with this job there is always the prayer.


And there is always the thanks.

For what higher privilege is there than to be a teeny side note on a page of a great and timeless tale...?




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Thanks for grace, friends, as I post my Wednesday post on a Thursday...eek! Still learning how to do this little life and keep self-impoed deadlines too!

At work on a Wednesday ... if you're living like a fugitive

I'm at work on a Wednesday, logging details on each kid before clocking out to drive the forty minutes home. It's eleven o’clock and the news is on.

The lights of the community room are off and it still smells of burnt popcorn. There are black and white bits strewn on the floor, cradled between plastic couch cushions. I am half listening and half typing-- documenting medication administration, bedtime compliance, group attendance...

I hear on the t.v., "Fire, robbery at 7-11, an endangered runaway missing tonight..."
I glance up and catch her picture. My chin drops with my heart and I feel it in the gut.

She is one of ours. She is sixteen.

This gal on the run is no stranger to these halls and I have witnessed, firsthand, her ability to flee.

And I’m not surprised that she is on the run.

She's been with us several times-- in and out again. The last time she resided with us, she jumped up and over that chain link fence while kids and staff stood frozen-- basketballs and tennis rackets in hand.

She hit the concrete and just kept going.

We called the police and they found her, claimed her. Then a family member claimed her too …
but only briefly.

I thought she would have come back to us by now.

Because she usually calls to “check in” around this time of night, when the lights go low and the anxiety turns way up. We always answer, pass the phone, and encourage her. We ask her where she is and what she is up to and is she taking care of herself? She tries her best to shock and stun us but there is nothing new under this sun and we simply stay kind and objective.

We remind her all that she learned here.

And then she asks if she can come back.

But she hasn't called lately.

And I am surprised by this--

because she was six the first time she moved in and I wonder if this place, though sort of sterile, was the best place she ever laid her goth-black hair. She lived in nearly every room on this hallway and bits of her-- like that burnt, smelling popcorn-- are scattered all over, hidden in cracks.

Often here for a year at a time, she passed full seasons and stages of her life on this hallway.

In the piled-high 'donations' room there is box labeled with her name. Every time I rummage through that space I catch a whiff of her: loose papers with dark words, worn through black jeans, black composition books, black spiked belt, sketchbooks in black ink that make me wonder if she ever drew a rainbow or an apple tree ... or a puppy.


And there’s the baby doll-- the one we gave her at Christmas when she admitted she had never owned one. She painted that baby’s fingernails black and tattooed her fat little arm in ink on the night she unwrapped her.

And then she carried that baby everywhere.


She ate good food here and she slept in safety. She went to school and worked through near-debilitating trauma. With all-star therapists and lots of time, she waded through her past in safe space. Her countenance softened and she stopped wearing black around her eyes.

We cheered her on but she felt unworthy of the praise and every time she made major progress,
she panicked. She was afraid to think of things getting better… for fear they would just get bad again.

During these times we watched her close-- logged her every move on a yellow caution sheet-- because we knew her patterns and how fast she could outsmart us.

And more recently I find, in a pile of girl- things labeled MISC: a black underwire bra with no wires.
I assume it is hers, because she just wasn’t safe and we had to take every precaution. Despite all our efforts at safekeeping, that mastermind girl wasn’t daunted by hovering staff.

I'm still typing on the computer and I'm in my head. I'm with her on a night not too long ago. She panicks again and I find her in her room. Follow my gut and do premature check-in. I see what she's done and I grip her hands and grab raw wrists- stinging arms- and escort her to safe room. I scrub her down in silence and wrap her in gauze and then I do what they say not to do.

I plead with her to deal with her "stuff."

I tell her again ... how she has high value, how she is loveable, how she has a purpose and it won't always feel this bad, cut this deep. She drips red onto white tile and paces four steps one way, four the other. Back and forth, over and over. Tears fall hard and saltwater dilutes this wine and in the moment I don't know which is thicker.

She rants about fathers gone and mothers who should have protected from step-fathers. She yells why and she looks right into my soul ... hurts so deep and she is numb to tears and sting alike. I am feeling it for her and I have to turn around for a minute and breathe. Because there are no good answers and I can’t cry like this and how do I stay therapeutic with my mother heart bursting?

I just want to hug her tight.

But this girl doesn’t do hugs and the hurt is here for the taking-- wide open, visible, gushing--

only I'm not the one who can bear this burden.

And in this room I pray she might meet the One who can.

But that was then and she isn't under our roof tonight. I wait to clock out-- hoping the phone might ring and I wonder when this grand chase will end. She is a fugitive and I know full well that she is wanted.

WANTED

The news has moved on to other news but I am static, praying the Hound of Heaven on her heels.
She is on the run and being pursued. If she only knew by whom, this charade could cease.

I stand up to go and I call to her in a whisper … “Come home, girl."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you are on the run, I pray you might cease this game of chase. Run home. And should you chance upon a girl in black,  or any young soul whose appearance may offend ... I pray you might look closely. He/she has walked a long road. Might you see, instead, a young beggar just like you ... and then graciously offer the bread.