prayer for D

Usually my days consist of things I can manage, like I had a fight with my mom, my father drinks too much, my friends are mad at me, I'm failing math.  Etcetera.  Sometimes things get more challenging.  The chronic things: depression, anxiety, depression, anxiety, and depression and anxiety.  Mental health afflictions that I cannot cure in six sessions.  But I can help a bit.

But now I am helpless.  My case is a sixteen-year old boy who has been abandoned by his mother.  For real, abandoned, as in she has left the country, and left him without money or food or a way to contact her.  It would fall under the challenging umbrella because I knew what to do when these were the facts.  But then things got complicated when I started having him gather up his papers to apply for support.  Complicated because it turns out he is not a citizen.  Even more complicated because he is in the country illegally.  His mother snuck him in.  And then ditched him.

I have stopped seeing my children whose parents are fighting over them.  I have stopped seeing my children whose parents are too strict, too lenient, too neglectful, too drunk.  I have stopped seeing anyone but D because he has no parents, and he needs help more than anyone else in my world.

The ironic part is that he does not want my help.  Or at least that is what he tells me.  But he cries sometimes.  And his hair is falling out because of stress.  And he says everyone lets him down.  There is no point in telling his story a million times to the million different agencies I have contacted in the last week.  There is no point because his life is just going to be like this.  He already anticipates that he will have to live on the streets.

I'm fighting for him.  I'm telling him he's stuck with me, and I'm not giving up on him.  But he doesn't believe me.  I'm sure he is afraid to believe me.  I cannot believe it myself when I look at this big Spanish boy with a moustache who looks like he might be twenty-two rather than sixteen.  I am terribly afraid that he is going to disappear before support kicks in.  I am terribly afraid that I will become one of a long list of people who have disappointed him, made him promises and not kept them.  I have been raising hell - but what if it isn't enough?

If I was a religious person I would pray for D, if I was less interested in keeping my job (and my marriage) I would cross all the professional boundaries and bring him home with me.  Instead I am driving myself crazy, as well as all the social workers in my city, calling and nagging, pestering and harassing.  Nothing is fast enough when a child is in danger.  And in pain.


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