When Brian and I were houseparenting at a group home I made sure every Christmas I sent a card to each of our boys’ families with a picture of their child. After our first year I also started sending a Christmas card with a family picture to the boys who had graduated or who had left our home whether under good or bad circumstances. Our first graduate to receive one of those cards was not a student who was particularly easy to love. But I can’t blame him. When he moved in with us he was 18 years-old and I was just 22. Obviously this was not going to be a typical parent/child relationship. He had been raising himself most of his life and wasn’t exactly ready to turn over the reigns at age 18. He came to us a stubborn and proud young man who just wanted to be free from accountability, but the court system wasn’t ready for him to be on his own yet. He was meticulously clean and organized, loved football more than anything (anything!), and believed Jesus could change a life.
We loved him, but he made the lives of everybody around him difficult. He needed to be right about everything. He got angry in a hot second about anything that struck him the wrong way. He didn’t want to be dependent even if it meant being reclusive. But he had a great sense of humor and worked passionately towards his goals. The bottom line of living with him– if you did want he wanted, he was a joy to be around. But being in a parental role often means you can’t allow somebody to just do what they want. This was especially true in our situation where there were extra rules to keep kids safe and provide lots of accountability. He had to earn our trust to be given privileges that every other kid his age would take for granted.
The day he graduated was a huge relief for all of us who lived with him and I’m sure for him, too. He drove away without saying goodbye. I actually chased his car out of the driveway and banged on the window until he stopped and I could hug him and tell him we were proud that he didn’t give up. We thought that was the last we’d ever see of him.
We were wrong.
Of all our kids, he was the one who kept coming back. It started with a couple phone calls and then a visit. The first time he came we made small talk for awhile, then there was an awkward pause. With tears in his eyes he apologized for being so hard to live with. He said he realized now what trouble he’d put us through. I told him we loved him and we knew it was a hard situation for him. There was forgiveness all around. And the visits kept coming.
We’d meet him for dinner in his hometown an hour away or he’d come visit us at the group home where he’d lived with us and spend some time hanging out with his “brothers.” He’d bring girlfriends “home” to meet us. I’d send him the Christmas cards and picture each year. One year I thought he probably wouldn’t want one since most of the kids he’d lived with were no longer with us, but that’s when he called to hassle me. Where’s my Christmas card? You don’t love me anymore? He said it all with a laugh, but I knew he was communicating the truth of how he felt. I got that card in the mail as fast as I could.
A couple months later he called to tell me he was having some minor outpatient surgery. I asked him some questions and finally it came out that he didn’t have anybody to pick him up and he wouldn’t be allowed to drive himself home. He didn’t even need to ask. We arranged to be off work so we could be there when he woke up from the anesthesia. We helped him dress, got him to the pharmacy and then settled him in at his apartment. He was his usual self– funny, cranky, and trying his best to be independent. While Brian sat down with him to watch a movie I went to the kitchen to do some “mom things”– I scrubbed out his oven, did the dishes in the sink and went to clean out his fridge. That’s when I saw it. On the bare fridge door was our family picture. It was the only evidence in that house that this man had a family. I always pictured him reading my Christmas card and then tossing them since he wasn’t much of a sentimental guy, but here was the evidence that maybe we mattered more than I thought.
In the years since we left that job, moved out of state and had a lot of life changes I have continued to send him cards. Adoption announcements, birth announcements, any way to show him he matters to this family of ours. We continued to call each other every couple months and we were proud to see him having success in his life and finding some stability.
But as I wrote out Christmas cards this year, I didn’t send one to him. For the first time in ten years, I can’t reassure him of how much he means to us. It’s a helpless feeling.
You see, this last year he took his own life.
I wish I knew why this seemed like an answer to his problems. There were ways in which things were finally lining up for him– he graduated from college and was achieving success in his military career. He had friends and a wife who loved him. He had times where he was involved with a church and walking with God. But there was a void that I guess nothing filled.
I can’t fix whatever was broken for him. I never could. But knowing him and his story has left me feeling more and more convicted about how I treat the people around me. While I knew the 18 year-old version of this young man, his wife knew a different man, his friends saw somebody else entirely. I think he was like a duck– calm above the surface but frantically paddling underneath just to stay afloat. It’s made me wonder who else around me in my life is struggling that way?
For the boys who we were blessed to call family, I carry them in my heart. I think about how trapped this young man must have felt by some of the bad decisions he had made. Did I do enough to reassure him that he was loved and that forgiveness was waiting for him? I look at some of the decisions my other boys are making and I wonder if they feel trapped, too. I know God is waiting to forgive them and give them a fresh start. I know His love for them is greater than they can understand. I know it because He’s given me a fraction of that love for each of them and I know how big and powerful it is in my own life. There is NOTHING they could do to make me turn my back on them. I know it’s true because I’ve seen some of their mugshots. I’ve seen the drunken pictures they’ve posted. The children out of wedlock they’ve fathered. I love them anyway. I remember when I helped them memorize Scripture and put band-aids on their knees and talked to them about girls and made their favorite dinners. I remember what it feels like to sit beside them on the couch with their head on my shoulder as we read a book together. They will always be my boys and I will always want good things for them. And what rejoicing I’ve had with their milestones! Honor roll, college success, jobs and stable relationships. All those things are made much sweeter when you know the work that went into them and the generational cycles they’re breaking.
I hope this year as we all continue to invest in the lives of those around us, we’re mindful of the battles our friends are fighting. We don’t know who is furiously paddling under the surface or just barely holding it all together. We don’t know when we’ll have the last opportunity to offer a word of encouragement or give a last hug. I hope we’re taking the chances when they come and reaffirming to each other the reality that forgiveness is waiting.
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