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Half-asleep I wander down the halls of the Boys and Girls Club. After one month of monsoon-like weather, I consider the sunlight streaming through the huge glass windows of the Boys and Girls Club a positive omen. Although this is now the start of my fourth week at the club, my stomach does little backflips because today is the first day of summer camp. After weeks of working with kids, I know that it is best to have no expectations about the camps. Expectations confine us to previously constructed ideas, and this summer I find my greatest joy—as well as my greatest sadness—in allowing myself to live in the present. As I walk toward the gym, I see a red blur run past me. With a club that serves over three hundred children per day, I do not always see the faces of these flashes of light and energy. This time, however, I hear the sound of feet stopping and then running back in my direction. Like a steam engine panting and sweating, a little body jolts me as I feel someone giving me a hug. I look down to see Josua. The boy who sat in the director’s office a week ago for misconduct looks up at me through his glasses and says good morning.
I once heard someone say that “Silence can speak louder than words,” and I find that these words have as much meaning for seven year olds as seventy year olds. After my hug, Josua tells me that he wants to play basketball. Normally, he talks and talks and talks, but this morning I notice that he is more quiet than usual. Soon we are dribbling up and down the courts, and Josua takes great pride in sinking more baskets than me. He is slowly progressing from his “catapult” and “diaper” shots to more graceful free-throws, and he looks at me for my smiling approval and nod of the head. With each shot his confidence grows, and I see the talkative Josua returning. The big topic of conversation for every kid who walked into the club today was seeing the fireworks display from the Fourth of July. I remember (and still feel today) the awe and excitement of the pops and booms, starbursts, sunsets, and chrysanthemums of Independence Day. Thinking that fireworks are an appropriate and safe conversation starter with Josua, I ask him if he went to see fireworks over the weekend. His answer surprises me. My question does not stop his play. “Nah. Not yet. My ‘real’ dad is taking me to see the fireworks tonight.” Real dad? I have heard kids talk about stepdads and moms, but this is the first time I’ve heard that term. “Oh your real dad? Where does he live?” I ask Josua. He bounces the ball under my legs before weaving between several boys to retrieve it. Out of breath and panting again, I hear him say “My real dad lives in the town near us. He doesn’t live with us anymore. Mom lives with our stepdad, but I don’t like him very much. He never does anything fun with my sister and me. He didn’t do anything with us this weekend.” Inside, my heart breaks. Barbecues, sparklers, fireworks, and dad’s cooking fill my childhood memories of this holiday.
Josua shoots the ball and misses. He rebounds and looks at me with the most serious look. He stares at the ground and his next words are just above a whisper, but I hear them. “I miss my dad.” Now it is my turn to look at the ground. I do not want him to see the tears filling my eyes. Josua is a boy yearning for hugs, yearning for a basketball partner, but most of all yearning for a father, and I feel inadequate to fill any of these roles. I don’t know if I can fill all of those roles in one summer, but as I reflect, I remember the words my grandfather once told me. “Yesterday is history; tomorrow is a mystery; and today is a gift…that’s why they call it the present.” If these words echo with truth, then maybe I don’t need to fill the voids in Josua’s life. Maybe I need to live in the present and offer him the gift of my presence, and perhaps even my silence, when he needs it. |
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