Seven years ago while pregnant with my first child, another — fully-grown — child entered my life.
My husband and I signed on as mentors to a foster child, imagining a toddler or even a preschooler.
“How about a teenager?” the employee at the group home for boys asked us. A few minutes later she introduced us to 17-year-old Reggie: tall, cocky, and sporting a million-dollar smile.
On that first meeting my husband shot hoops with him, while I sat on the sidelines, feeling rotund and out of place. How could I possibly bond with this teenager that represented everything my own childhood wasn’t?
Over the next year we developed a friendship. We learned that he had spent his childhood bouncing from family to family, and ultimately a group home. He liked junk food, girls, and our baby boy—who was small enough to fit inside his baseball hat. We introduced him to savings bonds and gift cards, and let him pick the restaurants.
He joined us for Christmas, even spending the night, taking over our couch while my newborn son took over the rest of our one-bedroom apartment. I remember feeling anxious. I wanted to give him a memorable holiday full of everything I loved about Christmas.
Turned out that what Reggie treasured most was the remote control. When you’re a teen-ager sharing a television set with 10 other boys, watching whatever you want for as long as you want is better than Christmas itself.
We didn’t change Reggie’s life. We simply provided a couch, a break from a miserable routine, someone to shoot hoops with, a remote control, and a glimpse of a happy family.
The biggest gift was simply showing up. Every six weeks or so over the course of a year we boarded the bus to his group home, sometimes taking him back to the city with us. And on one particular spring day, we put our six-month-old in a collared shirt and clapped like mad when the principal called Reggie’s name at his high school graduation. We were the only people there for him that day.
On the way home, an alternate scenario played in our minds: the name “Reggie” followed by silence.
A FAIR SHAKE
I’ve been thinking about Reggie a lot lately. Like many Second Mile children, he lacked what my kids have and what my friends’ kids have: a fair shake.
I’m not embarrassed to acknowledge my own positive, albeit limited, experience with Second Mile. As soon as we moved here, we contacted a representative, and asked how we could help out. We told them about Reggie, and how we hoped to develop a similar relationship with a Second Mile child. It never quite worked out that way, but we made a few small donations, and volunteered with various programs, including the Second Mile Leadership Institute.
Like everyone else who has ever volunteered, we gave our time or our money out of a sense of fairness. Or maybe even guilt. Because we couldn’t imagine a world where no one shows up for our child’s graduation. The motivation doesn’t matter, only that we acted on it.
As the words “sex abuse” scream nonstop from the television screen in the HUB, our desire to restore hope is stronger than ever. Our community has opened up its collective wallet, and made it clear that our support for the victims is unwavering and that we demand stronger oversight for the organizations that are supposed to be helping children. Many of us are still searching for a way to channel our outrage into something positive.
My hope is that this scandal kick starts a broader consideration for all children in our community facing adversity, from the ones living in the teen shelter to those who are getting their holiday dinner from the Food Bank.
After Sanduksy was charged many people argued that Second Mile should be permanently shut down. As I read those posts, an image jumped into my mind from a Shaver’s Creek Halloween Festival. Three boys, dressed in Halloween costumes, were running through the grass, accompanied by someone I recognized from Second Mile. The kids were grinning and having just as much fun as my own kids. It made my day knowing that someone had given them that experience.
Second Mile may cease to exist, but the children who used its services will still be there.
We owe it to them to show up.
