Children are unique in their own special way genuine, innocent loving, rarely doubting yours, assuming and expectant walking with a purpose head up high asking “Why?” saturate interpret;
adults comment may offend, criticize with slight or no intent but cause them still discontent makes them question their self worth, turns their life from grief to mirth roller coaster rides begin games are played don’t always win, grieving, growing stumbling, laughing learning rules avoiding fools mentors make them wiser hardships make them stronger, perhaps they’ll find romance, promise and commitment never-ending love soul mates are for life two turn into one, in the end, procreate having children… cycle spins again love ensues power fuels everlasting love.
Do you remember January 1st, 2000? I remember looking up into the sky at those fireworks, at 00:01 standing on Front Street in Toronto. Many people worldwide wondered if our computers would crash and what the future held for us. I knew I had a passion to reach out and help. In July I crossed a major threshold in my counselling career by joining Kids Help Phone. This would be my career of the new millennium! I’d won the Lottery!
Who knew, crossing that line, my life would change forever? I had joined an agency that offers a unique service to youths in “their” mode of comfort, in their style, in their time, from the comfort of their own place. I was hooked for good!
Like so many people who work at Kids Help Phone, either behind the scenes fund raising, spending tireless hours promoting this unique service or the endless hours listening, counselling, responding to on-line messages or chatting on Live-Chat…I fell in love with this amazing family who cares about reaching out to youths across this vast country, reaching out to cities, towns and more isolated regions where help and hope are often scarce.
The uniqueness is the availability, the free access and more notably the anonymity of this service. Finally a safe place for youths to reach out and not feel judged; youths, who sometimes are sharing for the first time, exploring their options and feeling a sense of empowerment because THEY are in charge of their call. Some youths may have been robbed of this privilege by abuse or neglect; here they are heard, respected and believed. As a counsellor, I do feel privileged accompanying a youth on their journey. I take the lead from the expert…the youth on the other end of the line or the other side of the screen.
Most youths who call are looking for some direction and may not know where to turn. Most do have good caring supports but don’t want to worry their family or friends. And then there are some who don’t have this…
The prompt for this story says to Dream Big. Wow! I can make up a story, a poem or write about something I have always wished for. The options are endless and you know what? Today my dream may be different from my dream tomorrow or next week. Are not dreams part of who we are? Are they not mere escapes at will in order to survive the world in which we live? Since this is my birthday weekend, I decided to add more than a dream and more like a celestial dream…something over the top and a dream I have wished come true many times.
A call of hope
Dawn tilted her head as she listened to the other teen at the end of the line. Let’s call this caller Gabriella. “I can’t take it anymore,” she wept, “My father is coming home in a few hours and I know he’s going to…you know….”she sobbed softly. Dawn could hear the fear in her caller’s voice. She was barely a teen, her mother died last year . Gabriella had no one but her father now. He’d started drinking heavily after his wife died. She had an auntie and grandparents but she was too ashamed about what “they did” that she did not dare ask for help…until tonight.
Dawn listened, and tried to reassure her caller. She asked her if she could go to her auntie’s house for the weekend and it would give her time to think about what she might want to do later. She encouraged Gabriella to call the youth line again from auntie’s house.
Dawn waited…there was a long pause. “I guess I could go but he won’t let me stay overnight usually because, ….well, you know…” Dawn thought about that for a moment and did something she has never done before. “Go to your auntie’s right now. It’s just a short walk. Bring a bag of clothes for 3 or 4 days and once you get there, tell your auntie your father gave you permission to stay over.”
Gabriella interrupted, “But I already told you!!! He will be angry and he gets violent when he gets mad. He’ll just pick me up there and drag me back home. I’m too scared to do that.”
Dawn repeated softly, “Sweetie, I know you’re scared. You are a very brave girl. You reached out here tonight and took a chance to tell someone about your situation. I get it. And you know what? I trust that you can do one more brave thing and that is to go to your auntie with your bag of clothes. Leave a note on the kitchen table saying your auntie needed you to babysit and help her with the children for the weekend. Then call me as soon as you get settled at your auntie’s. Is that okay? Call back here and ask to speak to Dawn.”
The caller hesitated and then said, “Okay, if you say so. You will be there when I call back?” Dawn reassured her that she would. They disengaged.
Dawn then went into the quiet room where counsellors often went to unwind after a difficult call. She shut the lights, put on her “special music” her smart phone, lied down on the comfy couch and put in her ear buds. Soft angelic voices hummed softly, followed by a violin crying melodiously and Dawn could feel herself drift off. Her soul seemed to lift from her body and float above her for a moment and then it floated away.
Gabriella hurried to pack her bag and walked the 4 blocks to her auntie’s house. As soon as she walked up the steps, her auntie opened the door as if she were expecting her. She said, “Hey there, Gaby, I was waiting for you. It’s so weird. I fell asleep a few minutes when I put Jimmy to bed and had the weirdest dream. You were crying out to me running away from a monster. It was the scariest thing.” She hugged her niece warmly. “Well, come in sweetie.”
Gabriella’ father arrived home and shouted out to his daughter but there was no answer. He looked around the living room, went to Gaby’s bedroom and then came back to the kitchen and saw a note on the table. “I’m staying at Auntie Sue for the weekend or maybe longer. She needs me to help with Jimmy and the baby, Gaby”
He was fuming with rage. He threw the table against the wall. Suddenly, he heard a strange sound, a violin a woman chanting; then he saw his wife! But it couldn’t be.
She floated right through the living room wall. The music continued and this apparition that resembled his wife floated up closer to him.
“William”, the apparition said. It was not the voice of his wife but her face was so, so, lovely! His wife who he missed so much was here. The voice seemed harsh at first. “William, I have an important message. Sit down and listen. I will only say this once, so pay attention.”
The voice spoke of the Great Spirit of slipping to the other side and consequences. It was a long speech and although he was scared there was something peaceful about it. As the apparition slowly lifted, the strings of the violin intensified in a melody that wrapped him with intense emotions fear, guilt and wonder. He wept for the first time since his wife died, and wept and wept. Then he called his sister-in-law.
Gabriella couldn’t believe her ears! Her auntie gave her a message from her father. She was so surprised.
Dawn heard a knock at the door of the quiet room. Her colleague announcing that her break was finished and time to get back on the phones. She stretched and could not help feeling tired despite her nap. She felt like she had run on her usual 6 K run on Lakeshore. She rubbed her legs and went to her workstation. The phone rang, “You’ve reached a counsellor, how can I help you?”
“Hi, Dawn, I have a caller who says you told her to call back, let me patch her through.”
“It’s Gabriella. I’m at my auntie’s like you told me to do. And the strangest thing happened. My father is going to rehab and will be away for a few months. He said we’ll talk about my staying with Auntie for good and maybe he’ll just visit me for a while instead. Isn’t that strange?”
Dawn smiled, nodding gently a tear running down her cheek.
Written for: The Seeker’s Dungeon. This week’s prompt is Dreaming Big (running from March 6 – March 12) Click here to see what other writers have contributed to this week’s prompt as well as last week’s.
I was a teenager when my sister gave birth to my nephew, my godchild. I never thought my life would be quite the same after his birth. Mom and I were so excited and silly happy (if that is a correct expression). We had always been “girls” at home. We knew nothing about boys. Well, the basic plumbing, I guess but nothing about little baby boys. I had boy cousins. Mostly they were older than me and a few younger but we were too young to pay much attention to how a little baby boy was, how a little boy interacted with the world. They were just cousins, sheesh!
I remember the first time Mom was changing his diaper and I was right next to her…like I said, keep in mind, we did not know much about little baby boys. Well, the air must have triggered his urge to…peeee and squirt right in Mom’s eye…she just laughed…I tell ya, we were just so silly! I loved that kid so darn much and when I became pregnant years later, I was a bit apprehensive. I wondered if it was possible to love a child as much or more than I loved my godchild.
That is when I had this earth shattering discovery…it was possible! My son was born after many years of trying to start a family. We had been trying to conceive a few years after our marriage and when the miracle finally happened, I gave birth to a beautiful, picture perfect, “Gerber look- a- like” baby boy on November 7th.
I remember bringing him home that first day from the hospital, laying him in the middle of our double bed; I undressed him and just stared at him thinking to myself, “Such a little human being depending on us for everything …absolutely everything!” I was scared, overwhelmed and high on adrenalin for having our baby…finally! I planned to be the best I could be and give him the best he deserved. Oh, boy, what a tall order but it was my hope and intention. His father felt the same.
Breastfeeding was no picnic the first few months…but I was determined to give him the best nutrition humanly possible {that human would be me alright…ouch, ouch, ouch!} but that did pass eventually. I wanted to nurse him for 4 months and return to work as we only had 4 months in those days. But he was not quite ready to eat and everything was going so well…that I prolonged it to 8 months and the nursing 18 months! Hey, when things go well, why stop?
The first few months when he would wake up for a feeding, I remember shuffling over to his crib in his bedroom next to ours, thinking to myself, “Boy oh boy, I had been trying for years to have this baby …good thing I reeeeeally planned for this.” It IS tough those first few months. How to read each different cry, moan, whine. Getting used to nursing is not so easy when you have fair skin that can burn easily… But after 2 months it went uphill all the way. That too did pass.
Our neighbours had two 2 adolescent girls who became babysitters later…they stopped by often after school just to see him…not me much, I don’t think, I don’t think I was that cute!
My life changed completely. I used to have ambitions and goals. As a couple we had dreams too and this first house was a home but also a “wise investment”…maybe later we would get a bigger house. But having this child changed my goals as well as my interests. Material things like a bigger house or bigger car seemed so trivial to me now.
Having a child walk through a field of wild flowers and stop every two seconds to smell them made me see the world differently. Watching him stare at an ant hill as if it was a 3-D movie for 30 to 40 minutes at a time, made me stop too and start looking through his eyes. I was given a second chance to see the world differently.
Fast forward to the teen years and he started playing guitar. Going to sleep at night whilst he practised on his classical guitar with Beethoven as my lullaby. Being exposed to his CD’s of Hendrix and Zeppelin gave me a second chance to savour these classics. Growing up I was into Motown, Beatles and Rolling Stones…that was pretty much my interests…
Having children allows parents to rediscover the world. It allowed me to play again…playing in the sand and making mud pies is fun!
I have to say that my fear of not knowing if I had enough love in me for another child was quickly dispersed…no problem there…the love is rooted inside the core of a human being…and if your child hurts, you hurt, if they are happy, you are happy, when they are giggling with joy, you can’t help but laugh along with them.
Someone once told me that a mother’s love is like a flame on a candle, you can light many many candles from that same flame and the flame will be the same…burning just as much and glowing just as beautifully…so I knew I had as much for our daughter who followed almost 3 years later.
Toddlers and pre-school children are supposed to laugh until they pee their pants, play with silly putty, draw, paint with their hands and feet, walk barefoot in mud puddles, make mud pies, pee in the pool, eat chocolate cake with their hands and smear the frosting on their chubby cheeks, jump on their beds, make houses with the couch cushions…okay, alright already…maybe play games on the computer or tablet but the mud puddles are way more fun! Am I right?
Well, I hate to burst your bubble, folks. I just logged on to Facebook, before I get ready for a nice long weekend of leisure….no problems…not worrying about the world, not worrying about youths in crisis because I know if they call the youth line where I work, they will be in excellent hands. I can just feel free like a butterfly until I saw THIS…{I have no clue how to embed links so sorry for that}
If you are like me, you will NOT have be able to read the entire article…skimming quickly through tears was about all I could manage. What is going on people?!!! Of course I am anti-gun but still I am willing to live and let live…and if parents like to go hunting….well lock up the friggin weapons!!! Keep them in a place no ONE will get to or find. Maybe, just maybe, when you are all done with your hunting trips…how about locking up the weapons in a POLICE warehouse somewhere….guarded by real MEAN guards!!
{I am so stark raving MAD right now…anger is so much better to handle than intense sadness}.Notice how I have used ONLY the term WEAPONS! That is what they are. They are made to KILL. Aw, yes, you will say but it is for killing animals. Hmmm, last I checked the same ammunition actually CAN and DOES KILL HUMANS.
I am just so angry, sad, frustrated….now this did NOT make my start of a great weekend…THIS is the reason I don’t watch the news or buy newspapers…guess I am going to have to cut Facebook because there is always someone who wants to share bad news:(
Maybe this was a bad Thursday the 13th hoax…I am hoping that perhaps this is a hoax…yeah, that`s it! It may be a hoax that has gone viral…yeah, that must be it…
PS. if this IS true, no matter how frustrating this is, my heart goes out for the grieving parents…I cannot begin to imagine their grief:(
Tournesol dans un Jardin 