My heart is heavy and my mind is troubled, making it difficult to let go of the day and surrender into sleep tonight.
This afternoon, I had the opportunity to spend several hours with a bunch of teenagers. In a matter of minutes, they were opening up to me, revealing their ongoing level of anxiety and depression, the horrible things they had been told their whole lives, how their parents continually forget them and ignore them and belittle them, and how they are self-medicating to remain alive.
They also shared some of the fantastic things they experience together, how they stick up for one another, the deep things they think about, the stuff that makes them laugh, and why it’s important that we all just love one another.
I watched them greet one another with interesting handshakes and long embraces. We laughed together – hard and a lot – as they taught me fascinating things from their generation.
As the sun moved overhead and they grew more comfortable in my presence and the darker truths started rising, my heart began breaking apart. Every child there had lived through – and is living through – abuse and neglect. Every one of them were convinced of their brokenness and in one way or another expressed how big of failures they were. All except one were at odds with both of their parents and could find nothing complimentary to say about the adults in their world. Every one of them was at risk and I could sense the tenuous grip with which they are clinging to this existence.
Just as I prepared to leave, one of them said, “I never asked who you were. You’re just so cool, I didn’t think to ask. But… who ARE you?”
“Oh! I’m Angie. I’m Kaitlyn’s mom.”
Her eyes grew big and she exclaimed, “Wait! YOU’RE Angie?!” She turned to her friend, “THE Angie you’ve told me about? YOUR Angie?!”
Her friend nodded, grinning.
The young lady burst into tears, like instantly sobbing, covering her face and said, “Oh my god! You’re Angie! I love you so much! Oh my god! I can’t believe I got to meet you!”
She was crying so hard that I asked her if I could hug her and she said, “Yes! PLEASE!”
She melted into my arms, sobbing and apologizing for sobbing, then crying harder and apologizing some more.
It was the truest, most loving response to my presence that I have experienced in a long time.
Our children today are living in a terrifying world that is filled with violence because we – all the adults who came before them – have built it as such. They are doing everything they can to remain upright, even though most of them don’t want to. This is a tough world! Worse than any of us experienced at their age and darker than we know. And I realized, as I said goodbye and left the five now-tearful kids, that ALL they really want and need is to be seen, heard, and loved.
Today, I had the honor of doing that for them.
