By Jim Weber
Reprinted from the Touchstone Support Team Letter, November 2004.
Derrick called me tonight to say that he might not be able to meet with me next week. We met together for the first time this morning during second period at Stratford High School, and he began to tell me about his life.
Derrick’s mother is a crack addict, mentally unstable and violent. He didn’t mention his Father. While he lived with his Mother he learned to take care of himself. He learned how to run away from danger. He learned to find a place to stay when his Mother put him out. When he needed clothes or food, he learned how to sell drugs to get what he needed. And he learned that he was better off on his own than following someone else’s rules. He could do for himself what no one else would do for him.
Even when the Department of Human Services took Derrick from his Mama’s apartment and placed him with a foster family, he took care of himself. Too often a foster home is just a temporary stop on a long homeless bus ride. Derrick has been through many of them. He would have liked to stay with Pam and Leon, but they gave him up after his Mama started threatening to kill them. He would have liked to stay with his Auntie (euphemism for newest foster mother), but she called the police to come get him during an argument. He was trying to do what the teacher of his anger management class taught him – ask the person yelling at him to stop so he could avoid going into a rage. But his Auntie wouldn’t stop. He left before the police caught him.
Derrick called me from a bench on the street outside his friend’s house where he will stay tonight. He’s used to avoiding the cops. He has a false name picked out, and he’s changed his clothes. He wants to go to school tomorrow, but he knows they will catch him, if he does. He’s heard they’re planning to send him to an alternative school anyway. He’s mixed up, frustrated, and sad. But he’s grimly determined too. He knows this game. He’s played it a long time. And he’s only fifteen.
When we met this morning Derrick and I talked about the two paths ahead of him. One gets him what he needs now – stylish clothes, a car, enough food, fun, and freedom for today – but at a high price. He can sell drugs to make money. He can stay independent, set his own rules, and have what he wants now. But that lifestyle is dangerous, full of fear, always running, always hiding. It’s no life for a family, should he decide to have one. He knows it’s immoral. But it’s all he knows to do on his own.
The other path is the long hard road to a stable, respectable, successful life – the dream most of us have for our lives and the lives of our children. As a Father, I lay a brick on that road for my own children every day. Precious few have been laid down for Derrick. No one has taught him fundamental skills of co-operation, sharing, learning the rules, working hard, sitting still, listening quietly – skills that make it possible to live in a family, learn in a school, or function at a job. Instead, he’s been taught to survive by his wits on the streets.
It took us almost an hour this morning to talk through those two paths. Just before the bell rang, Derrick asked if we could get together again later in the day to keep talking. He must have gleaned some clarity, some glimmer of hope from our conversation. He wanted more. When he called me tonight to tell me that he might not be able to meet next week because he didn’t know where he would be, I could tell he wished things were different. He just doesn’t know how to make them different. Not yet.
Is there hope for Derrick? I believe there is. If he can stay alive, he has a chance. I think of Crystal, who grew up in similar circumstances. She’s a senior in college now, and she has a bright future. I think of Kellon who’s alcoholic Father put him through an abusive childhood hell. He’s a junior in college. Both have risen above their tragedies. And both can point to one or two people who took an interest in them when they were lost. Someone cared and taught them to care. Somebody hoped and gave them hope. I want to be that person for Derrick .
At CiViL Groups we meet a Derrick almost every day. Hundreds of them walk the halls. We know we can help them, if given a chance. And, just like Derrick, we want more.