Sunday, May 6, 2012

Please Pray. . .

For a 10-year-old boy I'll call Little A, and his family.  Little A is one of 8M's most faithful buds/playmates; he's at our house enough that he's almost like another member of our family, and he and 8M sometimes squabble more like brothers than neighborhood buds.

Jen and I have sort-of taken Little A under our wing, just a bit.  His family life has been, to put it mildly, pretty chaotic.  He has mainly been raised by his grandparents, who are neighbors of ours, because his parents are both. . . well, not always sharing the same reality as the rest of us, shall I say.  His father was actually a grade-school classmate of 1F, back in the day (and I'm sure that says something, that our youngest child's playmate is the son of a classmate of our eldest child. . .), but just hasn't managed to pull his life into a coherent pile.  His mother has been in prison for the last couple years (she went in around the time his father got out; are you getting a sense of the situation?)

So yesterday, fairly early in the morning, the doorbell rings, and it's Little A, asking after 8M.  I had to tell him that 8M wasn't home; he was in another town, attending the First Communion of another of his friends.

"Oh," said Little A, very matter-of-factly.  "Did you hear that my dad died last night?"

He said it so plainly that it took a couple seconds to sink in.  At first, I thought he was talking about his grandfather, who has had some health issues in recent years.  But no - he was talking about his father, who apparently shared some of his own father's health issues, and years of hard living had sort-of accelerated the process.  He was 28 years old.

So the poor kid is without his father, who had actually been making some positive steps toward straightening his life out in recent months.  And his mother is in prison.  His aunt, his father's younger sister, is a paraplegic, since a car accident a few years back.  And his poor grandparents are just crushed by grief.

There are no words.  I just let Little A in, and set him up with some video games in our family room (with the comforting thought that 8M wouldn't be pestering him to share the remote), to just give him some chill time, because, as he said, "Over at our house, everybody's just crying all the time."

So, I would solicit your prayers for Little A, and for his grandparents, and the rest of his family.  And that God would give us the love and wisdom to help give them what we can. . .

15 comments:

  1. Prayers coming your way. It seems as though with some families, it always rains :(

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  2. oh that poor little guy. sadness upon sadness in that family. yes, i will pray.

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  3. The saddest thing is that it probably all seems commonplace to him. Ditto on the prayers.

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  4. Thank you all for your prayers. It's just one of those 'mysteries of life', ain't it? The grandparents certainly aren't bad people; they were raising their kids the same time as Jen and I were. But as much as I've bemoaned some of my own kids' awful choices, their kids made even worse ones. My parental heart breaks for them.

    Who can know what the future holds for Little A? He's a couple years from his own teen years, and there's a part of me that worries about that a great deal, on his behalf. But as long as we've known him, he has seemed to be one of those resilient kids who manages to transcend his genetic heritage. So we will see. . .

    Jen and I have chosen to live in the city, at least partly out of a sense of mission, and it has been gratifying, on occasion, to have our family be able to be an oasis of stability in the lives of some of our kids' friends (and when our family is an oasis of stability, that's really, REALLY unstable). But there's always the heartache. . .

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  5. My best thoughts for Little A. It's just terrible when children have to endure grief like this, not to mention the horrendous family life. I'm not casting aspersions at the grandparents, as I'm sure they're doing the best they can, it's the parents I'm on about. So sad.

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  6. Prayers going up, my friend. For Little A and family, 8m, and you and Jen as I'm sure this will take a toll on all.

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  7. Buck - Thanks.

    I know what you mean. And of course, the grandparents have their own set of 'what did we do wrong?' stuff to deal with. . .

    Xavier - Thank you.

    And yeah, the ripples just kinda reach out in all sorts of directions. . .

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  8. Oh my. I can't help but think that your family will indeed be counted in Little A's memory as one of those safe harbors that kept him moving in a good direction in life.

    Praying for him and for your family.

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  9. Thanks, Flutter. That would be our hope. . .

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  10. I said the prayer as soon as I read the first line, then I read the rest and found out the story. How sad for the little guy. Neighbors like you and yours are a blessing, of course, but how much can one small one take and still retain a semblance of normality? Here's hoping much good happens, soon, to balance out the tragedy.

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  11. Suldog - Well, I hope we are a blessing. But yeah, I know what you mean; pretty heavy burdens for such a little guy. And yet, we've all known people who came from utterly horrific childhoods, who thoroughly transcended them. . .

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  12. I heard a couple of brief tales the other evening that give some hope. A lady from the local foster care agency came with one of the foster mothers and gave a presentation to our Lions Club.
    The basic message is to answer when someone calls for help. The hard part is recognizing that call.
    It's super that you and your home are open for that little guy to help him lift his burden... and that he feels safe with you.

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  13. Thank you, Skip; you are very kind. . .

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  14. I've been travelling, so am behind on reading blogs- but my prayers are flying

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  15. Sailor - Thank you, my friend. . .

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