Fifteen

Thing One always loved school starting from his first days in nursery school, so when he came home one day around Christmas of his kindergarten year telling me that he hated school and didn’t want to go anymore, I knew something was up.  It turned out that there was a kid in his class who was picking on him and generally making his life miserable.  I talked to the teacher about it, she had a chat with him and switched some seats around in the classroom, and things got back to normal. A week or two after this I was in the classroom volunteering and met this kid for the first time. Watching his behavior, I understood why he’d upset a lot of the other kids, but as an adult all I wanted to do was give this boy a hug. From my perspective, it was easy to tell that he was screaming out for love and attention.

I met his mother once in the school pickup line. She looked more like his older sister than his mother, and she had a couple of very young children with her as well. I wanted to give her a hug too.

This kid was only at our school for a couple of years, and then he moved and we didn’t hear anything else about him.

This morning, I opened my Facebook page and there he was.  I wouldn’t have recognized his picture because it’s been so many years, but I remembered his name as soon as I saw it. He’s listed as missing from a nearby city and people are desperately trying to find him. He’s 15 years old, just like my Thing One. There but for the grace of God.  If you are a praying sort of person, please say a prayer for his safety and well-being.