As a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department volunteer chaplain, I take advantage of the opportunity to ride along with police officers in the community. The district I have focused on is the Westover District. The Westover District covers 16.5 square miles of west Charlotte. There are many Section 8 housing communities within the district. Last spring, while riding with a second-shift officer, we were called to a local motel to check on the welfare of a woman and her three children (ages 12, 10, and 2). While at her children’s school that afternoon, the woman (26 years old) made comments to school staff that she was going to harm herself and her children. The police officers met her as she and the children got off the city bus. To make a long story somewhat shorter, the woman and the children were living in a motel room. She worked nights at a local restaurant, with the motel staff “checking in” with the children while she was away. During our encounter, I heard her yell at her 12-year-old son, become confrontational with police officers, and watched her dump the contents of her purse on the pavement, all in front of her children. Because of her comments at the school, she was involuntarily committed to a mental health facility. The children were “farmed out” to foster care.
It’s been several months since I witnessed this encounter, but still, it sits with me. At one point in the conversation between the woman and the seven police officers, the group had formed some semblance of a circle. Somehow the two-year-old ended up standing in the center of the circle, pacifier in her mouth, looking up, watching her mother cry. The toddler’s mother was trying to explain to the police officers that she’s just trying to “get by”, but it’s so hard. “Sometimes I just get angry.” As I stood on the outside of the circle, it was all I could do to not run in, grab up the children, (and their mother, for that matter), and care for them.
When I watch the news these days, I sense the same need . . . I want to drive to Texas or Arizona, scoop up the children, bring them home with me, and care for them. It’s not that simple though. There are no simple solutions for the children fleeing their homes and families in Central America. Nor are there simple solutions for young women raising children in a hotel. The numbers . . . and the stories that the numbers represent . . . are overwhelming.
I read website after website telling me to pray and send money. It doesn’t seem to be enough–even in the short term. It’s terrific that food, water, and shelter are provided to many of the children. BUT . . . Who is reading bedtime stories to them? Who is holding them close when they cry? With whom are they bonding while they are away from their parent? Who is singing a lullaby to them as they drift off to sleep–a sleep that is most likely related to exhaustion. I will pray. I will send money. It still doesn’t seem to be enough.
Tonight, I will go home, read a little, feed my two cats, and set the alarm so that I can wake up and go to a job that pays good money, provides good benefits, and allows me to pay my bills. In other parts of my city and in cities everywhere, the children . . . hmmm. All of the sudden, my book, my bed, my job, all those comforts and more . . . it doesn’t seem to be enough.
Movingly written! Eloquent, and I agree. Some of the stories we hear can be heart-breaking.
Wow…that is so true and well written. I totally understand what you are saying. I drove the van for VBS last week and even though I had been on the same roads many times before, I had forgotten the living situation of so many kids. It blows my mind what some of them deal with daily. I needed the reminder.