and Victor smiles still

Characters:  Myself, Victor (15), Brian (8), Volunteer (25)

Setting: Homeless shelter "Summer Kids" program.

Victor has always been a little off. He's 15, but he doesn't really act like it. He never wants to be too involved in any of the games we play, or crafts we do. He's interesting. He can be very sweet. He can be very rude, as well.

Him and his little brother and sister have been coming to the Summer Kids program all summer.

They are homeless.

All summer, Victor would get into trouble for doing things like throwing toys against the wall, but when you scold him he would just smile really big and say something like "oh, I'm in trouble?  I shouldn't do that?", and not in a sarcastic way, more like he just forgot that throwing toys against the wall was not allowed.

Finally, I got him to sit down and build a marble maze with me.  When we finished he wanted to show another volunteer what he had built. He kept trying to get her attention, so I told him, "Victor, you know her name!" He told me he forgot.  "Well, read her name tag".  At that point he turned to his little brother, who is 8, and goes "tell her. Tell her, Brian."

"Victors brain is messed up",  Brian said.

 "No it's not, Brian, that's not nice to say", one of the volunteers had overheard him. But Brian continued. All he had to say was 2 words.

 "his dad..." I couldn't even bring myself to listen. I knew what he was going to say.

Victor doesn't have a genetic disease. He wasn't born a mentally handicapped kid. No cerebral palsy, no down syndrome.  He was a perfect little baby. Normal. Maybe he was destined to be a genius. But he was abused as a kid, and now his brain is scrambled eggs.

I looked over at Victor and he was just sitting there smiling that big goofy smile, God love him. I walked into the employee lounge and cried.  He was FINE as a baby, totally normal, until his dad threw him against the wall for crying. That idiot (read: f*ckhead) messed up this kid's whole life because he couldn't control his temper.

Victor is 15. He can barely read. He has no fine motor control. He has limited social skills. He probably won't even be able to graduate high school. 

But the kid has a great big smile.

After I finished crying in the closet I came back out and pulled out Pictionary, and Victor and I practiced writing the different words from the game cards on pieces of paper, and they drawing a picture to go with them. I'm not an education major, so I don't know if our little activity helped him at all, but I figured at the very least it worked on his fine motor skills.

And I think he enjoyed our 1 on 1 time, because he was smiling that big goofy smile.

Comments

[Sarah Elizabeth]

That story breaks my heart. But Victor is blessed to have you and others in his life now that will help him excel. So proud of you for helping him out!