179 (A-straya)


Image result for lostWe’ve been watching her since the beginning of the year.  She’s inattentive and easily distracted.  Her mom has apparently seen fit to send her daughter to school with enough supplies to outfit an entire classroom.  She absentmindedly shuffles through her pencil box looking for something, anything to keep her mind off her work.  She whispers to her tablemates, plays in her desk, tunes out the world.  179 would rather be somewhere else.


On Monday I received an email regarding 179.  Her grandfather requested a meeting.  When I got to the room 179’s mom and aunt were already seated.  Turns out our little 179 has seen things.  The death of a loved one up close and personal.  Mom’s boyfriend was stabbed to death in the street by another family member. 179 saw it all.   Auntie is going through counseling (her man wielded the knife) but mom and 179 are not.  Nope, the little one in the pigtails at table 3 is just going to have to suck it up and deal with it.
After hearing the details of this little girl’s experience and the trauma she’s been baptized in I left the room traumatized myself.  

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