8:36 a.m. - 2005-06-11
Matthew Rant
Even though the kids accepted me on faith, readily allowing me into their uniquely painful worlds, I was desperately insecure about my self perceived lack of counseling chops. I believed that the kids were somehow being cheated, but just didn't have the discernment to know it. I felt that certainly there must be someone more qualified who could actually salve their gaping wounds and offer them positive direction. Feeling like an imposter, I experienced persistent stage fright. Preparation for each counseling session was accompanied by a sometimes irresistible urge to vomit. Once with the individual kid, it would subside and the session would proceed rather effortlessly. The toll it took on me, however, was measurable. I was nervous and off center hours out of each day. Back home, I struggled to explain this to Tom and to elicit his support and maybe even some helpful suggestions. He had a good mind, albeit one that was often clouded by one foreign substance or another. Still, having spent his life in the system, I expected that he might understand. Instead, as my problem flourished, I found him increasingly remote. He became more and more aborbed with George "The Animal" Steele, some grotesque wrestler, his daily ration of pot and alcohol and phone conversatiions with his boss' son which mainly consisted of mutual, "Dudes". The loneliness within the walls of our apartment became so oppressive that I took to walking up the street and sitting under some high school bleachers, crying. Getting ready for work everyday became a monumental chore. The daily traffic jam became a welcome reprieve. Stopping at the gas station mini-mart for coffee became an exercise in prolonging the agony. I said very little to my supervisor for fear of exposure. I felt that my shame eluded their attention and it was best kept that way by minimal contact. But Matthew was aware. Matthew could not tolerate anyone's suffering except his own. He would do anything to alleviate the tears of a total stranger. His blue eyes were the clear sky in which my gathering clouds found welcome rest. Tenderly, he would put on his clown face and ape about the courtyard. He did not mind being the butt of the joke if it made someone laugh. Matthew was the most egoless person I have met. He had no eye out for his own well-being, no safety net, no Plan B. He could not be offended no matter what. He would simply absorb whatever blow landed from whatever source, gracefully and without blame. This was called developmental disability. I would call it the prayer of St. Francis. Matthew was most probably an angel. I wouldn't be at all surprised. He easily surrendered even the space his body inhabited on planet earth if another might have use of it for any purpose. He seemed to waft into my presence just when he was most needed. For a game of ping pong. Or to mop a tear on his grubby t-shirt. To provoke me out of lethargy with his sudden, startling self. We roamed the purple and yellow hillsides trailed by worldweary delinquents, now laughing like the children they were, just missing rattlers and scorpions. We were invincible, protected by the sheer joy that erupted in spite of itself when we were together. With Matthew by my side, the demons seemed to scatter, overpowered by his innocence, recoiling from his light. It was true that he could not read or write. That he signed his name with a wobbly "x". That he had been given the job of child care worker by a government program for such as he. That he had no aspirations and no illusions. That he faced each day as if it were a blank slate on which he could scribble only fleeting and incomprehensible impressions. That his irreverent humor challenged any and all pretensions. That he hid his own sadness in those bluest eyes and you had to look so very hard to see even a trace of it. And that most people didn't have that kind of time. Matthew was a diamond passing for a dusty marble. A Godsend. Kids are cruel by nature, but wounded kids recognize their own and will not inflict more pain. They could see into the forbidden chambers of his blue, blue eyes. And they respected him. Who else would teach them that baby rattlers are much more dangerous than adults, because they don't know how to regulate the amount of venom they spew?. Who else would teach them that turkey vultures can shake a rattler to death with their bare beaks? Who else would show them how to hide a couple of cigs in their crew socks so that they could smoke in their rooms after 'lights out'?. Who else would teach them that love can truly be unconditional?. And who else would see into the abyss that was my heart and call my secret name, whistling me out of the darkness?
�
�
