I’d so love to write a coherent account of the last 24 hours. But, that’s not going to happen tonight. I’m running on less than 5 hours sleep and, apparently, I need a whole lot more than that to function after 12 hours of being awake…and playing a lot of charades.
There was a whole lot of smiling and an equal amount of awkward when the crew of 5 kids and 2 chaperones arrived past midnight to greet a bunch of people anxious to catch the first glimpse of them.
All seemed happy when they caught on that we were all leaving together.
Until they were not happy. The emotions of it all and sheer exhaustion overcame “Jasper.” The boy who was a ring leader and firecracker at the airport was in a heap. M.Y. (“Brett” for advocating purposes) remained stoic in the car even after we dropped “Jasper” and his host mom off at their house. And, he remained that way as we quietly walked with him around our first floor and then invited him upstairs to the room he will share with Drew. As he stood in the middle of that room, standing strong, he started to sniffle a little and then started crying.
There is nothing quite like the cries of a child who feels entirely alone in his heartache.
I eased him onto my lap where he was able to sit with me without having to look right at me. There he remained and watched Drew and Mark play with Legos, the two of them thinking aloud for his benefit, knowing full well that he could not understand a single word but hoping that he’d hear their voices responding to each other, sense the relationships and safety, and be comforted.
He was.
We soon had this.
And, then we had this. He was brave enough to take his shoes off.
At 4:00am, Drew suggested that the two of them try to go to sleep. With every layer of clothes still on, M.Y. climbed into that bottom bunk and closed his eyes.
