Particular Desperation

The snow makes Chicago quiet.

Today has not been a particularly busy day. We've actually had very few people come through for food. But the people who have come through on this particular day have had a particular desperation about them.

It's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and it's snowing outside. The first gentleman that came through had recently lost his job. He was fired because of a transfer. The facility to which he was transferred had a 'no previous felony' policy, but the place he worked at originally did not. His felony was from ten years ago, but never will it be behind him. He's supporting his girlfriend, his girlfriend's daughter, and his girlfriend's granddaughter. At the moment, they're living in his aunt's basement, until he can find work again. Until they can afford something better. They had no food.

This other lady's four-year-old daughter is going to have brain surgery. Again. And a DCHS worker was coming to her house and she didn't have anything on the shelves, nothing in the freezer. She was afraid they were going to take her children away from her unless she could get some food in the house.

Another lady, one I've been working with for a few months now, came in for food, for clothing, for baby formula, for diapers. She was so happy when she saw we were open. She's trying to get back into school for nursing, although she told me that she really wants to be a brain surgeon. She told me about her fiance who's in rehab for alcoholism and anger management. When he proposed to her, his mother told him they'd better wait-- that he had to get himself in order before he could take care of a family. I agreed that was good advice. You certainly don't want to start a marriage with alcoholism and anger problems. I was thinking RUNNNN!!

But she keeps talking, and she explains that his father had been very abusive to his mom and the kids when he was little. He'd broken the mom's jaw, three times, before it even had a chance to heal. They had six guns under their bed, and he'd use the butts of them to beat her and the kids. One day, when he went to hit her, she snapped-- a moment of clarity where she decided she simply would not take it anymore. She reared up and stabbed him in the heart. My client's fiance was watching. He was four or five years old. All of his siblings are alcoholics. He's the only one who's gone to rehab. But it's a long road that just keeps going.

It pisses me the hell off when people, people raised like me-- with functional families and good education--, or even people raised better than me-- with trust funds and servants--, complain that when someone is messed up, when someone is a criminal or a druggie or simply can't hold a job for various reasons, that it is their own fault and they simply need to suck it up and do better. They mock, "Oh, but I had a bad childhood!" Then they say, "So did everyone! Childhood sucks. But you get past those things."

It pisses me off because those people have never spoken to those they are so quick to judge. They don't know what "bad childhood" can really mean. They don't understand that there are some things you just can't come back from.

So, yeah. People ask me sometimes why I defend my gang-banger boys. Why I even bother to try and help when they're so obviously not doing anything good for society. But you know? Society has ignored them since they were born, because society doesn't want to deal with such horrible things. Society would rather pretend that it knows what it means to have a bad childhood. But society doesn't know.

What I do, what I try to do, is to be 'society paying attention'. To be 'society caring'. Because, sure. Vandalism is bad. Drug dealing and gang-banging are bad. But they've already lived through far worse and nobody stepped in then. Maybe it's not too late now. Not that it matters. Because I am 'society that knows'. And I've got to try.