WORDS HAVE POWER

A few weeks back I went to have breakfast with a former foster youth that I used to work with. It would come to be one of the most powerful moments of my life.

When I first met “Mike”, he was in his late teens. He’d been in the foster care system for some time, but I wasn’t aware of the details. I just knew that he was a pretty good size young man, he hung with a loose knit group of other foster youth, and they typically roamed the streets every night - sometimes out of necessity (nowhere else to go), and sometimes to hustle and make money - often it was a combination of both.

There was something about Mike that made me push him a little; He seemed bigger than his circumstances. A few years after I met him, I cofounded a foster youth apprenticeship program at local non profit bicycle shop. Mike expressed interest in the program, although at the time he was homeless. A few coworkers and I helped Mike temporarily stabilize his housing via a hotel room as we tried to help him put together a longer term solution. The hotel that we found, the only one that we could afford, was roughly 12 miles from the bicycle apprenticeship program. Fortunately for Mike, one of his best friends at the time, and also a former foster youth, had a car. They’d slept in it quite a bit. During one of my conversations with Mike I mentioned to him that he needed his friend, “Bill”, to get him to and from work. Bill was actually already in the apprenticeship program, so it seemed to be a perfect fit. Or so I thought. That would be the last time I would talk to Mike for several years. I never knew what happened.

Cut to this particular morning. Roughly 8 years after I last spoke to Mike. We sat down for breakfast and he educated me more in the first ten minutes of our conversation than I’ve probably ever been educated in my life.

After we ordered our food, Mike began sharing. He started by asking me if I remembered our last interaction. I vaguely remembered, but he remembered as if it were yesterday. He’d asked specifically about our last conversation, and if I remembered telling him that he ‘needed’ to rely on Bill for rides to work. He started to well up, and the tears slowly began. He went on to share with me that when I told him that he needed to rely on somebody else, he froze. Then he started to explain.

He’d NEVER been able to rely on anyone in his life. When he was 6 years old he was living with his biological mother and her boyfriend. Wondering who his father was, he asked his mother. His mother told him that her boyfriend at the time was Mike’s father. A few months later Mike’s mother drops him off at an ‘aunt’s’ house so that she can babysit him. During the visit Mike’s aunt shares the news that the man he’d met was not his father - and that if he wanted, he could meet his real father who happened to be across the street. Both puzzled and curious, Mike went with his cousin across the street. When he met his father Mike said that he knew it was him - because he could feel it, and because he looked like him. They spoke briefly, but the only thing that Mike remembered was his father telling him to never tell anyone that they’d met. After that day, Mike began acting out. He said the reasoning behind it was that he had nobody to trust. The only person in his corner at that time, his mother, “bold face lied to him”. By the time he was 7 years old, Mike was in the foster care system. He would remain in the system until he ‘aged out’ of care. He remained in contact with his mother, but the relationship was strained at best. During his early teenage years Mikes mother finally came clean, admitting that she’d lied about who his father was, and asking if he’d like to meet his real father. Mike agreed. When they met, Mikes father acted like it was the first time they’d met, although Mike vividly remembered meeting him as a child. That would be the last time they would connect.

When Mike turned eighteen and aged out of the foster care system, he reached out to his mother, who at that time was living in Atlanta. She told him that he was grown now, on his own, and wished him the best. That was it.

After exhausting all services available to him, Mike struggled. He was homeless for several years. He was abusing substances, committing crimes and doing his best to survive on the streets. He also spent a good amount of time behind bars.

This time, however, at this breakfast meeting, he’d come to a realization.

As he began to sob even harder, he said, “All I’ve been doing for years is hurting people, because I’m hurting. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore. I want to belong. I want to feel good. I want to care about people and have them care about me. I want to live!”

By this time we’re both crying profusely and awkwardly at Dennys. The best part was that neither of us cared about the optics. We were truly connecting - and we knew that something big was happening. We could feel it.

I vowed at that moment to be help Mike become the person he wanted to be. Regardless of his age, or my ability to serve him through a program. I owed him that. I’d worked with him several years back, but never truly made the connection. Maybe Mike wasn’t ready - or, harder to bear, maybe I wasn’t really available to him. He didn’t trust anyone - and he had a good reason not to. I knew, however, right there at Denny’s, that I was willing to commit to helping him for as long as he needed it. I felt it in my heart that it was up to me to help this young man learn to trust again - and that it was going to be a long road - that would be bound by the most important element in human connection - love.

I have faith that in time Mike will not only trust again, but feel connected and loved. As with all good things, it’ll take time. This time, however, he knows he knows he has support - I’m not going anywhere.