Ok, So FINALLY....

So, today was a good day for me, work wise. I feel like I got a LOT accomplished, and was even able to get home early from visits and checking on the Huffington Household. But all that pales in comparison to what happened in my 4th (of 6) visits today.

See, I have a young man who I have been working with for over a year, on and off. This 5th grader is the type of kid that is sweet, and will probably grow up to be a heartbreaker - HUGE blue eyes, thick blonde hair - but to say he is slow would be a understatement. He lost his aunt a year ago, and some other important family when he was very young (trying not to tell too much of his story because of, you know, confidentiality and all that...) Anyway, for the last year, I meet with him once every two weeks, and for the last year, I ask him how things are going, and for the last year, I get shrugged shoulders and "fine,""ok," or "good" as an answer to everything I have talked with the guidance staff at the school, and his teachers, and they all say that they think it's important for me to stay in there with him,that he will open up to me eventually. Against better judgement, I would keep seeing him, keep playing the same games, keep asking the same questions. He didnt like art, and talking to him was difficult. So we just played UNO. Again. And again. And again.


Today I walked into the school and told the guidance staff that I would probably be closing his case after today, that after a year of trying, that I wasn't sure how much I could do for him, and that I would refer his family to a counselor who could deal with some of the other issues in his life, and then should he be ready/able, I would come back to do the bereavement piece. She agreed, and called him down to the office for me.


I had jenga with me today, instead of UNO, because I am sick of playing UNO. I have written words related to family members, emotions, places and life events on some of the Jenga blocks. If you pull a block with a word on it, you have to ask another member of the group (or when working solo with a kid, the other person at the table) a question using that word. (example: the word on the block is "questions" "Do you have any questions about the medication Mom takes for her cancer?") We played Jenga for a while - same old behavior. The tower fell down eventually (I think it was me), and the blocks went all over the table.


I'm starting to put the blocks back in their container when I realize he is using the blocks that fell in front of him to build...stuff. It's not really a tower, it's no a person, it's just stuff. He reads one of the words that was on the fallen block. Then, like someone turned a knob, he starts talking about his mom who died when he was a baby.


And talks.


And talks.


And talks.


The whole time, he is playing with the blocks and I slowly pull the blocks I had put in the containher back out onto the table, and I start playing with them next to him. I am gently asking him questions about how he feels when other kids talk about their moms, and how he hasn't told anybody that his mom is dead. He talked about how when his aunt died, she was like a mom to him, and that it felt like he's lost two moms now, and it "isn't fair." He talked about how he doesn't remember anything about his mom, and how sometimes he watches videotapes of her with him when he was a baby and "hurt my brain trying to remember when that happened, but I can't, and it makes me really sad."


Eventually, I have to send him back to class. It's the end of the day, and he needs to get his bookbag and coat to get on the bus. As he gets up, I told him that he did a great job today, talking, and I thanked him for sharing all the stuff he told me.


And for the first time since I met him, this fucking kid smiles at me when he walked out of the room.

The pay sucks, but it's on days like this that I love my job.