I've never felt unloved. It must be a terrible feeling. Yesterday, in Tijuana, I took twelve year old Isidro shopping ... not for clothes or food but for an orphanage that he would feel comfortable in.
I don't like that kind of shopping.
What hurts most of all is that Isidro isn't a bad kid (yet.) He's a thin quiet boy who goes to school even though he isn't encouraged to. On off days you might find he and his buddy Luis working along a local dirt road, filling the big pot holes and hoping some drivers will give them a tip. They earned $4. one day. The other day he proudly showed me his watermelon plant and tomato plant near the house.
Twelve, the critical age.
He knows I like figs, so after I left he climbed a neighbor's fig tree and picked me a load of ripe figs, but I didn't return for about a week ... so much for the figs.
To his stepfather Isidro is a threat; to his alcoholic mother he's a liability. It seems the only one who really loves him is his dog.
At one point in the 'shopping' tour we sat alone in an orphanage and talked about the changes he would experience becoming part of an orphanage. The freedom he would have to give up, and the rules and discipline he would have to accept.
I told him very clearly; it's an orphanage or the street, you have to choose.
Isidro sat looking into my eyes and listening. No questions. No emotion.
In the afternoon we arrived back at the small shack he calls home, I told him to think things over and be sure of his decision. I'll be back Saturday, when he's to give me his decision.
As we got out of the car, his mother met us on the street. "Why did you bring him back? I thought you were going to leave him at an orphanage!"
How would you feel if you were Isidro?
My world is full of unloved and worthless kids ... but who really cares?
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