In my November 12, 2012 post I recalled a young man that approached me on my first day on the job and introduced himself as "the worst kid here". For what it's worth, that young man never gave me any grief or reason to consider him "the worst". Still, a few years later, he was accused of a crime and went away. He came back recently and decided to reconnect with us. I saw him for the first time today...in over 17 years.
17 years...More than a school career. A touch shorter than the age that most of our youth begin their journey here at Covenant House, which means that when he went away, there very well could have been some current youth being knitted together in a womb.
I wasn't expecting him. I knew he was out and that during my vacation he had visited another staff member. I received a call from our other building that "Lenny" was coming over to see me and wanted to make sure I was there (unbeknownst to me, he had been there the day before but I was out of town). When I heard someone at the front door I went out to inspect and it was him. When he saw me, he laughed. He gave a warm, good, meaningful hug hello.
What do you say? What do you talk about to a kid (now in his late 30's) who remembered beepers being the norm? Saw the first African American President elected behind bars? Lost almost 2 decades of his life for a crime he claims he didn't commit?
This was not a youth with whom I kept in touch, at least not for the long haul. I was not as close to him as other staff. Still, apparently, I'd sent him a letter and picture early on of me and another staff with whom he had a closer relationship and had continued to offer support for many years. "I still have that picture you sent of you and ___! I always kept it..." Wow...
He stayed for an hour. He told me stories of prison life, things you hear about in the paper or on specialty news programs that you can't believe are true but really are. How to act, what to say, how things work, what he had to do to survive, politics...for 17 years. I'm sure he "vanilla'd" the stories for me, not getting too graphic...but he painted the life in a way that was not unfamiliar to the countless "just-came-home" stories I've heard from other kids.
He took out a cell phone at one point. I asked how hard it had been to get used to the update in technology and the changes in the world. I remembered that he was a smart kid--very well spoken, into things that the majority of our kids were not (he listened to heavy metal versus rap/R&B). He seemed to navigate the screen just fine, having only been out in the world for 70 days to the day. He said his first meal had been McDonald's, only because there hadn't been an IHOP nearby.
I listened, I asked questions, apologizing for being too personal at times but given the wave of the hand of permission to delve. I looked into his face, several pounds heavier than I remembered back in 1999, and was struck with the familiar--the cadence of his voice, the dismissal of behavior, the acknowledgement of faults...It made me kinda sad because he's still our kid, in a way. He didn't have to come see me. He didn't have to come and see my co-workers and ask about "so-n-so" and recap stories of times gone by...but he did. And now he's 3_ years old, beginning a new phase of life (with a job and secure housing, thank God), and trying to undo some of what he's had to do to survive for the last 17 years.
At one point he said, "I'm trying to get back the pieces of me I had to set aside to survive", or something like that. He was comfortably seated in the corner of my office, a position I know helps former inmates feel secure because they can see from all open angles. I hope he finds them(the pieces)...I was humbled today to be in this young man's presence. He pointed to an old photo of me I have on the wall from 1999 with dark brown hair and he said,"THAT'S the Jen I remember! What's with all the blond hair???" (this was before staff was "Mr." and "Ms.") I can't even imagine what part of him wanted to reconnect with me, that 26 year old he remembered...but still, he came.
As he left, he gave me another hug--strong, not "weird", dare I say "family-feeling"...God bless you, Lenny...
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