Mama Bird

by Leslie Purvis ’93

It was such a beautiful evening. The stars were shining brightly, and it was quiet except for the fading sounds of a passing train. I sat on the ground with a little boy in my lap, kissing him on the head as he cried, telling him that everything would be all right. Around us two state troopers and a social worker were deciding his fate while his family bickered in the background. But where we were it was quiet, and I kept kissing him on the head and telling him everything was going to be all right.

I had just chased him down before he could run in front of the train. He had gotten in only a couple of pinches and a weak attempt at a punch before he melted into my safety hold and started to release more of the emotion that
was erupting from him that night. I’d have to wait until I got home from work at 2:30 that morning before I could do the same.

The next day at the skating rink, my fairy godmother kept telling me, "If your job depresses you, then quit." I hadn’t allowed myself to admit that it depressed me until then. I had admitted frustration, anger, disgust, and a whole variety of other bad feelings in my four and a half years as a case manager for severely emotionally disabled kids, but never depression. In my mind, I was responsible for the lives of the 16 kids, and I didn’t have the right to be depressed. But once my fairy godmother opened that door for me, I walked right in and soon found myself mired in a swamp of despair that I had kept bottled up for all those years. The hardest part for me to deal with was that it wasn’t my despair. I had become a prisoner of the despair of my kids. Once I realized that, I could no longer help them until I freed myself. That would take a couple of job changes and a lot of soul-searching.

So, for a while I became lost. I found myself trudging through my daily life while trying to make sense of what was happening to these kids. Trying to get what was happening to these kids out of my soul. Trying to free myself from their horror, so I could once again help them.

It was dark for a while. And through that darkness ran images of a little girl who had shot herself in the head; a little boy who sobbed uncontrollably as I held him down; a red-headed girl who threw me around a room like a rag doll; a baby with flies all over her; a little boy pointing a gun at me as he matter of factly and rather proudly said that he also knew where they kept the ammunition; a seven-year-old boy who tried to run in front of a train.

But eventually, other images began to appear. Three boys singing "I Try to Think About Elvis" with me in the car; a little boy who could not swim jumping gallantly into the deep end of the pool in a doomed yet hilarious attempt to help another boy; a little Tarzan perched on top of the tubes at Discovery Zone while harried workers tried to get him down; the middle-school boy who burst with pride at being seen as a leader to the younger children; the surprised expression on the face of a huge teenage boy after I grabbed him by the shirt and lectured him on tiptoes about following the rules at the pool.

And then there was the room full of kids singing every word of "I Believe I Can Fly" at the top of their voices. When I need to remind myself why I have chosen to work with children, all I have to do is close my eyes and remember the earnest voices of that choir. Each kid has the potential to fly, and all they need are mama birds to show them the way. My calling in life is to be a mama bird, and I will have to deal with some of my babies falling out of the nest. But I will swoop down, pick them up, and continue to teach them how to fly.

My little boy of that eventful night is in middle school now. I took my fairy godmother’s advice and am two jobs and several years removed from him. He recently came to see me out of the blue. He’s doing well in foster care; he’s been away from the home since that night, and it doesn’t look as if he’ll be going back. He had gotten quite a bit taller and finally had some nice clothes. He said that he wasn’t getting in as many fights at school as he used to, and I told him how proud I was of him. He smiled and gave me a big hug.

And off he flew.

Leslie Purvis ’93 works in drug and alcohol prevention in Henry County, Ky. Two of the programs she directs are the "Love a Child Mentoring Program," which provides positive adult role models for at-risk children, and "Students Against Harmful Products," an after-school and summer program that uses the creative arts to teach middle-school students about drug and alcohol prevention.