A Silent Song
November 28th, 2008 by ComputerBob
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a survivor of domestic violence, so I consider it an honor to work as a volunteer at a local domestic violence center. Along with serving as a legal advocate, I’m happy to help out wherever and whenever I’m needed.
This past Tuesday night, I was helping take care of a group of 12-15 kids of all ages while their mothers attended a weekly domestic violence victims’ support group meeting.
One of the children is a little African-American boy about 1 1/2 years old. I’ve seen him every Tuesday night for the past few months. He seems like a sweet little guy, but he always has a completely blank expression on his face. In all the hours that I’ve helped take care of him and all the times that I’ve smiled at him, I’ve never seen him smile. And I’ve never heard him speak.
This past Tuesday, I was in the middle of making a third batch of air-popped popcorn for the kids when I suddenly noticed my little friend standing about 3 feet away, staring up at me stoically.
I looked down, smiled, and asked in a happy voice, “Hi! Do you want some popcorn?”
He didn’t move, and his expression stayed exactly the same.
So I crouched down to put my face at the same height as his and repeated my question.
Still no response.
“Would you like a drink?”
Still no response.
I kept smiling at him and quickly tried to think of something else to say.
He kept staring at me.
But after about 5 seconds of awkward silence, he slowly started to toddle toward me. As he got closer, it looked like he was moving in to whisper something to me.
When he stopped, his head was right next to mine, in the perfect place to whisper into my right ear. I waited to hear him speak to me for the very first time.
Instead, a couple of seconds later, I felt his two little hands on my back.
I choked up as I hugged him back.
When I let go of him, he still had the same expressionless look on his face.
I told him, “You’re a good boy,” handed him a little paper bag of popcorn, and he ran off across the room to eat it.
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Tags:
Domestic Violence, Inspirational, Personal, Survivors