I (virtually) met him around ten years ago.
He was just this extremely confused bunch of letters regularly delivered by means of email.
And I was the stranger in whom he soon learned to confide, someone to trust and someone who really cared…
I cannot remember exactly how it all started. I became involved in this Internet counseling venture, where we made ourselves available to provide help and an ear to someone in need. We were supposed to ‘finalize’ every ‘case’ in no more than two or three emails. Four maximum. Until he came along.
At the time, he was still in secondary school, a teenager in years, but an old man measured by the weight that he constantly carried on his two little shoulders. From the other side of the world, he started talking to me about his miserable life. His parents who did not care. His friends who did not understand him. And his depression went so deep into this black gorge of despair, that I was at times seriously concerned about his life.
And we talked and I listened and I offered my shoulder for him to cry on, even whilst I was thousands of miles away. I’ve stopped adding the hours that I sat in my study trying to change his life around or trying to make a difference in the dark hours of his nights.
And he hung in there and things went better and worse and up and down. The see-saw of life which seems to be the fate of so many young people all over the world, kept him in this constant state of confusion and fear.
Years passed. We kept on communicating from time to time. Sometimes he had good news. Got a job, have good friends. In the next email, he just lost his job. His friends are deserting him. Life is so bad to him. No one understands him. No one cares.
And I try to encourage and I try to be strong for him, even though my own life is not always moonshine and roses. Sometimes I wish that I can physically shake him out of his depression, get his mood-meter back to normality.
Earlier tonight he sent me the link to his new blog and I read more about what’s happening in his mind. His parents whom he still does not get along with. His fear of being neglected. His longing to have a job again. His deep-rooted craving for acceptance. He's not a kid any longer, but did he ever have the pleasure of being young and trouble-free?
And my heart still goes out to him. I want to tell him that I care and that I love him and that he must just hang in there. That things will get better – but when?
I hope that his mood-meter on his blog will soon go from ‘bad’ or ‘crappy’ or ‘unhappy’ to GOOD. I hope to one day see a smile on his young face. I want him to tell me that his life is good and that he has a job and that he is accepted by his family and friends. . . . .
Parents, get to know your children, after all, it was your choice to have them, not theirs. Love them, treasure them, protect them, listen to them, and always be there for them.
Until next time…
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