The Absence of Dignity

Essay Prompt: "What you get free costs too much" - Jean Anouilh



                                                  The Absence of Dignity



    I drove slowly through a neighborhood, searching for the number on the mailbox

of the new foster home for a scared twelve year old girl.  She was trying to look tough

but I knew better.  I was approaching a public housing project and realized, as did she,

where these foster parents lived.  She mumbled the words, “You can’t make me

stay here” just loud enough for me to hear the fear in her voice.  I thought back to the

time she told me what her mother made her swear, that she promised never to live in

the projects.  She held onto that vow like a parent holding a lock of a lost child’s hair,

a picture of a parent long deceased, the final words of a dying man.  Her dreams became

a leaky vessel, with eleven holes and not enough fingers to staunch the flow.



    I wanted to present her a box to hold these treasures until the time I could rescue her

from this place she so feared.  I knew she would die a thousand deaths before I returned.

I also knew it was my face she would remember, she would blame, not the agency that

licensed this home and paid my salary. It would be my face in her nightmares, the one

who took from her the only words her mother ever said to her without a fist.  I looked for

a reason to turn around, to give her one more day to keep her promise but I was new to

the agency, and not free to just turn around and choose another home.



    And so it came to pass, this child entered a strange home, dragging her garbage bag

suitcase, and I saw on the ground behind her a trail of broken vows.  I, as the unwilling

accomplice, picked up the broken pieces and tucked them gently in my pocket, in hopes

that I may someday return them to their rightful owner.    Someday, when she is older or

at least wiser, perhaps she will understand that there are limits to freedom and there is

strength and wisdom born from pain and broken promises.  I would like to think that the

wisdom her mother shared had little to do with living in a housing project and more to do

with a philosophy of life.  It was a wisdom earned the hard way, but learned too late to

keep her from losing custody of her only child. 



    Through this experience with this child and her mother, I have learned a few lessons

as well.  Nothing is truly free except what we freely give to others without expectation of

return.  A friendly smile, listening without distraction, showing interest in a child’s future,

these are things which cost so little and the absence of which costs far more than any

of us can afford.  I also learned that a soul cannot truly thrive in the absence of dignity. 





SWPoet

487 Words