More often than not, the emotion is negative. Most days I can shake it off and move on, but there are days I have struggled not to cry in court. When the facts of a case, or the circumstances of a child, or the sheer heartbreak of a situation, or the feeling of helplessness to fix an issue that so badly needs to be fixed, just overwhelm me and the emotion becomes too much to handle. Those are the days that I try not to cry.
Many of the people that I work with, both the parents and the children, have histories and traumas in their lives that would bring you to your knees.
There are days where the weight of all that history and trauma just weighs too heavy, the pain is so raw, and the reality of someone’s life is so painful, and so heartbreaking, that it has a presence so palpable it can almost be touched.
And then there are the rare, but oh so special days that the tears come not because things are bad, but because they are so very good, because something beautiful and happy and right is happening.
And then there are days, like today, that all those things exist all in the same space. And when that happens, keeping the tears in is a challenge. Because the space that is occupied by that much emotion, by that much trauma, by that much of what is so beautiful and so heartwrenching in this job, it is sacred space.
I posted awhile back about the hopes that I had for a young couple in their journey to become healthy and sober for their little baby. I spoke of how we were all cheering them on so hard. Of how much we all needed them to succeed because we all so badly needed a win. We all desperately needed to see, for once, love win over addiction. Today, I got to have my worker testify about all the hard work this young family had done over the past 10 months. About all the progress they have made. About how healthy they have become. And at the end of that hearing, I got to hear the judge approve for this beautiful little redheaded baby girl to go home to her parents who are now healthy and whole and ready to provide her with the home that she deserves. And as the mama cried tears of joy, and the father beamed with pride, I had to bite my lip and think of other things, to keep my own tears from leaking down my face.
In this same morning, I watched a mother struggle to put her words together in a way that made sense, as it was so clear to everyone watching in the courtroom that she was yet again a loser in the battle she has been fighting against methamphetamines, and against the many layers of trauma that she has experienced in her own life. This same mother who I sat in a room with not two months ago, struggling with my own tears that day, as I assured her, through tears of her own, that she was worthy despite the decisions she had made and despite the things that had been done to her.
My morning wrapped up with the words of a 15 year old, as she read a letter to the judge that she had written to him, asking for yet another chance to live with a family friend, because this time she could really be good. This young woman who, in her short life, has been removed from her birth family because of drug abuse and sexual trauma, and who has been given up by her adoptive mother because she doesn’t know how to handle the behaviors that trauma causes, and she got tired of trying. This young woman who, while physically an adult, is so clearly still just a scared little girl inside. A little girl who just wants to belong to someone who loves her enough to say I’m not walking away, and neither are you.
So as I sit in my home this evening, after a difficult day, mentally preparing for more of the same tomorrow, I can’t help but think of the lives that touched mine today. And I lift up a prayer for each of them. And for each of us who will work with them. That we never forget the humanity in them. Or within ourselves. That we never forget their stories. Or our own.
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