I was given an amazing moment of clarity this past week. I feel it was a gift of God for me to use when I work with kids or other adults that work with kids. I was allowed to feel the overwhelming sadness of an orphaned child on one of the worst days of his life. While painful, it has served to soften my heart even more to the pain that many children experience – often in silence.

My Dad was an amazing man. He was basically orphaned at the age of six. His Mom died of tuberculosis and his dad, a truck driver, had little interest in the three sons she left behind and so they were farmed out and passed around to different relatives who didn’t really want them either.

Dad ended up in the home of his Aunt Lucille. When I was young I got to experience this woman who really cared about me and loved me. As I grew older, I realized this was a compensation for how horrid she treated my Dad. His days living with her consisted of coming home from school and immediately going out to help dig the new sewers that were being put into the town of Madison or doing cleaning work in the house. In the house he had to get on his hands and knees and scrub the floors with a rag. When he was not doing it to her satisfaction she would hit him in the head hard with a wooden handle of a hammer. He would then be fed supper and have to do the dishes. He was then instructed to do his homework and practice the one activity he was allowed to do – play his baritone. Dad was not allowed to participate in sports or activities because, as his Aunt Lucille clearly stated, they were foolishness. His relief from this was bedtime. This was his daily cycle.

Occasionally he would have a different type of work to do. At the age of 10 he was working out on an oil pump that needed serviced. Oil pumps are by design extremely heavy. One of these heavy parts swung around and crushed my Dad’s toes on his right foot. He was taken from the field to the wood loading dock of the train depot/ice house of Madison, KS. His Uncle Wilbur worked there. He sat there while they tried to figure out what to do. They took him to the doctor and he sat there the entire day until the doctor agreed to see him. By that time it was too late. The toes were turning black and would have to be cut off.

This past week I took my son, Tanner, to begin his first year of college. By coincidence, Tanner looks more like my Dad than any other of my sons. After we got Tanner situated in Manhattan we decided to take a different route home that would take us by the town of Madison. Madison sits at the bottom and on the east side of a huge hill. At the bottom of the hill is where my Dad’s Aunt Lucille and Uncle Wilbur lived. It is where Dad lived at the age of 10. We drove by the house. It was abandoned, falling apart, and overgrown with weeds. We drove on to the edge of town where the Depot/Ice House stood.

I pulled up in front of the Depot/Ice House and told my wife the story. I’ve told this story many, many times but now was different. I find writing about it now impossible to do without tears. At that moment I was given the gift of feeling part of what my Dad felt as he sat there with crushed toes. Not only did he have crushed, bloody toes, but he was alone. There were others who carried him to the dock so that someone else could do something with him, but he knew at the age of 10 that he was alone. The physical pain was immense, but nothing compared to the deep sadness of realizing he was not cared for. No one was going to push a doctor to see him immediately. He was going to get the least. He hungered for a Mom that would wrap him in her arms and whisper in his ear that it was going to be OK. He hungered for a Dad who would carry him to the car to be taken to a doctor and demand service… NOW. He knew he was getting none of that. He hungered for love that was nowhere to be found.

I sat there and fought back the tears for the lament of this 10-year old boy who would become my Dad. I’m sure my wife would think I was crazy if I just broke, so I refrained. It is a miracle that my Dad did not die of Erasmus – the disease orphans die of on a regular basis who receive no love, no holding, no hugging and receive just the basics of food, water, and clothing. It is a miracle that he came through this sadness, this lament, to become the amazing Dad who loved his kids more than life and showed that through the gift of his time playing with them and supporting them.

I wish I were there to hug that little 10 year old boy and whisper in his ear that it was going to be alright. I wish I were there to fight the good fight for the needs of this 10 year old orphan so that his needs would be met on that terrible day. That is impossible, but instead I will be the one that will love other children who are orphaned or living basically as an orphan with parents. I do this because it is right and I do this to honor the lament of the 10-year old orphan, who would become my Dad, sitting there on the wood loading dock of the Depot/Ice House in Madison, KS in 1946.

     The following is an essay I wrote for my staff when I was a middle school principal roughly over a decade ago.  It was right before parent-teacher conferences and I needed to share how important they are to loving, caring, and understanding our kids with a Whole Heart.  The little boy of focus in the story is now a Daddy, Husband,and a Deputy Sheriff.  

I had an opportunity to go to my son Jake’s teacher for a parent-teacher conference.  My wife and I sat down and the teacher gave a heavy sigh, looked at us, and said, “Tell me about Jake.”  Now this kind of took me by surprise.  I was looking forward to hearing from this teacher about Jake’s performance the previous grade period.  Jake had looked forward to going to school each day up to this year and now he was coming home saying, “My teacher doesn’t like me.”

This is a pretty heavy statement coming from a 2nd grade boy.  While Jake did the activities he was supposed to in class and was performing pretty well academically, Jake was pretty “busy.”  I immediately told the teacher that she could probably blame this on genetics.  With my reputation as a slightly hyper principal in another school, she understood.

To be quite frank, I believe that the teacher really didn’t care to have Jake in class.  The way that Jake felt being in that class seven hours a day, there was no way he was going to be a model student.  There was only one way to get Jake to do exactly what you wanted him to do and that was to go straight to his heart.  jake yearns for acceptance.  He needs to be loved.  He lives for praise.  If he is denied these basic human needs he simply shuts down.  He will not respond to what you want.  Yell at him and you lose him.  Treating him poorly, ignoring him, or humiliating him in front of others will cause him to simply draw back further within himself.

Try and imagine going to a job where you received no real pay check, the boss was constantly on you in a negative way, and your positive attributes were never recognized.  How long would you give your maximum effort for this company?

Most people have the same response mechanisms as my late Labrador Retriever, Katy.  katy loved to have her ears rubbed.  If you praised Katy, she would do about anything you wanted.  In my own mind, I like to believe that she understood the words I was saying.  What she really understood was how I was saying them.  She understood my pleasure with her and the love I had for her based on my body language and my tone of voice.  She understood my displeasure the same way.  Since she basically lived for my approval, she would do whatever it took to make sure I approved of her – even when she was very sick and near death.  She would work hard to do what she needed to do to gain my favor.

On her last day on this earth, I took Katy to the veterinarian because she was not responding at all to the treatment he had given her.  katy walked by my side as we entered the office.  She did NOT like to go to the veterinarian, but she did because her main source of praise wanted her to go.  There was another dog in the waiting room.  It was about the size of a good snack for my dog.  I warned her about the other dog and she seemed to understand.  I told Katy to sit.  She did.  I rubbed her ears and neck and told her how good she was.  The veterinarian picked her up and carried her into the examination room and set her on the table.  She was afraid, but calmed down when she felt my familiar touch on her back and face.  Then… she simply died, right there while I was comforting her with my words and a gentle touch.  Her last breath was on me.  She responded to love right to the end.  

As a middle school principal I encourage my teachers to make love a verb in their interaction with kids.  Many of our kids come from environments where love is not practiced in the home.  There may be a parent or two in the home, but they are literally almost orphaned by the lack of care and love.  There is a disease called Erasmus that babies contract in orphanages.  It is fatal.  The way children contract the disease is from the lack of love.  Literally, I mean, the lack of physical, caring contact that goes beyond simply feeding and changing of clothes.  The babies become hopeless and die.  What a terrible thing it would be for students at our school to live in an Erasmus state of mind.  I pray it never happens.

Jake and the rest of my children, all sons, are being trained, not only by my wife and myself, but by the many teachers with whom they will spend countless hours for the rest of their academic career.  I am hoping that most of their teachers will care whether they learn or not.  I can tell them right now that they will respond to love, caring, and understanding.  Love in the classroom is not some mushy feeling – it is a verb. It is demonstrated, as it was to my former pet, by appropriate touching, positive words, constructive feedback, and positive tones of voice.  My three (now four) sons’ academic futures are largely in the hands of the teachers who will mold their dreams and develop their “bag of tools” to give them a world of opportunity.  Whether my sons respond to the teacher is largely up to the teacher and his or her ability to see the need to “scratch my son behind the ears.”  In addition to being extremely tender-hearted, jake is amazingly loyal and would run through a brick wall for anyone who treats him well and praises him when he does what the source of praise wants him to do.  He just glows and works at a whole new level.

As a principal (now a superintendent) I try to model the behavior I want to see.  As a Daddy it is my number two job (right after doing the same for my wife).  My sons’ futures depend upon it.  Teacher… You want to know about Jake?  Please, teacher, “scratch my son behind his ears.”  He’ll be devoted to you for life.

            I can remember the little sixth grade boy, Ray, like it was yesterday.  It is hard to believe it has been the number of years it has been since this incident occurred.  Sometimes incidents happen in the life of an educator that define who you are and what you hope to accomplish in the lives of the children for which we are trusted.  Ray was the central character in this defining incident.

Ray and his twin sister were growing up in a Hispanic family in our largely Hispanic community.  Ray, being semi-ornery, had built up quite a few “frequent flyer miles” in my office.  The night before this incident had been tough for Ray.  His dad had a particularly bad habit of drinking too much and then taking his anger out on Ray by beating him.  The man that Ray loved more than any other man would usually use his tools to beat Ray – this time a wrench.  One thing led to another and the Social Rehabilitation Service became involved and took Ray out of his home that night and put him into a foster home in our city.

The next morning the SRS worker called me to let me in on the situation.  My heart sank.  It gets worse.  I have this little ritual I perform for each of my students as a principal for their birthday.  The ritual started when I started asking kids about how their birthday went the day after their birthday and occasionally I would have a student reply, “My parents forgot.”  Wow…  Anyway, because of that I would take a Little Debbie cake, stick a candle in it, and sing my rendition of “Happy Birthday” poorly to them in front of their friends in the classroom.  Students would act like they disliked this ritual and would often remind me well in advance not to sing to them on their birthday.  It usually would go something like this, “My birthday is two months from today and you had better NOT sing to me… 2nd hour.”   …And so 2nd hour it was!  Guess whose birthday was that day.  That’s right – Ray’s.

I continued doing “important middle school principal things” that morning and forgot to go talk to Ray’s teacher and to Ray.  When class started that morning, Ray’s teacher had no clue what Ray had gone through the night before.  I’m sure you would not be surprised to know that Ray was not all that cooperative that morning.  He had caused some sort of disruption and his teacher was having none of it.  She marched him right down to the back hallway entrance to my office and with a firm grip on his arm, pushed him toward a chair that was in front of my desk.  She told me in front of Ray that he had caused a disruption in her class and that she was in no mood to put up with his shenanigans that day.  You could hear the venom in her voice.  The teacher then marched out of my office and back to the classroom.

There sat Ray.  I could see and feel the anger emanating from Ray.  It is amazing how much students can say to us without saying a word if we pay attention.  I could tell he was preparing himself for the wrath of the principal that was about to befall him.  I kept a semi-stern face, looked him in the eye, and said, “Get up and follow me.”

Ray got up out of the chair and followed me through the office.  I told my secretaries that we were leaving and that I would be back later.  I think one of them replied “Good.”  I still don’t know if that was “good” I was leaving or “good” I’ll be back.  Either way, secretaries pretty much run things in schools and they would survive without me.  Ray and I marched down the back hallway and left the building.  Ray knew he was being suspended.  Why wouldn’t he be.  Everything else was crashing down around him – why not school as well?  We crawled into my ’83 Blazer (I splurged and moved up to an ’88 Blazer recently) and headed on a route that took us past his home, his foster home, and on a path that I knew relatively well – the donut shop.  I’m a big guy and I didn’t get this way for nothing. 🙂

I told Ray to get out of the car and follow me.  He followed me to the counter and I ordered two Old Fashion donuts and a Diet-Pepsi.  “Balance”… it didn’t work.  I asked Ray what he would like.  He looked up at me and said, “I don’t want nuthin’ from you.”  I ordered Ray two Old Fashion donuts and an orange juice.  I took the tray of “goods” and sat at a table for two that happened to be in the path of the customer traffic coming in and out of the store.  I put Ray’s donuts and drink in front of him and looked at this 12 year-old boy who was in pain sitting across from me.  I then used a semi-stern voice to say “Ray” and then I softened my voice to say “Happy Birthday, Ray.”  No one had remembered.

Ray broke into tears.  Tears started to come to my eyes as well, but I managed, with a little “eye itching” to hold them back.  Then I did something that I should do a lot more often than I do.  After explaining to Ray that I knew what had happened to him and that I should have come to talk to him and his teacher, I said, “Ray, I am so sorry I didn’t do what I should have done.  Will you forgive me?”  Ray wasn’t exactly used to having his principal ask him for forgiveness and he uttered, “Uh, OK.”  I told the customers as they arrived that today was Ray’s birthday and we were skipping school together.  They would stop and supply the appropriate amount of well wishes for Ray on his birthday and Ray was pretty shy about it at first.  He would shyly reply “Thank you.”   Five minutes later he had gotten over his shyness and would announce in a rather loud voice and a big smile to customers arriving that “today is my birthday and I’m skipping school with the principal!”

We eventually made our way back out to my old car and drove back to the school.  As we pulled into the parking lot I asked Ray if he would do me a personal favor.  Even though all of this was happening to him, would he behave the way he knew I would like him to behave for the rest of the day?  He replied, “Yes, sir.”  His word was good and furthermore, although he had been a fairly “frequent flyer” before, I didn’t see him again for a discipline referral for the remainder of the year.

I learned a couple of lessons from my time with Ray that day.  The first is to give yourself permission to step “outside of the box,” take a risk, and do what is right for that child.  When the teacher brought Ray to the office she wasn’t thinking, “I hope he takes that boy out for some donuts and some love.”  She was thinking more in line with “Beat The Child!”  You will never find this strategy in an educational textbook or manual.  To be quite frank, it wouldn’t work with every child.  Many of the answers that we seek in dealing with children will not be found in an educational text and maybe not advocated by educational “experts,” but they are the right thing at the right time in the right situation.  Ray put me in a position where I had to step out of the box and, in doing that, he taught me a lesson.

Another valuable lesson is to allow ourselves to be vulnerable with kids.  Being real and truly allowing ourselves to be vulnerable – to be seen… really seen, is the only way for connection and relationship to authentically occur.  This is not only true for our connections, relationships, and interactions with kids, but it is true in all of our relationships.  Ray would not trust me, would not work through unearned shame, unless I allowed myself to be vulnerable to his acceptance or rejection and to be genuinely REAL.

This incident happened my second year as a middle school principal and since then I would like to tell you I have nailed it!  That would be a lie.  I am working hard to grow and love kids the way they deserve, but I have failed at this more times than I have time to write about.  The bottom line is to keep trying.  Keep working to embrace vulnerability.  Keep being real.  If we keep growing as we work on these, our interactions, connection, and relationship with those we come in contact on a regular basis will grow despite our fears of rejection and sometimes shame.

I am passionate about relationship and connection… with helping our students, teachers, and all that I get to interact with become what one of my favorite authors, Brene’ Brown, calls “whole hearted.”  Trust me… if you choose to continue to read this blog on occasion, you will hear much more about Whole Hearted people and behavior.