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.