Save the Boys

A few weeks back, our church had its annual picnic.

While I was there, I met this 8 year old boy named Alex who just loved baseball, and that’s all he wanted to do. He saw David and I throwing the ball around, and immediately he wanted in on what we were doing. His dream is to be a catcher, and I spent much of the afternoon pitching to him. A little later on, he took of with David to one of the ball diamonds, and it dawned on me that he had not asked permission of his parents to go.

So I went to tell his mom (Kim) what was going on. She seemed a bit embarrassed that he was clinging to us like he was, and I said it was no problem because we were having fun. I finished by saying, “Well, your boy really loves to play baseball.”, and she told me that he was their ‘foster child.’

This wasn’t a terrible shock; I’ve met a lot of kids in similar situations. I left it at that. For the rest of the day he acted like I was his newfound best friend, and to be honest, I felt a bit of an attachment to the little guy.

Last night, I saw Kim, and I asked her how the ‘little slugger’ was doing, and she seemed surprised that I was so interested. She went on to tell me of his predicament. Apparently his mother died, and his 70 year old father wants nothing to with him. He’s up for placement, and Kim isn’t sure if she’ll have him in the spring. He’ll either be adopted, or shuffled over to a longer range foster parent.

That just broke me. Later, as I was leaving I passed them both in the hallway, and I said hello to him, and his face just lit up when he saw me. To make matters worse, as I walked past their mini-van in the parking lot I could see his silhouette through the tinted window waving at me.

This kid needs a dad. In all the years I’ve been one, I’ve never seriously considered adopting until now. It’s not practical of course. Would it be fair to my own kids? I’m pretty ignorant about these kinds of things, and maybe my compassion is just getting the best of me. Maybe I should be like a big brother to him.

I don’t know. It just breaks my heart. I can’t just do nothing.

~Rick

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