Fear of abandonment

A few nights ago I was putting the 9 youngest boys from Douglas into their beds for bedtime. These days, I have this privilege once or twice each week with these particular boys. The routine sounds rather simple I think. We bathe after dinner, brush our teeth, watch a movie, read books and play with legos until it's time for bed. I give them a 5 minute warning. We clean up the toys. They get in their beds. They pray about their day. And they are supposed to then try to sleep. It's hard for anyone I imagine to get a large group of little boys to lay down in their beds, stay there, stop playing and jumping, stop talking, and actually close their eyes.

One little boy in particular ALWAYS refuses to get into his bed. After I chase him into his bed, he usually starts yelling very loudly or chanting the same word over and over again. He often yells, "I can't sleep! I can't sleep!!" Unfortunately, his outbursts had just become part of the bedtime routine in my mind. So this past week, I decided to just talk to him, sit with him and literally hold his hand until he falls asleep.

The conversation we had rocked me. His older brother said something to the effect of, "We (he and his brothers) are going to live in this casa hogar until we graduate from 6th grade. After that we will leave the children's home to live with our mom again." <-- obviously something his mother has told him when he asks her how long he has to live in an orphanage. His younger brother, the one who has trouble sleeping, starts yelling and crying about how he is never going to make it that far in school and that because he can't finish that many years of school, that his mom and his brothers are going to abandon him and leave him at the children's home all by himself. Then he starts yelling about how he is scared, it's too dark, things are going to attack him in the night and that he is afraid and that because of that - he will not sleep ever. Instead of saying something like, "close your eyes and please be quiet and stop talking," which I have to say a lot to these talkative kids at bedtime... I sat with him until he fell asleep. I always sit with the 3 and 4 year olds until they are sleep but rarely do I focus in on one of the older boys at bedtime. I felt guilty of ignoring his outbursts and devoting my attention to his younger brothers. I spent a few minutes talking with him about how God is going to protect him while he sleeps and about the workers that live next to his dorm and how they won't let anyone come in and attack him. We talked about how his brothers - his sibling set - will never be separated.

Eventually he fell asleep. It often takes a solid hour after the first time I say, "ok it's time to get into your beds." and turn out out the lights for all of them to fall sleep. I'm not sure it would take that long if they felt more secure, more loved and less abandoned. He honestly fears that his older brother is going to walk away from him like his parents have. Because of this fear, he insists on sleeping in the same twin size bed as his older brother just so he can be sure he doesn't walk off in the middle of the night and leave him.

Every single night at bedtime, the boys want to rehearse back to themselves why I am going to say goodnight and then go back to my apartment at Back2Back. They make beautiful and yet heart breaking requests as they beg me and try to entice me to just stay with them for the night. They all yell, "Caroline I love you. Please don't leave me. You can sleep in that bed right there. See it. It's empty. You don't have to leave. See? Yes?"

That very same day was the birthday of one of my boys. His mom couldn't come celebrate with him. But she called the office phone to wish him happy birthday before she went to work the 12 hour night shift at the factory where she works.

Driving away that night, I cried rather violently as I sometimes do when I leave and just prayed for God to heal their sweet little broken hearts and the scars from abandonment.