Wednesday, December 5, 2007

The Day I Picked

I am now volunteering to help kids with homework once a week at the library.
Today, there was hardly anyone there so I did not stay long. But I did see something that stopped me in my tracks.

At the Library there are a whole wall of computers for kids to come and work on their homework. When I got there there were only two children, a boy and a girl - working. They were African American, about 8 years old, the girl with two pigtails and typing slowly from her notebook.

I only read the beginning - "when I was 4 and my sister was 2 my parents split up. They told me that I could pick who I would live with." Then I saw the title over the notebook - "The day I picked."

I did not say anything to her. Just watched her type and thought about how terrible it is that parents split and children have to pick. And then write about it.

My prayer is that my grandchildren will not have to tell a story about the day they had to "pick" between their parents.

2 comments:

Me said...

That is so disturbing. She obviously felt some responsibility for that part of her life. I can't imagine telling Alyse to PICK which one of us she wanted to live with. And for that to have happened, you can only imagine the home life before it.

Tennelina (Caroline) said...

wow. she was so young! how could they think she could "pick." :(