The Story of John

Here is the story of the little boy that I am running the Boston Marathon for more than anyone else.

John (changed for the story, obviously) was a rambunctious 3 year old who arrived at our shelter with his mother (I'll call her Alice), older brother and sister. I met his family the night they were brought in to shelter, having left their home some 10 hours before. Alice's life of abuse was one of the more ritualized I had seen to date. As I began to know her over the hours, days and months, I learned the extent to which her life had been controlled for more than 20 years. Even the shades on every window had been nailed and stapled closed. The first morning I brought her outside she got a headache from the sunlight she wasn't used to seeing.

John, like most kids in our shelter, couldn't keep up with the names of all the people he met. Between other guests, our volunteers and our staff, there were a lot of names to learn and like most kids his age he just adapted to not using names. With me, for some reason, things were different. John and I bonded right away. I think it might have been because I knew as many lines from the movie Toy Story as he did, so we could spend hours pretending to be Buzz Lightyear together. He started calling me by the name "Cool." I was flattered. He would ask his mom when Cool was coming over and when she would tell him of my pending arrival (3 evenings a week I would arrive at 6pm and stay until 7am), he would position himself on the landing of the stairs and wait for me to walk into the office. As soon as he would see me he would jump at me, as though part superhero... maybe Buzz Lightyear himself, and wait for me to catch him. I was alway so terrified of not catching him... he was often well over my head and I thanked my family for having raised me knowing how to play football because the catch was similar. I never once faltered in my catch and he would wrap his arms around me before climbing onto my back like a little monkey. He became the highlight of my week.

One day I took Alice, John and the other two kids out to the grocery store. They wanted ice cream and it was a treat I knew was overdue, so out we went to get in my car while the volunteers manned the phones and the house. As I opened the door, I found everyone tapping their feet, one at a time, 3 taps, 5 times perfectly before putting their foot inside. Another ritual method of control. Turns out these little rituals are very common among severe cases of abuse-- just meaningless tasks people had to do to remind them how much they were being controlled by someone else. It meant nothing, but John had never known life without this ritual before getting in the car. I reached out to Alice and told her she didn't need to worry about tapping her feet anymore. She was a little embarassed, but understood what had been happening with this ritual over the years. The older kids understood too. But John couldn't understand people getting in the car without doing it. He was horrified and scared that something would happen. I sat him on the passenger front seat with his little legs and lightup shoes hanging out the door so he wouldn't get scared and told him that the day he came to live with us we put a magic spell on everyones feet so that whatever shoes they had on, they were magically pure for the car. He looked at me a little strange, so I picked him up and stood him next to me and said I'd show him. I climbed into the passengers side with my feet all stretched out and nothing happened. He smiled and climbed up onto my lap with his magic feet dangling down my legs. Alice and I traded places and I took the wheel of the car and off we went for ice cream.

I had a lot of interactions like this one with John over the 3 months he stayed with us. Little by little he started to lose his fear. We even went through the bed wetting phase with him and he was no longer so afraid that he needed to cower in the closet anymore. Life was different with his magic shoes and Buzz Lightyear flying.

A few weeks before Alice was to be leaving for a transitional housing program she had been accepted to, John plopped onto my lap as I was talking to Alice in the office on evening. He was playing nervously with my sleeve and finally said to me "Cool, I'm not afraid of Daddy touching me anymore." As a mandated reporter of child abuse, those words emptied every other sound in my head. "John, where did Daddy touch you?" "My pee pee." "Don't be afraid, John. You are right, Daddy won't do that anymore." Alice and I tried to hide the look of horror, but we could see it on each other. We were both surprised. And as she took John upstairs for his bath, I placed a call to Childrens' Services.

It wasn't long after Alice and John left for transitional housing that I left the shelter. It had been years of stories, faces, names on the news, names on the piles of intakes turned away. I was emotionally exhausted and could tell it was starting to affect the support I could continue to provide. I needed a break from it. I needed a chance to see something else. I needed to not have such a good poker face for stories like that. I needed to breathe.

Sometimes when I am out on my long runs, I think of John. I think of his little hand and how they were always on me... climbing me, hanging off me, painting stuff my crappy old pair of jeans. When my runs seem long, I remember that I am out there for him and for Alice most of all. Their faces are always with me. Sometimes I think that maybe that day I made my feet magical too. Maybe that magic will get me over 26 miles and maybe it will help me to help the people who are continuing doing the work I felt too drained to keep at myself. Maybe magic feet might help the next little boy like John.

So here is my plea again. If you are reading this, help me find more magic for more little feet. Help me make sure that there is always a safe place with magical foot powder and stair landings and places where a little 3 year old boy can no longer be afraid of wetting his bed. And know that April 21st, no matter how long and how hard 26.2 miles feels, my magic feet will help get me there. For him.

http://www.firstgiving.com/runjcrun