My Lion

Being a parent has taught me more about myself then any other adventure or life lesson ever could.  I have learned more then I have taught and in the words of the greek philosopher, Aristotle, “I am what I was born to become.” I am a father, a father that did not have a father, a father that has learned from watching not from having.  I am a father of 5 glorious children and a man that has gained his way through trails and tears.  But non the less I am a father.

When you are a child you don’t ever think of becoming a father, but low and behold you will someday grace the steps of fatherhood.  In doing so you will draw on the experiences and memories that you had as a child to become the father you want to become, the man that will teach, love and learn, from the children the Lord will bless you with.  So being that I did not have a father in my early years what did I have to go off of?  Where did I learn and how could I teach?  Questions that you never think about until the day you hold your first child in your arms, “how will I not screw this up?”

Now these questions were not surrounding me on my first trip to the zoo, but this trip would forever be a reminder of the parent I would never become.  The fears that some associate with lions and tigers and bears would be nothing compared to the pain and fears my childhood mind was about to endure.

There we were, Josh to my left and to my right the iron gates of joy.  Our teacher was standing in front of us muttering words that I can only assume were, “stay close together, don’t leave the group and don’t feed the bears”.  Non of us were really listening we were all just waiting for that moment when we could run through the gates and see the monkeys swinging from their trees.  Nothing and no one could stop us now.

After what seemed like hours we finally made it through the iron gates and beheld, the Zoo.  A magical and mystical adventure laid in store for each and everyone of us.  Josh could not stop talking about his favorite animal, the rhinoceroses.  “I wonder if they will be eating or will they be ramming the sides of their cages? Will they have their horns still, or did the zoo man take them off so he wouldn’t get hurt?” Me? I wanted to see the Lion.  I wanted to see his face, the way he moved and to see if all the rumors were true about the mighty beast.

We weaved in and out all morning through monkeys, snakes, birds, zebras and all kinds of creatures.  Where was my Lion? Josh saw his rhinoceroses, of which the horns were well in-tacked, but we had yet to see my Lion.  It was at the moment when your childhood mind convinces you that you will not see what you wished to see and the world was against you.  The adults around you had no love for the Lion and thus didn’t mind if we missed him.  Your mind has it that you will not see this Lion and it is because everyone knows you want to see him.  And then it happens, at the moment your eyes begin to stare only at your feet as you walk with hope dissipating from your mind, there is your Lion.

Standing in glory, demanding all those that look upon him to respect him and obey him.  The master of the jungle, the king of the beasts, the magnificent Lion was standing right in front of me.  It was just him and I.  Josh had disappeared and being that I was still fairly new in my school I stood all alone just watching the beast move from side to side.  Then something entered my young mind.  ‘Was he happy?’. Here this glorious animal was living in four walls, walls that could not be broken with people staring at him, pointing at him, demeaning his very existence.  How could he be happy? He was the great warrior that now stood proud only to be looked upon and never to hunt again.

He walked back and forth a few more times as if to tell me that it was ‘okay‘ and that he knew his place.  Then he found a quiet corner in his four walled kingdom and laid his dignified mane to the ground and ignored the presence of people. He shut his eyes and entered his dreams.  My Lion had fallen asleep and I could only hope his dreams were filled with fields, trees and grand excitements of the hunt.

“Single file line right here in front of me children, it is lunch time.”  Lunch?  I had completely forgot about food, but my small stomach on the other hand seemed to jump out of my body with the thought of the magical goodness that was hidden in my brown little lunch sack.  Off we went to the zoo picnic table where I would soon find out just how important this day really would be.

Laughter and excitement filled the air.  Stories of what each of us had just seen poured out of our mouths.  “What was your favorite? Did you see when the monkey jumped from one tree to the other? It was awesome.”  Yes the day had been awesome and it was sad that after our lunch we would return to the mundane class room and have to only remember the zoo as a dream and no longer a reality.  But the memories were still fresh and the excitement would last for days or so I thought.

Amongst the laughter and giggles I noticed a large figure standing over in the shadows watching me.  Looking at me, then the figure moved and moved closer to the my table. “Wesley, come here.” I knew the voice but I didn’t know the person. I felt chills, a cold breeze moved up my spine and I sat there wondering, who was this?  My teacher quickly intercepted the figure and began to have a conversation that heated quickly.  “I am his mother”, the voice uttered, “I am here to take my son.”

My son?  My mother?  Josh whispered in my ear, “Hey that is that lady we saw.”  Josh sat by my side as my teacher explained that ‘my mother‘ would have to follow us back to the school and check me out there.  Anger and fear now filled the air and the excitement of my zoo day quickly vanished.  My mother? She was here? she had come for me?  Had I done all the things right to get my mother back?  Had I become a ‘good boy’ now?

The bus ride for me was quiet, not even Josh could break my silence.  I sat looking out the window reminded of the fact that I once had a mother, but then did something so horrible that I lost her.  I was a child without, but now my mother was coming back for me.  I had to of done something right, but what?

Was it the fact that I had stopped taking the ‘candies’?  Had my grandmother reported back that I was a ‘good boy‘ again?  Non of this really mattered as my mother was just moments away from checking me out of school and being my mother once more.  Yet my mind was not excited nor was I relieved.  Something didn’t seem right, something didn’t seem ‘ok’.

The bus pulled up to the school and we all filed out.  We headed straight to our classroom as we still had about an hour or so left of school.  What we were going to do for an hour I had no idea, but this would be the least I would need to worry about.

Even today I can still smell the school hall.  I can see the bricks and the lockers and I can see the glass windows that lined the office.  As we passed the office I saw that the glass was full of two figures, my grandmother and ‘my mother’.  I could feel the anger, the fear and I quickly saw that this was not a moment of joy.  I was stopped by a man that said he needed to talk to me.  My teacher that had once intercepted a stranger now released me to this man.  We again passed the glass wall and I saw tears flowing down my grandmother’s cheeks.  Tears began to fill my eyes, I don’t know why, they just would not stop.  The man held my hand, not as if I was in trouble, but as if he cared.  As if he knew me, as if he was here for me.

I was shuttled into a back room where I stayed long after the bell had rung and long after my classmates had ran home to tell of their adventures at the zoo.  I, like my Lion, was now in a four wall kingdom with people watching me and staring at me.  The room had no quiet corner and no where for me to lay my mane, only a small fridge, a table, a couch and a smell of old worn out carpet.  The man returned this time with my teacher and two others I do not fully remember.  I was told that my mother had come to get me, but that the school did not feel it was the right thing and asked that this man take me to a home for the night while the ‘adults’ worked some things out.  I was scared and began to cry, I wanted my grandmother, I wanted my pancakes to be ready for me in the morning.  I didn’t want to go with this man, I wanted to tell my grandmother of my adventures at the zoo, I wanted to tell Josh about my Lion.  I wanted out of these four walls.

I did go with this man, but he did not watch over me, instead he escorted me to a home, a home full of children like me.  Children that had no fathers and mothers.  Children that I would learn had nothing to lose and nothing to give. The night turned into a week, a week turned into more days and ‘adults’ working it out seemed to never come to an end.  Where was my grandmother and where was I?

Everyone I knew and everything I trusted was gone.  I was alone surrounded by strangers, strangers that had no care for me and I would later learn were just part of a failed system.  I was in a foster home.  A home built and designed to house me, feed me and do nothing to love me.  My memories here are few, but I remember the room and other moments of my stay.  Cold, wood floors that seemed to have never truly been cleaned.  A bed that was hard and lacked any ninja sheets or comfort at all.  My stay here was in the long run short, but not with out pain.  We children were just a nuisance to the owners of this home.  We were told to eat and eat what was given to us.  The children had no cares and no disipline.  I shared a room with boys much older then me.  They seemed to enjoy picking on me and holding me hostage in their world.  When I wasn’t in the room we were all shoveled into a back yard with a worn out swing set and a concrete patio.  Dogs had dug up the back yard and the only form of a ball was a worn out soccer ball that I never was able to grace.  Dinner and lunch was a simple can, a can that was opened for us and poured into the dog dishes that lined the concrete patio.  This was not a home, this was a prison for children that had been so bad no father or mother wanted them.

The zoo had led me here, I was trapped and like my Lion I wasn’t happy.  I didn’t know where I was at, I didn’t know where my grandmother was at.  Where was my father, where was my mother, where was the man that had brought me here?  The father and mother of this home didn’t know me, didn’t care about me and did not want me here.  My four walled kingdom had come to a crash and I didn’t know much, but I did learn on this day that I would never be a father that didn’t love.