Friday, January 16, 2009

For the second week back after the holiday break, we had a camp full of well behaved kids, and the nights were easy.

In fact, there was really only one girl who visited. She came into the camp office after bedtime with lots of minor problems. On the first night, it was a stomach ache and a mild case of homesickness. On the last night, it was pain on her leg from an earlier encounter with Stinging Nettle. The first time she came in, I gave her a hot water bottle for her stomach, and distracted her from her homesickness by showing her the photos of camp I'd posted on Flickr over the years (one of the advantages of having my laptop with me in the office). She didn't want to go back to bed afterwards. She just wanted to hang out and talk.

During the week, I heard from other staff members about how she often visited the camp office. Most of the time, her reasons for visiting were minor enough to be considered excuses. She just wanted to hang out and talk with the staff. Over the years, I can remember campers like her. Words like "high-maintenance", and "needy" come to mind, although I'm always willing to listen when kids want to talk. Often, the primary adults in kids' lives don't take the time to really listen. I even had a girl once tell me that I was the only one who really listened to her. It's sad. It's too bad that so many of us are so disconnected. I think I get that way myself when I spend too much time in front of the computer, or in front of any other electronic device for that matter. It's kind of ironic really, because I've been spending a lot of time on Facebook lately, supposedly "connecting". In the end though, nothing we do on the computer is a good substitute for doing it in person. To be fair, the computer does allow us to reach out and make contact with like-minded people around the world, or reconnect with old friends who live far away, so it's not all bad.

I went off on a bit of a tangent there. Sorry. The reason I chose to write about this particular girl this week isn't because I wanted to make a point about electronic alienation. I chose to write about her because, as I was leaving camp this morning, I found out from one of her teachers that she probably does get a lot of good attention from her parents at home. This is because she has cystic fibrosis, and probably won't live much past young adulthood. She doesn't have a real understanding of this yet, and is sheltered from it by her innocence. For me, the news was crushing, and it made me wish that I'd spent more time with her than I did. I hope she lives as much life in the time she has available as others who live out normal lifespans do.

This reminded me of a bad week from nearly five years ago, when a docter told us that Willow might have cystic fibrosis. I remember being terrified, but determined to make sure that she had the best life possible no matter how much time she was destined to have here. If she had turned out to have it, I'm not sure, now that I'm thinking about it again, how much we would have told her. I think it's probably best not to tell a young child that they're not going to live past college age. But then, when do you tell them? It would be like handing out a death sentence. As a parent, I can't imagine being the bearer of that news.

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