The Boy Who Wanted Wings

Fundraising was an important part of my job as director of a battered women’s shelter.

This afternoon’s gathering was a chance for me to inspire people to donate the resources our shelter desperately needed. Could I come through once again for the women and children who needed us?

The seats were filled when I entered the room. Everyone was there to hear what I had to say.

All morning I’d sweated over my speech. From the moment I sat down at my desk, all I could think about was the good we couldn’t do. Women came to us for protection, but their problems often followed them into the shelter.

Their needs could be overwhelming, or beyond our scope—physical and emotional healing, a new home where they’d be safe, a way to support themselves.

And the children! Too many to count. How many had I met over the years who were hurting from the violence they saw in their home?

Their faces came to mind as I began a first draft of my speech. I remembered the children in a support group I’d run years ago around Christmastime.

“There are lots of different jobs adults have in the world,” I’d told the kids sitting in a circle on the floor. “What would you like to be when you grow up?” I’d hoped the question would start them thinking about happy futures.

“I want to be a police officer,” an eight-year-old boy said. “Then I could arrest Daddy for hurting Mommy.”

Next came a five-year-old girl. “I want to be a nurse.”

“That’s a good job,” I said. “Nurses help sick people.”

“If I was a nurse,” she said, “I would heal Mommy whenever Daddy hurt her. Then I would help all the other mommies when they are hurt by mean daddies.”

I wondered if these kids would ever have lives not dominated by the abuse they’d suffered. “How about you, Tommy?”

Tommy was 12 and hadn’t been with us long. His face was still bruised from the last explosion of violence at his house. He’d tried to keep his father from beating his mother. His father turned on him instead. “What would you like to be when you grow up?” I asked.

Tommy paused. “I’d like to be an airline pilot. Then I could have wings and fly anywhere I wanted to go.”

“You can do anything you want to do if you try hard enough,” I assured him. “Every one of you can.”

All these years later, I wondered what had become of that little boy—or any of the children who’d passed through our doors.

Tommy always wanted wings, I thought, trying to focus on my speech. Lord, I pray he got them.