Grieving for the Lost Boys

Life would be so much easier if I could just forget.  If I could just erase the images from my mind.  If I could walk away without looking back - Oh the bliss.  It would be so nice to just slip back into our old lifestyle, worrying about the worries of our 'past life', stepping in time with the flow of our schedules from a year ago. 

But I can't forget.  I can't walk away from what we saw.  I can't stop the memories.  I wake up and think of the boys.  I walk through my day and remember the nurses. I see their faces.  I hear their words.  I drive in the car and am caught up in thoughts of the workers - the buildings - the gardens.  I am reminded about life in that institute wherever I turn.  I can't rid myself of the pictures in my mind.  Because pictures were forbidden, we have few pictures on our camera that drag up the heartache that plagues me, but I don't need to see physical reminders.  I acquired a lifetime of pictures in my mind from the six weeks of twice a day visits to Aaron's former home.  I cannot forget. 

I struggle with what I remember and I struggle knowing how to respond.  I don't know how to communicate what we saw to those who weren't there.  What do we do with our knowledge?  How do we go on from here?  I know that unless we become a voice for those Lost Boys in that village, in that forsaken institute, that they may become lost again. 

I shudder, knowing that Aaron's little bed, in that lonely place, has a new boy sleeping in it.  Beds are never empty for long.  I grieve for that new little lost boy.  I grieve knowing that he arrived from some orphanage in some other part of that country.  Scared.  Oh so scared.  The noises, the smell, the chaos.  Nothing like what he has known all his life.  My heart aches for that unknown little boy.  I ache for all the little boys.  For the older boys.  They don't get to stay there.  They will be moved again.  Though it is harsh there, where they will be transferred is a much darker place.  An empty bed in the adult institute will open and they will be moved.   For life.  My heart grieves deep within me.  I cry out at the process. 

We couldn't help but fall in love with those boys.  They scared us at first but in the end - they were our Lost Boys.  Each one that we saw day after day.  Sixty-five boys.  We fell in love.  Dirty, grimy, smelly, crazy boys.  It wasn't supposed to happen.  We were not supposed to notice them.  We were told to look away.  We couldn't.  They became our Lost Boys.  I cannot rid my mind of them.  Their smiles, their waves, their groans.  The ones who hit themselves in the head.  The ones who had to be restrained lest they flee.  Dear ones who came over and shook our hands.  I miss them.  And so I struggle.

Only two of those lost boys have any hope of getting out.  Only two have a chance at a life outside those gates.  Brady and Heath.  Over the course of the next weeks I want to share some of what we saw, what we experienced.  Not to sensationalize but to educate, to encourage and to be a voice of hope and life for all the little ones in the orphanges and in the institutes across Eastern Europe who are waiting, day after lonely day for a family.