“What do you think about raising children?”
This was a question from a mother of one of the kids in the Kids Club.
I wasn't sure where she was going with her question, so I made light of it and asked if she was planning to give me some kids to raise. “Just one,” she said. She began to cry and tell me that if anything happened to her, I was the only person she would trust to raise her 8 year old daughter. She added that there was no one in her family where her daughter would be safe.
Remembering that she was struggling with deep depression, I immediately sobered. The sobriety deepened as the weight of her words washed over me. No one. No one in her life to trust. No one to bring safety. No one. The greatest poverty here is not financial. It is a poverty of trusted relationships.
That's why we are here.
-- Suzanne Wallace
