harley
...r. I was then subjected to my foster siblings stories, which isn’t supposed to happen, but friends share their pain. Moreover, I was personally introduced to the values of compassion and acceptance. I hadn’t consciously been able to affiliate these qualities with my parents: I knew they loved and cared for all the children, but now I finally understood the true and absolute meaning of humility. I remember the first time I recognized the strength of my parent’s convictions. Harley, a younger foster brother, had been brought to our home on account of extreme neglect and abuse. I had never had any trouble or felt contention with any foster children until then. I couldn’t get along with him, and it was hard to have him in my home. We consistently fought over meaningless issues. Harley and I walked to school together one morning. As we left the house he called my father “Dad.” I had never felt so betrayed. As we crossed the railroad tracks, I confronted him. I asked him why he thought he could take away my family, he didn’t belong in our house, and my dad was not to be called said title by him. Harley stared to cry, I instantly felt vindicated, and after all it was his fault. That evening he and I were in the back yard after a family barbeque. I started a fight over who had to clear the table. In the middle of it, a pestering question emerged from my brain and escaped from my mouth. “Why are you here?” His reply was a screaming rage about times in his real mothers house. He was locked in a closet for days; he was fed on the ground with the dogs and repeatedly molested by his mother’s boyfriend. I knew it was true and couldn’t stop myself from picking up. I must have only been a foot taller than he, but his legs wrapped around my waist and we stood there together, by the broken rock sidewalk, until we felt sure enough that we could let go and be okay. There was a lack of malicious intent in our embrace and in its absence a strong sense of sincerity and honesty introduced itself to our relationship. The bag of Doritos and the pitcher of Kool-Aid sat on the table, ignorant of the colossal interaction that had just taken place. I had found forgiveness, I had found selflessness and hope, Harley gave me that, the first of the values he would instill in me. Eventually Harley left us, he moved on to another foster home and another court date. A year after he had lived with us, my mother invited me into our living room. Everything was a deep blue, the couch and the vase on the piano, sitting next to the theory books I hadn’t touched in weeks. She told me that Harley had moved back into his real mothers and new stepfathers home a few weeks before. She told me that they had had a house fire, it was near Christmas and you can never trust the tree lights, it wasn’t anyone’s fa...