This Book is Dedicated to:

The Lost, the Orphaned, the Abandoned, & the Adopted…

The Kinderheim

You can Spray Paint Over That

There was an indication that life as usual at the Kinderheim was about to become a little different…

And change it did- lo and behold- a child’s prescient intuition rears it’s head as one solemn morning (it seemed that was the tone for the entire existence there- always solemn) one little Schwester ( German nun- yeah all the regalia) came out of the garden.

So on this day of days- children lined up in rows- came a moment like no other- a moment that is usually salvaged for the climax to a movie- a moment that instead became an apex to a child- and in it’s simplest form was a plane.
And it was such a plane. The Schwester with the ritual of a priest- announced that a very special gift had arrived. All of our eyes were on her- as she brought forth a very large model plane- and then we all exalted as it had a door that opened- to reveal a pilot that would welcome passengers. What struck me most- was the way the door opened, and then you could slide the stair well up to the plane.

It was at that moment that I knew it was mine. The Schwester proudly pronounced that this gift was from America- and that it was from my parents. My Parents! Noone elses… It came from my very own parents. I don’t really know how she worded it- I wasn’t clear with my own response, all I do know was that in some way shape- or form- I granted this gift to all of our children here. It was without question. I suddenly had the ultimate luxury of having parents- at least someone out there that had sent me a plane- and they had nothing.

And all those children, my cohorts. I fail to remember their names perhaps because I was too afraid to become attached to them and then lose their souls to an empty machine called the Kinderheim.
Time heals no wounds. Clearly it has been stated otherwise and perhaps the person writing it failed to experience the utter sorrow that a child goes through without a true parent in their lives. As a young boy, none of this was lost on me. Frightened in a sense by the absolute inability to seek out and recognize a familial face, and equally lost in terms of the familiarity a boy needs with his parents. I was pretty scared.

It showed up on my passport picture, that years later, the smile I thought I had, was in all reality a glimmer of fear and loneliness. It took a good friend Susan, to look at that picture (she was a social worker) to see my face on my alien registration card, that for some reason I was so proud of, to tell me that the 6 year old boy in that picture looked scared.

The reason I believed her? The reason that it made a difference?
I cried. Just like that I spilled tears and guts that I didn’t know were in me! It was an absolute arrow that pierced the heart of all the defenses I had spent 19 years building up- behind a façade of confidence. But it was true. I was living life scared.

I believe that everybody has a seminal moment in their lives. Perhaps just an instant of primal clarity where you become immediately undressed, and know for that one second- who and what you are…
And the writing in thee mirror may lead you to see that you are as lost as any puppy could ever be, when you have strived so hard to at least appear like you have an ounce of confidence. So the rock turns out to be paper machete’? Who really cares? It’s time to either start to live, or roll over and die.

Me? I was done with using misdirection, smoke, and mirrors to ease my soul. I chose another option. I chose to look at my situation, face whatever looked to be my destination, and help to write the itinerary. Forget the writing on the wall, you can spray paint over that!