Arturo – his name is going to be Arturo because calling him by two names is proving to be untenable – has been with Gloria’s family for a week. She has found a school in Anton for children with special needs, and already gotten Arturo enrolled. He starts on Monday. He has new school uniforms and shoes, a backpack, his notebooks and pens and pencils. His new brothers are teaching him to write his name, so he can enter school for the first time with at least that. The school has a psychologist who will help Arturo overcome the traumas of the past.
I have been fascinated by Gloria’s priorities. First she got Arturo lined up at church, so he can get instruction and be baptized and receive his First Communion. Then she found him a school. Now she is focused on medical appointments; he has never been to a doctor, nor has he received any immunizations.
In between he got new clothes, a soccer ball, a trip to Panama City, and his first McDonald’s hamburger and fries, which he loved.
He is only a little afraid to start school on Monday. Gloria keeps reassuring him that no one there will make fun of what he does not know, that he will learn little by little, and that she and his new family will be there to help him.
This morning Arturo’s biological father showed up at 6am to look for the boy to come scavenging for cans and bottles to trade for money to buy drugs. Gloria’s father, a frail man in his mid-70′s, was awake and outside. He told the father to go away and not trouble the boy any more.
Tags: Strong women
March 13, 2010 at 11:43 pm
My favorite moment in the Johnny Cash movie, Walk the Line, is when he’s being detoxed by June and her parents. The drug dealer comes by and June’s parents aim guns at him. He puts up his hands and backs away, slowly. Bravo to the parents, and bravo to Arturo’s new grandpa.
March 14, 2010 at 8:54 am
Powerful movie moment, and I join you in celebrating Arturo’s new grandpa. Gloria’s Dad is quite frail, and confronting a much younger man in search of drug money at 6am is brave. In this case the younger man did back away, and when Arturo woke up and went outside, only grandpa and some of new cousins were there to say good-morning.