Elisey and Dimcho, like a lot of children who have been institutionalized and/or lost their families of origin, have a lot of anger. We see this every day.
An interesting example yesterday. Elisey was standing on his toy box, which he has been told is not safe, and, and he fell off it. He wasn't hurt much, but he lashed out at his toy box, kicking and hitting it. We weren't surprised by them throwing toys that frustrate them, but hitting something in this way, blaming it for his getting hurt, was new.
Last night Donna and I shared some of our thoughts about our progress and how were struggling with it. Donna had more profound spiritual thoughts, whereas mine, I am afraid, were based in the mundane and secular: I recalled a scene from the latest "Batman" movie, wherein a young cop played by Joseph Gordon-Leavitt tells Bruce Wayne how he lost he parents at an early age to violence he witnessed. He tells how a series of foster parents "understood" he was angry, but after a while they wanted him to stop being that angry boy and he couldn't, and so he got shuffled from foster home to foster home, and eventually into an orphanage. I try to keep that scene in mind, that just because I want Elisey to stop being an angry boy, he can't leave behind his anger so easily.
There are also normal childhood fears. Elisey had a little trouble falling asleep, because he was convinced there were bears in (I think) the attic. Bears are a source of fascination and fear for both the boys, probably because there was a bear at the zoo near the orphanage. I often pretend to be a bear and chase the boys around and they laugh and scream happily. But when the smoke alarm chirped, signalling a weak battery, I am afraid I joked it was a bear, and perhaps Elisey took me too seriously. If I understood him correctly, he wanted to move to a new house without bears in the attic.
Alas, I can't take him up to the attic to show there are no bears, because I would never hear the end of him wanting to go up again into the attic.
We wish our faithful readers a happy and peaceful 2013. Maybe we'll get a tiny bit of that too.
