One of our students lost all he has this year. Gang violence took his father, and it left him with three younger siblings and nothing else.
He is seventeen. He sleeps on a concrete floor in an abandoned ruin with a roof that leaks and a door that does not close. He has not had time to grieve, because three children are looking at him and asking, without words, “What will happen to us now?”
When people lose someone they love, we understand that they need time. Time to cry, to remember, to be held by someone stronger while they begin to understand how life will continue. These four children were given none of that. What happens when grief is interrupted by hunger?
At seventeen, a young person should be discovering who he is, continuing his education, and imagining the life he hopes to build. He should not be responsible for finding food and shelter while carrying the fear of three children who depend on him.
