I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. Love seems to be the most challenging feeling to communicate. We each receive and express love differently. Favors, small kindnesses? Touch, quality time, affirmations? We are each unique in this, but we all have this in common: we all desire to know we are loved. Taking this a step further, every youth at The Door has a desire and need to know they are loved.

We’ve been struggling with this as staff lately. While we’re NOT struggling with caring about the kids, we ARE struggling with getting the we care message to the youth. Of course there are ethical issues that keep us from saying, “We love you.” Often, we think we are saying it with our actions – but actions aren’t always the language that youth hear.

Recently, a youth heading out the door in the morning whined, “Why do I have to go to school every day?” The question was an honest one, “because, we care about you.” She paused a few seconds and replied, “But I have all A’s!” My reply, “Good for you! You have straight A’s because you go to school every day.” That answer was not satisfactory for her. “But I want to take it [going to school] off my Action Plan.” (Action Plans are objectives and goals youth set for themselves and work towards) I explained, “We care too much about you to let you do that.” She stared at me with a look, like, ‘You’re absurd!” – so I reminded her, “This is a short term shelter. Adulthood is just around the corner. We want to help you be the most responsible, independent person you can be and that includes staying in school,” and then she was out the door.

That was my entire interaction with her that day, and it lasted about a minute. I doubt if in that moment she felt, “Wow, someone loves me,” or “they care” – but I do know that someone did.

We are babies in this venture, asking the hard questions: how can we help the youth know that we care, the community cares, but more importantly, that they are worth loving.

– Marylee