Through Adversity, To the Stars
“I want to be an astronaut.” he said.
Not an unusual statement for an 11-year-old to make, but the sadness with which it was delivered struck me as odd. This is our second meeting and he’s finally responded to a question with more than a simple "yes", "no", or "don’t know" answer.
“That would be exciting.” I replied, hoping he’d elaborate.
As he fidgeted with the notepad and rearranged the pencils, I pressed on “When I was about your age; I used to watch TV shows, read lots of comics and books all about space, they said we’d have cities on the moon, we’d colonize Mars, and send explorers out to other stars looking for aliens or new planets that we could go to.”
Still no response, just a slight nodding of the head as he stared at the blank notepad and rolled a pencil in his fingers.
“So is that what you want to do, visit the moon, or go to Mars, maybe find proof that aliens exist and that we’re not alone?”
“I like being alone; alone is nice.” he mutters, and then looking up with a final spark of interest says “Mars would be good, there’s a big volcano on Mars, like a mega-big volcano, bigger than anything here on Earth, I’d like to see that.”
“There is; Olympus Mons, it’s the biggest volcano in the solar system. Well, the biggest one that we know of, there may be something bigger that we haven’t found yet.”
“Yeah, I’d like to see that, that’d be cool.” A slight smile appears and more nodding of the head, “And then I could go in my ship and find a bigger one, and then an even bigger one, or an alien.”
After a few seconds of making flight motions with the pencil, he looks at me and asks “Do you think there are aliens, I mean real aliens not Dr. Who monsters and things, just people aliens like us but better?”
“I’m not sure. I think there probably are somewhere, it’s a big universe and I’d be surprised if there weren’t other planets with life out there. I don’t think they’d be better than us, or worse, I just think they’d be different. What do you think?”
“Yeah, they would, they’d hate us, they don’t want us to find them because we’re stupid and mean. We’d just beat them up and steal their stuff, that’s what we do, we take all the nice things and break them, and kick and hit and swear because it’s fun.”
“Who does that?” I ask, “Does somebody take your things or hurt you?”
“Nobody.” he says in a subdued tone as he breaks eye contact and goes back to staring at the pad.
Dammit; too fast. I can see the barriers back up.
“Would you like a drink?” I ask as I stare at the cold dregs of coffee in my mug. “I think there are some cans of Coke in the fridge over there if you’d like one,” I say as I head over to the coffee pot for a refill. I take my time rinsing out the mug and pouring the refill as I listen for the sound of the fridge door closing, hearing the crack-hiss of the can opening, I head back to my seat and wait for him to rejoin me.
“Do you like tigers?” he asks, staring at my mug.
“I do,” I say “snow leopards are my favorite big cat but tigers are cool too, and this isn’t just any tiger, it’s Tigger, the bounciest most fun tiger there ever was. What about you, what’s your favorite animal?”
“I like dogs, I want a dog, but he’d just hurt it or sell it to buy drugs or something.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. I already know the story of course, I’ve read the social services reports; an abusive stepfather with a history of petty crime and burglaries, and a drug addict mother who’s more concerned with keeping her supplier than the safety of her son. There’s still a long way to go but this is a good sign, he knows what the problem is and is willing to discuss it if I don’t press too hard.
He takes another sip from the can and then picks up the pencil again, “When I’m a spaceman I’ll have a dog, he can come with me and we’ll run up that volcano on Mars.”
“It’s a big volcano,” I say “I’m not sure you could run all the way up it. I think it’s as big as France, that’s a long way to run even for a dog.”
“Yeah, well I bet we could do it.”
“I bet you could too, you and your dog climbing the biggest volcano in the solar system sounds like a good plan to me.”
It’s been almost 15 years since we had this conversation. We carried on seeing each other and talked about many other things in the year that I was assigned to his case. The stepfather died from a heroin overdose about 2 years after our last meeting and the shock of this death caused the mother to re-evaluate her life and go into rehab. I’m reminded of this particular conversation because not too long ago I received an email with a photo attached. Unfortunately it wasn’t a picture of a space-suited dog bounding up the slopes of Olympus Mons, but it was an image of a young man surrounded by his beaming colleagues standing in front of the satellite that they had constructed before it was shipped off to the launch site, and that is good enough for me.
Per ardua ad astra
Through Adversity, To The Stars
Bernard Hennigan
As Counselor and Mentor to disadvantaged youth, Bernard worked with law enforcement and Social Services to turn lives around, helping both victims and perpetrators of crime. As liaison for Social Services, he dealt with cases of mental illness up close in the field. But it was his own experience with PTSD and depression that led him to a deeper understanding of their devastating life-changing impact. Bernard passionately believes that any advancement of mental health is the greatest legacy that we can leave behind for future generations.
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