My thoughts this evening are on the many children in psychiatric facilities across America and all the Christmas eves and Christmas days that I have worked on such units. Typically, the number of patients on the hospital unit goes down … way down … at Christmas, or just before, as if all the problems the kids have the rest of the year have just suddenly and miraculously disappeared.
On a children’s unit, the days leading up to the holidays are filled with anticipation. They are, after all, kids. Typically, much of their time is spent wondering whether or not they’ll be disczarged before Christmas, and if they won’t be, their disappointment may be expressed with screaming and lots of cursing—often aimed at the nursing staff. As if we really had anything to do with it.
The hospital staff tries to make the unit as festive as possible: a child-decorated tree and homemade garlands, pictures of Santa and snowmen, and stacks of empty gift boxes, gaily-wrapped to reflect the season’s mood. Nurses and mental health techs use their free time along with money from the hospital administration to shop for gifts for the children, many of whom would otherwise receive little or nothing on Christmas. Later, these same employees come to work early and stay late to wrap and label gifts for each child, with a few surprises at the ready for a late or emergency admission.
Younger children in the hospital spend a lot of time looking at magazines and print advertisements from places like Toys R Us or Target. You know what I’m talking about here—bright, full-color, glossy print advertisements with more toys than you can imagine outside the old Sears catalogues or at FAO Schwarz.
There was a special child I worked with in Connecticut a number of years ago that I remember well. He was about eight years old and his name was … well, let’s just call him Frederico. He was a beautiful boy, with olive skin and long, extravagant eyelashes, and his parents were from someplace south of the border. He spoke with a heavy accent. Neither parent was available to care for him—Dad was in prison and Mom was in her umpteenth rehab—and Frederico was with us. All the staff quickly fell in love with Frederico, for reasons you would understand if you had ever met him.
Anyway, one Sunday morning in the weeks before Christmas, The Hartford Courant carried one of those big, thick, glossy advertising inserts with oh-so-many toys. I pulled it out of the newspaper and slipped it into my bag for work, thinking to myself how much Frederico would enjoy it. I wasn’t disappointed. He took it and immediately ran to his room—which was a private room for behavior reasons—and jumped onto his bed and started pointing at what he wanted, what he was sure Santa would bring him. A big, red fire truck with a siren, if I remember correctly.
He kept that crumpled, very-wrinkled advertisement for weeks, obsessing over what he saw that he wanted and what he saw as un-obtainable by normal channels, but that he was sure Santa could bring him. When I say he obsessed, I really mean obsessed. Every other word that came out of Frederico’s mouth was fire truck. (Yeah, I know that’s two words, but give me a break here. It’s Christmas.) Daily, the advertisement was shuttled not-so-gently from Frederico’s hands to the floor beside his bed and then back to the top of his bed for viewing.
That Christmas eve, as I was tucking Frederico into bed, he reached forward to lightly touch my face. He pulled me toward him to whisper into my ear. “D’ya know what I really want for Christmas?” he asked. “I want to go home and live with you, Debbi. Can I please? Can I be your little boy.”
I must tell you that in the few seconds it took me to answer, I honestly thought about it. I would have loved to have Frederico as my child, in my family, to give him a fresh start, and I tried to think of ways I might be able to pull that off. In the months he had been with us, I had truly grown to love him. But we were in different roles and the hospital and the profession itself dictates boundaries, so, I hugged him and softly explained—to myself as much as to Frederico—that I couldn’t do that because I already had two sons of my own. That I would see him every day at the hospital.
He, of course, protested that he was sure that I still had room for one more boy, a small boy–please, Debbi, please–but I finished tucking him in and gently kissed his forehead and returned to the nurses’ office, where I shed not a few tears over what I really wanted to do. The night shift would later place the wrapped gifts under the tree, and I would hear the next day about what Santa had brought.
Frederico didn’t receive his fire truck that year, and he didn’t get a new family either, at least not with me. That saddened me. I continued to see Frederico every day after that for months, but things were never quite the same. He had opened up and told me what he wanted and I couldn’t give it to him. He didn’t want to risk doing that again, at least not at that time, in that place, with me. In late spring, Frederico was discharged to one more of several foster homes, and I never saw him again.
As I think of Frederico today, I hope he finally has a real family and that he will have a good Christmas this year. Maybe, he’ll come to understand how very much the staff at that hospital cared for him and wanted the best for him that Christmas and for all the Christmases to come. Moreover, I hope the public can someday acknowledge the emptiness that fills so many children’s lives and hearts and work toward helping fractured families so that, someday, children won’t be separated from the people who matter most and have to celebrate the wonderfully-important days with caregivers.
In the meantime, tonight, I wish for all the children and all who work with them, much joy and many blessings.
Merry Christmas, Frederico.
Merry Christmas to you all.
I hope we can all remember to celebrate the gifts we receive that truly matter.
