Daniel

The small, soft hand reached out tentatively to shake mine. He was shy and averted his almond-shaped, dark brown eyes by looking down at his untied red sneakers. His young face shone sincerity, a compelling attribute of children. His name was Daniel. He appeared to be of average height for his age and slender build. He wore clothes he’d clearly outgrown, a faded brown tee shirt that barely made it to his waist and a pair of black cargo shorts with a ripped pocket flap hanging forlornly from one side.

We first met at the school’s Media Center when Daniel was ten and in third grade. I knew he’d been kept back a year in second grade and was at risk of repeating third if his grades didn’t improve. 

Daniel was a delightful boy; when he smiled, the room brightened, freshened by his wide grin. Over the course of the three school years, I met with him—usually on a weekly basis. I was richly rewarded by his company. 

Perhaps because my own children have been adults for many years, I’d forgotten how different and innocent children are. Children are not younger versions of the adults they will grow up to be; but rather, their own unique beings, separate and distinct from the adults they will one day become. 

As Daniel’s mentor, my job was not primarily to tutor him, but to be his friend. If I also helped him academically, all the better. We jointly decided to start by spending half our hour reading together and the other half playing games. It was quickly apparent that Daniel’s reading level was quite low. And that he loved to play Uno.

Over the ensuing weeks, months and years, I learned much about his home and school life. Daniel had four brothers: two who lived with him and two who lived with his dad in Atlanta. His mother’s name was Flora. She, Daniel and the two brothers lived in a diminutive, ramshackle rental home not a mile from the school. Daniel’s grandmother lived a stone’s throw from Daniel’s house in another rental home. Although the county where the family lived was an affluent Atlanta suburb, you would never know that from the dirt road down which ten or so families lived, in homes built fifty or sixty years ago; a pocket of poverty amidst a land of plenty. 

When I drove down Daniel’s road, pitted with pot holes, I didn’t stop at his house. I didn’t want Daniel to think I was spying on him, but I wanted to see where he lived. Pieces of clapboard siding were missing in spots from the homes. Most of the homes lacked any number of asphalt roof shingles, resulting in roofs that looked like crossword puzzles. Several homes—including Daniel’s—had plastic trash bags duct taped over one or more spaces where once there were windows. A couple of dilapidated cars sat among the homes with raised hoods and missing wheels. A rusty swing set, minus swings, sat in front of Daniel’s house alongside a propane tank without a grill. All of these were monuments to the ravages of poverty, time and neglect. An old man in overalls waved to me as I drove by; two young men sat in lawn chairs as they drank beers and stared at me, doubtlessly thinking I was lost. The road unceremoniously dead-ended at a farmer’s field where soybeans reached towards the midday sun.

On one occasion early in our first year together, Daniel arrived visibly excited. He told me his dad was coming to pick him up on Saturday morning. He was to spend the weekend with him in Atlanta. His dad lived with a woman named Hanna, as well as two of Daniel’s brothers and a revolving number of cousins. I came to learn this didn’t necessarily mean blood relatives.

The following week I asked Daniel about his weekend spent with his dad. His demeanor instantly changed, as if a switch suddenly turned off the luminous light in his eyes. His dad hadn’t come. He didn’t have enough money to buy gas for his car. I learned over time that more often than not his dad didn’t show up when he promised he would.  

From Daniel’s teachers and guidance counselors, I learned that his mother was mildly developmentally disabled, functionally illiterate and had neither a job, car nor driver’s license. There was no computer at home and no broadband to support one. Daniel’s grandmother bought the family’s groceries using food stamps and cooked meals for them on the weekends when the children couldn’t receive the free breakfasts and lunches that their schools provided. It was easy to see the roots of the family’s poverty, but much harder to see how it could change. 

When I saw Daniel again in our second year together, he appeared to have grown two or three inches. Each week I saw Daniel, I understood anew why children are to be cherished and held close; they are simply a joy. Daniel’s manifest goodness helped me to be a better person.

One week, I noticed Daniel had body odor. I ignored it, hopeful that it would abate by the following week. But the body odor persisted into the following week, worse than before, so I decided to ask Mrs. Henderson, Daniel’s teacher, about it. 

She was well aware of it, as were his classmates, but Daniel was so well-liked by everyone that none of the kids had teased him. Mrs. Henderson explained that his guidance counselor had spoken to his grandmother, as his mother had no phone. Daniel’s grandmother told the guidance counselor that her check for the water bill had bounced. She expected to be in a position to pay the water bill by the end of the week. In the interim, Daniel’s family was transporting water-filled gallon containers from her house to theirs; enough for the toilets and for drinking water. Thankfully, the following week his body odor was gone.

Daniel was unfazed by such occurrences; in his world, they were not uncommon. He told me of times when the family went without power for several days. It wasn’t unusual for Daniel to go without dinner when there wasn’t any food to cook in the house. He sometimes complained to me that he was hungry; this was painful to hear. Not surprisingly, Daniel absolutely loved the provided school breakfasts and lunches. 

One of my goals for Daniel in our second year was to teach him how to tie his shoes. It took me quite some time to realize that his shoes were always untied not because he liked them that way, but simply because no one had taught him how to tie his shoes. The time and the effort it took to teach him this seemingly easy task was considerable, but after many weeks of practice, Daniel finally succeeded. He was very proud of himself when he could tie his shoes without assistance. So was I.

In our third and last year together, Daniel’s reading and writing were much improved. But he was still well behind his classmates. At the end of the year, I received permission to buy a movie gift card for Daniel, so he and his family could see an indoor movie of Daniel’s choosing. He had never been to a movie theater. 

The following school year, when Daniel would have started sixth grade, I was contacted by the manager of the county’s mentor program—as I had been each year—to see if I would continue to be a mentor. It was then I learned that Daniel’s mother decided she didn’t want Daniel to have a mentor any longer. She didn’t cite any reason for her decision. I was saddened I would no longer be a part of Daniel’s life and that I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to him. 

I like to think I contributed meaningful help to Daniel, but there was just so much more going against him than there was going for him. It is easy to point to the perceived failings of parents, but the truth is, we usually don’t know the circumstances surrounding families in need. No one dreams of being poor one day; no one wants their children to go hungry. Most of us haven’t the faintest idea of the struggles of those among us who are indigent.   

Adequately providing for families like Daniel’s is not only the right thing to do, in the future such help will yield societal dividends by increasing the odds that children like Daniel can succeed in life. All children deserve to start at the same starting line. In the wealthiest nation in the world, surely we can make this happen if we but demand it of ourselves and of our leaders. 

With a developmentally disabled mother, an unreliable and absent father and the numerous tendrils of poverty that wound through and around every aspect of Daniel’s life, it was hard to see a bright future for him and his siblings. There are countless Daniels in our country today and most of them we never see, hear or touch. But they are here, hidden beneath the thin veneer of our successful society, which does far too little and too late to lift those like Daniel out of the poverty that they did not choose. 

Jeff Hyndman is a retired IT person and part-time dog walker. He lives in an Atlanta suburb with his wife, Ellen, their dog, Carmela and their new cat, Chelsea. who pretty much runs the show.