Holding it in

Kids growing up in rural South Africa are taught not to cry, generally.

When you fall down, no one rushes to your side, hugging you and carrying you into the house for a band-aid. When your mother dies, no one asks how you are doing, or gives you special treatment, or puts you into therapy. When you are abused, everyone looks the other way - after all, it's just the way it is. When everyone in your family has died or is dying, lying skeleton-like on their beds, everyone whispers that they are cursed, or have the flu, or "certain illnesses". You are taught to not think about it, to push it away, and to go on. Crying will get you nowhere, except maybe told to stop crying, what is wrong with you?

I am now raising several children who were at one time, essentially raising themselves. It is interesting to see them when they first come to our family - they often show very little emotion, even if they are just consistently happy all the time. Khutso was one of these. Since his father died when he was just a baby, his mother had to go away to work as a domestic servant for a rich Afrikaaner family, only visiting her children in their mud house every month or two. He was left his 13 year old sister, who pretty much just let him go on his own way.

When Khutso first came to Pfunanane, he was cheerful all the time. Even when he had an injury that was obviously painful, he would look confused for a few seconds, and then go on. The same with when kids were mean to him, or something would go wrong - that puzzled look, as if he was trying to figure out that feeling, and then he'd brush it off. It occurred to me that children cry much of the time because of the response they get from it - comfort, love, attention. He'd never gotten this for crying, so he'd never really learned to cry. At first I really liked this about him - "wow, this kid's tough, and he's always happy!!" but then I came to realize that it wasn't so good, and that there was a lot of pain he was keeping inside, because he didn't know what else to do with it.
After almost a year at Pfunanane, Khutso has finally learned to cry. It started with a few tears in his eyes when his finger got slammed in the car door. Now he'll really let it out if he needs to. Today was the first time I saw him cry because of emotions, or expressing what he was feeling. We saw a cousin of his on the side of the road, and gave her a ride to where she was going. I noticed he was quiet on the ride home, which was strange because he is never quiet. (never) When we got home I noticed tears were rolling down his face - he hid his face, embarrassed, and almost confused about why he was crying. I sat with him, and after he stopped crying we planted a tree together. (I've found that sometimes kids talk better when they are busy doing something, and no one is staring at them or expecting anything of them). He told me that he had pain (ee a baba) inside, because he missed his family and he doesn't have a father (though he now stays with his mother most nights, as she lives on our property). I told him it sometimes it is good to cry when you feel that pain inside, because that pain inside will get worse if it doesn't come out of your face. I told him that sometimes I really miss my family, and I cry too.

He looked at me then, wide eyed.

"and you are big," he said seriously.

"yes," I told him, "I am very big."

Addy is another one of my kids who internalizes everything. Her mother died of AIDS a year and a half ago, and her father works in Johannesburg, 5 hours away, and only comes back a few times a year. After her mother's death Addy and her brothers and sisters were scattered among different relatives - Addy stayed with me during the school week, and with her mother's sister on weekends, which she really liked. Then, just a year after her mother's death, her beloved aunt also died. She was shipped off again, this time to her father's relatives, where she was abused and neglected. I called her father several times and told him that something was wrong there, and that she wasn't happy - he insisted that she would get used to it, and that she should continue going there on weekends so they could get child-care grant money fron the government.

Addy is a brilliant child, and is often quiet. You can sometimes just see her thinking, processing things in her head. She is one of those kids who doesn't say much, but you can see something in her dark eyes that tells you something isn't right - it's like a reflection of pain that you can only see when she thinks no one is looking. Things run deep with her, but sometimes it as though things are buried so deep, she doesn't know how to get to them or get them out.

When she came back home to us after her aunt died and she was moved yet again (around Christmas time), you could see that pain in her eyes, but for the most part, she just became a bit quieter, and less silly and talkative. She didn't mention anything that was going on with her family, and I didn't push it - just told her I loved her like my own daughter and would always be here for her. Then one night a few days in I put her to bed - she'd been cheerful enough when we read a story and prayed...but just about a minute after I said goodnight and turned off the lights, I heard her start crying hysterically. The other kids got really alarmed, as she's never done that before - I told them to go to bed and pray for her, and I would sort it out, but I knew what the problem was. I sat on her bed and held her as she cried so hard she could hardly breathe, gasping and wailing - it was actually so heartbreaking that I couldn't stop the tears from filling my eyes too. There is something so different in a child crying from deep grief and emotional pain than a child crying for attention, or even because of injury. She couldn't even talk, she just cried, for almost an hour. She slept in my room that night, and every time she woke up, it would start again.

Addy has never been an attention-seeker or very dramatic at all - it was just that she had been carrying so much pain around since the loss of her mother, then moving, then losing her aunt to the same illness, then moving again and facing abuse. I don't believe she had ever actually cried during any of this, instead just quietly facing whatever was next, and being as brave as she could for her little brother Mack, who she protects fiercely. The pain and loss this seven year old was carrying was probably more than I've faced in my entire life. And it was as if she knew she was finally somewhere safe, finally somewhere she would be listened to - and all that pain just exploded as if it was the first time she had felt it, as if it all happened yesterday. Her grief was so real that I could tell it was the first time she had allowed herself to feel it.

She is finally learning to talk about her pain, and to tell me about what she is going through. Though I don't have legal custody, I have spent a lot of time talking to her father about what she wants, and have gotten her to tell him also - I think soon she will be living with me all the time, and not having to return to this place that is causing her more pain, but rather stay at the place that has always been consistent, and that she has known since she was small. When we ask her about this, she just smiles quietly and nods her head once, one big nod, face to the sky and then tucking her chin back into her chest.

All kids are different. Some are afraid to attach or get close to anyone - others cling to me, holding my hand as if it's a lifeline. Some become quiet and introverted in their pain, some cover it up and act as if nothing is wrong, others act out in disobedience and anger. But all of them need to let it out in some way, to express what is inside, to "let the hurt come out of their face", to tell their secrets to someone they trust. This trust isn't easily won, and it usually takes time, patience, and a lot of time just being around the kid. Often they will pipe up at the strangest times - when we are mopping the floor, cooking dinner, going for a walk, riding in the car...and I always just act as if it's the most natural thing in the world that they are telling me about how their father used to beat them until blood came out of their head, that they would eat grasshoppers because there was no food in the house, that when they found their mother dead she felt stiff, that they know their parents died of AIDS and they know they have it too. I try to show them that I care, that I wish these things hadn't happened to them, and that I will always listen to them no matter what they want to tell me. And especially, that I will always be here for them and love them like my own children. Because in my heart, they are.





(all photos by Lauren Stonestreet, Elle Effect Photography)