DO YOU LOVE US AS MUCH [T, 8-17-21]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

“That hurts my feelings,” I said, making a petulant face.

“Good,” she said. “I want to hurt you.”

Her name was Jasmine, and she was 8 years old.

The occasion was letter-writing session for the 7 to 9 year old girls at Howell Neighborhood House in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. Jasmine, like the other girls, had written letters of thanks and appreciation to all the other social workers at HNH. Unlike the other girls, she had omitted me. She made sure I knew it.

I had the 7 to 9 boys, too. They called themselves The Wahoo Indian Tribe, and you could always tell where they were by their ringing cries of “Wahoooo!” The girls were quieter, and refused to give their group a name, and yelled only within our club room, but they were meaner. To one another, and to me.

I’d forgotten about how mean they were until I read the daily reports I had to write for Jon Regier and Ellsworth Shepherd, the head guys at HNH. I discovered my copies of the reports in an old file I hadn’t looked at in 63 years.

Those little girls hit me all the time. Never my face, but I think that was because I was over six feet tall and they couldn’t reach it. But they would hit my back, my arms, my legs. Whatever we were doing—making crafts, reading stories, playing table games or hopscotch—whenever one was close enough, she would take a swipe at me.

It didn’t seem to be a game or competition. They weren’t trying to one-up each other: “I can hit Mr. John more than you can.” It was just what they did.

The boys didn’t hit me. They were a wild and unruly bunch, but they evoked no particular desire to hurt, either me or one another, although they were always willing to fight if provoked.

The girls also fought one another, with great passion and nastiness, with personal animosity. It didn’t seem like they personally disliked me; they just wanted to hurt me. Why I didn’t know.

They were so mean to one new little girl that she cried and never returned. She was white, but I don’t think that was it. Lily, 9 years old and the undisputed leader of the group, was black, as was Jasmine, but there were 3 or 4 other white girls, and an equal number of Mexican and Puerto Rican girls, and another black girl occasionally. They were an equal-opportunity insult & injury organization.   

I, of course, did my best to protect that little girl that day, physically and emotionally. I tried to protect them all from one another, to foment peace, to teach them to respect one another, and everyone else. But I was only 21 years old, a farm boy college student summer social worker. Those little girls were far more experienced in the ways of the cruel world and mean streets than I was. If they wanted to hurt you, they knew how to do it.

This went on the whole summer, our little club meeting for two hours each day--mostly having fun, playing games and going places, disrespecting newcomers until they fought their way in—and me going to bed each night in my third-floor room with no air-conditioning or fan or window screen, but lots of bruises all over my body.

Then my last day. Time to return to my luxurious dorm room at IU, luxurious because there was a window screen, and nobody there tried to hurt me—except for girlfriends and professors, but their hurting did not include hitting.

 Jasmine handed me an envelope as she left that day. In it was a note. I am discarding most of the items in my old files. This one, though, I need to keep for a while. It said, “I love you. We all love you. Do you love us as much as we love you?”

John Robert McFarland

The photo above is HNH in the summer of 1958.