What's in a Name?

I knew they existed. 

I read of them decades ago.  They are the spawn of poverty, the offspring of despair and they are everywhere.  They are in Caracas and Chicago, Dar es Salaam and Denver; they lie under palms and hide in sewers.  They are the children of hunger and hopelessness.  They fall early and they die young.  They are small and silent and all too easily avoid detection.  They are hidden by our daily concerns of appearances and appropriateness.  They disappear and become the dust of time.

This one was standing in front of me with the small cadre of children who ran to shake my hand, some to see if the white would rub off.  I pegged him at six years old, smiling, but oddly cloudy.  I knew the instant that he offered his green-painted hand that the crystal eyes of youth were fogged by the fumes he eagerly sought from the bottom of the black plastic bag in his other hand.

Qu’est-ce que c’est? I asked as I touched his painted palm.  He pulled his hand away and looked down at the ground.  He didn’t move.  I bent down and took his small face in my hands and asked him if he breathed from the bag.  He gave a small nod, his eyes still searching the ground.  I spoke to him in gentle tones and told him that it was not good for his health.  I told him that I was worried for him.  I asked him to stop breathing paint.

I asked him his name.  “Ésaïe,” he whispered.  “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.” Tiny Isaiah was well on his way to being lost before he could ever rebel. 

I told him again that he was hurting his health by breathing from the bag.  I knew that my words would not pierce the fumed fog nor could my words fill the voids of hunger and hopelessness.  I rubbed his small head and took his hand.  “I have concern for you,” I smiled at him.

  I shook his hand.  I asked, “Connais-tu “high five?” He stared with eyes too young for so much pain.  Some of the other children raised their hands having encountered my question before.  I “high-fived” them and then put my hand in front of Isaiah.  He raised his hand but stopped midway as he looked at the fresh green paint on his palm.  He looked up at me as I took his hand and said, “High five!”  I pushed my hand into his and he smiled.

I took their photo, hoping to capture Isaiah’s image to be on the lookout for him.  I called out, “À plus tard,” as I fixed my eyes again on Isaiah.  A couple of the children who knew me responded, “Later!”

I walked the rest of the way to my office at the SIL center while rubbing the small stain of green paint on my hand as I prayed for God’s grace to fall on Isaiah.

I knew they existed, but this one now has a name.