Thanksgiving

[Der_Iron_Chef]

I'm writing in my blog tonight, and I figured I might as well write here, too. Just some reflections...maybe not appropriate for Canreef. Mods, remove it if you need to.
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I don't even know how to begin this. I guess I must begin by saying that it's Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, with tomorrow being the day we will gorge ourselves with sundry sweets and savouries.

Nothing makes obvious the true meaning of a holiday more than seeing those who are not able to celebrate it. So I began to wonder tonight....what are we actually celebrating? Do we even KNOW what we're thankful for, and moreso, why we're thankful for it?

But let me back up just a little. I work at a residential program for youth who are involved in prostitution. I'm almost always able to go about my days and weeks and months (and holidays) with a general sense of detachment from the work that I do. I guess I've become used to the idea that there are 13 and 14 year-old prostitutes who work out of back alleys, cheap motels, mobile homes or parks, for drugs or a place to stay.

I received a phone call earlier from a youth at my program, who was picked up by the police several days ago, and has been taken to a secure treatment facility. After going missing for 8 days, she says to me, "Oh Andrew, you should have seen me." I ask her why...and she isn't able to give me more information. She starts to cry, the usual severity suddenly gone. "I can't control myself. I guess I need to be locked away," she says. She cries some more, and I realize that I'm seeing her in a way I never have before: she has nothing left, not even her false confidence and abusive knee-jerk reactions. She wants to call her mother, to wish her Happy Thanksgiving. She cries some more and hangs up the phone.

I spent the following several hours attempting to control my own emotions, examining my own life, and the implications it might have on my giving of thanks this weekend. Sometimes I wonder how we can sleep at night, knowing full well that while we spend $60 on a turkey dinner for our friends and family, a 13 year-old girl is doing the unimaginable for $60 just a few miles away.