The face of neglect

Somebody was very sad leaving the therapy center this morning. You see, he had to leave behind a truly fabulous toy that his occupational therapist let him play with toward the end of his session.

It was a bowl.

A plastic bowl.

And the fact that having to leave behind a plastic bowl can reduce my almost-thirteen-year-old son to fifteen minutes of sobbing with tears streaming down his face is a very sad thing.

All those years of nothing are so deeply ingrained in this boy's brain that to have something and then have to give it up is still tragic for him.

At times like this I recognize how very inadequate I am to the task of even imagining the severity of the impact the abuse of extreme neglect he (and so many others) survived (or didn't survive, in the case of many, and that many are still surviving at this moment) can have on a human being.