The Heartbreak of Joy

It is no secret to anyone that I love my work.

My Birch Network job mostly centres around supporting families living in hotel accommodation. 

There is little I can do to alleviate the things they really need help with: what they most need is not to be living in hotel accommodation, not to be waiting endlessly for decisions on their cases, not to be stuck in a system that tells them they are not wanted here. I have watched helplessly as the vibrant hope I saw in people when they arrived many months ago has slowly drained away.  

But around the edges I have done what I can. I have helped with odd things: I have got children into school, provided school uniform, passed on information, answered questions, filled in forms. I have administered endless bus tickets. I have taken the families out on a couple of fairly low key trips. I have turned up with a smile on my face and offered a listening ear. I hope in some small ways I have shown people they are welcome.

Most recently, I have started running an "after school club". I turn up once a week for a couple of hours. I bring paper, pencils and some felt tip pens, sometimes a game, ideas for activities to do together, little else. 

There are children who follow every instruction, eager to please. There are children who push the boundaries just as far as they think they can get away with, complete with cheeky grins. There are children who bicker as siblings do, and children who help each other out with kindness and generosity. There are children watching out for me who stay at my side for the duration, and children who join in for a fleeting moment then drift away. There are children who barely speak and children who barely stop! 

There are smiles and laughter and mess and a fair amount of silliness: there are children just being children.

And it brings me great joy. It is an incredibly rewarding couple of hours full of life and energy and fun. It is always nice when people are pleased when I arrive and sad when I leave. I feel deeply appreciated and loved.  

But it also breaks my heart ... 

I do nothing that really warrants the level of gratitude and appreciation I experience. Nothing that really warrants the level of joy it brings. 

These tiny things really shouldn't mean so much. It says much about their lives that they do. 

The joy in these moments is genuine. 

So is the heartbreak. 

I will sit, walk and live with both and know my life is the richer for it.