Pure Love

I work in a very unusual environment.  I am a psychiatric social worker in a special education school that accommodates emotionally disturbed middle and high school students as well as psychiatrically vulnerable high school students and middle and high school students with autism.  I have worked there for, well, too many years.  It has taken it's toll on me.  I've written earlier blog posts about some of my students whom I think are heroes and warriors.  All told, we have about 150 students in my school. While I am charged with caring for about 40 of the students, there is one individual on our staff that is dedicated to all 150.  He is ostensibly the "crisis worker" or "behavior specialist".  He is those things, yes, but he is more aptly described as pure love.  Miguel is 60 now but continues to have the stride and parlance of a 30 year old.  I have worked with Miguel for all of my 23 years at this school. His skills are not learned, they can't be taught.  He cannot make a YouTube teaching his technique  and he shuns any attempt to bottle it or name it and certainly to praise it.  Because, I would argue, it is pure love.  He makes every student feel as though they are the center of the universe.  He greets every teacher, social worker, bus driver and custodian as if we were his bests friend.  Students clamor for his attention, his approval.  He booms, he barks he scolds.  And every student, every single one accepts, repents and shifts.  Many of our kids call him Poppi.  From Columbia, this is in part cultural for Miguel but for most of my kids he is the father they cannot have.

Today we had a talent show.  Students, able and not, showcased their willingness to do whatever they do.  Some were talented songbirds, some told jokes..I think (they were indiscernible).  Miguel, a very talented musician himself, did all of the technical set ups and was the all around go to guy hovering behind center stage.   A 13 year old young man, Benny, who has autism and is the son of a former student of mine from this same school, performed his dance interpretation of "Killer" by Michael Jackson. Benny does not dally with social connections.  He dances through the hallways and screeches when spurned.  But on this day, he was a wealth of sunshine and showmanship. Our student body, the cons and the rejected the bi-polar and the self destructive watched tentatively.  Most know Benny and accept his antics.  But on this day, I watched students look to Miguel to lead them.  And when Miguel cheered Benny, and fist pumped clearly teary eyed, students erupted first with rhythmic clapping and then ultimately with a standing ovation.

Miguel's pure love is contagious. He makes soup on Fridays, for everyone- anyone.  He has a nickname for every student, all 150.  Over the years I've stood at his side in awe as a suffering student attacks verbally, physically and Miguel, ever even tempered, asks with pure love how he can help.  The student melts.  The child becomes his.

When he isn't pouring out everything he has to these kids, he works a second job at a nearby children's home helping to heal the most damaged children.  He's been their crisis worker for over 30 years.

How does one person do this?  How does one person perfect love in this way?  Accept without bitterness, give with no expectations?

Miguel is the gold standard.  He exists in a  place I cannot dream of inhabiting.  It would not be real for me.  I could not accept and love tirelessly, daily without snapping.  I snap too often as it is.  We should all have a gold standard to remind us of that which we are capable.  Like the studies that tell us we use only a small fraction of our brains.  Miguel teaches me that we use only a small part of our hearts... leaving so much for us to reveal.