Golarz: How grandma's chicken soup helped soothe a young man's soul
My grandmother Busia lived in an old neighborhood. The same neighborhood I grew up in. Her house was just down from the coal yard. The back of her house faced the alleyway that had on its far side a row of old unpainted and rotting clapboard garages and the back of Kot’s bar.
It was a wintery early December day when I stopped to have lunch with her. I was the novice director of a criminal justice delinquency intervention project. Much of the project focused on my old neighborhood, known for its serious problem with juvenile delinquency.
Through the kitchen window I could see two boys about 12 or 13 foraging for food in the alleyway garbage cans. I slipped on my coat and went out.
They ran. They ended up hiding in a dark space between two old structures. I knew this hiding place so it didn’t take long to trap them. As I approached, the smaller of the two drew a handmade knife.
I could have taken the knife, but decided to talk them down. It took half an hour to convince them that my grandmother’s warm kitchen, bowl of chicken soup and homemade bread was a much better place than this cold, dark refuge.
Busia had them wash and then she sat them down in her kitchen near the pot-bellied stove. After a prayer, the homemade chicken soup and bread were attacked. The boys didn’t look up or speak for the next full 20 minutes. The smaller boy, whom I found out was Joshua, finally looked up at Busia with a warm, relaxed and deep smile. Not a smile I would ever forget.
We lost contact with the boys over that winter.
In early February I got word that the bigger boy, Noah, had been hit by a car and killed as he was running out of a neighborhood alley. We searched for Joshua for months but could not find him. Finally, I got a call from probation officer Sullivan in Judge Mazur’s juvenile court.
“Ray, we think we found your kid. DPW is bringing him into court. Judge thought you might like to be here.”
When I got there, Judge Mazur was placing Joshua at the Crown Point juvenile detention facility pending placement to Hoosier Boys Town. He then said to me, “Ray, would you like to take him over there?”
I responded, “Would love to, your Honor.”
As we settled into my car, Joshua looked up at me and said. “Mr. Ray, could we stop at Busia’s house first for some chicken soup?" I replied, “She already knows were com’in, Joshua. She already knows were com’in.”
I visited Joshua fairly often at Hoosier Boy’s Town. He completed his studies, joined the military and was shipped off to Vietnam. We soon lost contact. I never knew if he made it back. Somewhere in the coward section of my heart, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know if he hadn’t. I just wanted to remember that warm and deep smile looking up from his chicken soup.
Then one day, as I was leaving the building after my class, I was approached by a young, very handsome uniformed Marine whom I didn’t recognize. He looked into my eyes, smiled and said, “Mr. Ray, Busia still make that great chicken soup?” I yelled out, “Joshua!” Then I grabbed him as he grabbed me. We held on for a long time.
That night we sat at a table we had sat at before. We laughed, cried, and thanked God for the joy of one another.
You see, my friends: Teachers, social workers, and cops seldom get paid enough. Their most profound rewards come in a different form.
Raymond Golarz has authored or co-authored 12 books. He has keynoted criminal justice or education conferences throughout the United States and Canada. His website is RayGolarz.com. He resides in Bloomington.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Columnist writes a simple kindness can stick with a child
