Our agency was told that we need to move out of our current location by the end of the year, so lately part of my responsibilities included scouting out possible new office space. Today I was visiting a possible location in a most unusual building: the historic Loyal True Blue and Orange Home in Richmond Hill.
The Loyal True Blue and Orange Home was a large orphanage that opened in the 1920’s. Today the building has been turned into a school as well as office suites for non-profit community service agencies. As I was being given a tour of the building, the person took me to a floor where the original layout has not been disturbed. He pointed out to me the original closet spaces where the children’s coats were kept, and I even saw an old wheelchair that looked like it was from the “original days”. It was like travelling back in time.
Perhaps because of my experience in adopting a child, as we stood in that old space I found myself quietly becoming a little emotional. I looked at the old, exposed brick walls and wood floors, and “saw” children who spent cold winter nights there instead of being in the warmth of their parents’ homes. I looked out the window onto the large fields outside and wondered how many children stood in front of that very same window, gazing out on to that same field on countless Christmas mornings, feeling the loneliess of not having family.
On my way out I noticed the differet human service agencies that the building houses today. There are agencies that serve people with different illnesses and disabilities: Autism, Epilepsy, Learning Disabilities, just to name a few. Quietly, a gentle wish welled up inside: I wish my life can be useful in creating a world where children will no longer be abandoned, where people will not be stigmatized because of their illnesses, where we will finally learn, and take seriously, the dignity that is part of what it means to be human.
{ 2 comments }
