Reality Bites: The Reality of Hope

I just found out some terrible news about one of the kids I used to to tutor. The child is now a young adult, but something has definitely gone wrong along the way, considering the unfortunate path that their life has taken. Just thinking about it is depressing.

The one thing I've always loved about working with children, is that they are malleable. They are not afflicted, as we adults are, by the limitations and prejudices that society has burdened upon us. Though it is true that sometimes, children experience traumatic events, which build weak, little, brick walls around their feet, these are easily toppled. Children carry with them the reality of hope. We adults do not see hope as a reality, but only as an ideal.

Through children, we adults can experience hope. We invest ourselves in them, and we nurture them, because we believe that through them, our hopes will become reality. It is disheartening to know that future you saw for a bright little person, the future you worked so hard to bolster, has somehow been stolen away. It is disheartening to know that sometime between youth and adulthood, "the reality of hope" can be snatched away like the most worthless of diamonds.