I like you.

Bite Marks as Badges

I scooped them up from the towering swarm that had tried to subdue them. They scratched and bit me as I calmly breathed in and out, gently but firmly containing their small but powerful flailing frame. We made it to the Safe Room and I released them safely to the ground.

I sat in front of the door. They screamed. They called me names and cursed at me. Their eyes darted around the room as they identified objects and tested their potential as effective weapons. They charged at me. I held them, then freed them. Over and Over.

And Over and Over, on repeat, I said quietly and meant it:

“I like you. I do not like what you are doing, but I like you. You are safe. I will not hurt you. I will not let you hurt me. *Name* I like you. You are safe. I will not hurt you. I will not let you hurt me…”

Though I loved and love them truly, I did not use the word love because too often love is modeled and muddied through the dysfunction of abuse. Love can be tangled with condition or relayed as a reluctant requirement of a role. Love can even be used to coerce or to shame or guilt. Love is too often less about the Loved and more about the one giving it.

I know these are all what truly Love is not, but I couldn’t be sure that their experience had not made love a thing to fear.

So I chose, “I like you.”

“Like” is more consistently associated with a choice or natural response to positive connection. Friendship. Light.

“I like you. You are safe. I will not hurt you. I will not let you hurt me. I like you..”

30 minutes. An hour. I don’t remember how long it was.

But I’ll never forget their eyes when they finally began to surrender. Red and wet, desperate. Lost. What they had learned, what they had seen, what had been done to them, what they tried to do to me…these things had no place in this Room to grow. Only to be weathered. And they did not know what to do because this was shatteringly new.

They were only 3.

But the anguish. The depth of the pain and clawing for control that should not belong or be born to someone with so few years in this world. These and so many more badges and scars shooting from those wild and widened windows.

I saw this.

I saw them.

I will always see them.

They are with me now.

Though we only were given a few days, I will always remember. I hope they will too.

Those bite marks were my badges.

I was given a chance to see this beautiful child. Be there with them. To look at them and accept them. To show them what strength in love can look like when these natural manifestations of trauma and abuse explode from their tiny body.

I did not force the calm. I remained through the storm, a steady invitation to see through to peace.

Before I left that day, they hugged me and said, “I love you.”

This gave me such hope for love’s meaning to this little one. I hope they remember what Love looks like.

I closed my eyes for just an instant to record all This. I hugged them back, lowered myself to meet them and said, “I love you too.”