He grew up on stories of rescued children — of Moses, who, in being rescued became the savior of a civilization, and of Jesus, who was adopted by a father who loved him like his own. “You are meant for great things”, the nuns had said. “Saved children have a special destiny. But for now, you must study and be strong and prepare.”
So he learned reading and math, then science and history and politics and religion. He would be ready when his saviors came. His friend told him the stories were just fairy tales for orphans. She had been in nine foster homes, and there was no Mary and Joseph, she said. He had to rescue himself.
Year passed by year, until he turned 18 and had to accept that he would never be the child of legends. So he became a teacher, helping other children to prepare. He taught them history, and told them they could be pioneers in the wilderness of humanity.
But he never knew if his message was heard. They took their tests and handed in their papers and went on to their futures, each wave of students graduating without a lightning bolt of change.
So he left teaching and traveled around the world feeding the poor, himself starving for a call to his destiny. Hundreds took bowls of nourishment from his hands, but he never felt the spark. Perhaps his purpose was to strive, and in striving he would be an example to others. That’s what he told himself, but he never quite believed it.
Finally he returned home, studied the stock market, earned his fortune, and gave it away, for education and hunger and adoption. His searching had become hollow. The world was the same as it had always been. There were still abandoned children struggling for identity, meant only for obscurity, it seemed. Maybe he should have fostered a family himself, maybe he had missed his calling. But now, he was just so tired.
He wasn’t surprised to learn he was dying. He accepted his fate and lay in the hospital bed, waiting for his unremarkable passing. The nurses tried to stimulate him, telling him he still had time. They turned on the television as though he should care.
One day the screen showed a former student speaking to a crowd. “We can do better than the past. We have history to guide us,” she said. The man shivered. It was not such an original sentiment after all.
The reporter explained that the student was the founder of Orphans of Destiny, a network that connected those who feel small and alone yet meant for more. ”We are rescuing each other,” the student said. She introduced her founding partner, who had been abandoned at three in a country of poverty and now had her college degree.
“A man traveled halfway around the world to feed me. Through his journey, I could see a road from there to here.” She had already reimbursed the donations that funded her adoption and her scholarship and she was herself funding many more.
With failing strength, the man looked up the website: From the suffering of the world’s children, a culture learns what it values, holding its own a little tighter, deciding what caring requires. We are the village and we are pioneers. This site exists so none of us dies alone in the wilderness.
With wavering eyesight, he read the rest: Live as though you were destined for greatness, and the greatness will follow where you lead.
As his vision narrowed to a pinpoint, and the last breath left his body, the man saw a light brighter than lightning or any spark he had imagined, and the last words he heard were, “Well done.”
kristalynn
spunkandteddy
