The Boy with the Mangled Hand

and a heart that was heavy with hurt.

The Day My Son Needed Me

After a long morning at home full of meltdowns, heartbreak, and trying to hold space for my own child, I stopped at the pharmacy.

My sensitive and beautiful middle son had spent much of the early day grieving for hours after a disappointing phone call with his dad. His dad hasn’t called and my boys for months haven’t wanted to talk much to their father even though the door is always open.

But Liam has been missing the jungle. Missing his dad. Angry that life wasn’t unfolding the way he wished it would. The call was another promise broken, more empty words and more breadcrumbs. There were tears, shouting, broken things, and long stretches of me sitting beside him saying, “I know it hurts. I’m here. I’m with you. You are allowed to be angry but we treat each other with kindness. I’m not leaving you. I’m not sending you away.”

He took most of his rage out on me and the home. I knew it wasn’t about us, but it was still hard. By the afternoon, I was unbelievably exhausted.

I went to town with my three boys to run a couple errands, but mostly to change scenery and vibe. We were there go to the bank, change some money, and get antiparasitics (common when you live in Peru) to do our biannual cleanse. Then we were going to the park to run.

The Boy at the Counter

When I popped into the shop I noticed a young American guy in his early 20s trying desperately to communicate with the pharmacist with google translate. He had a deep gash across his hand, swelling in his wrist, and blood still fresh on the wound. The pharmacist looked at me with desperate eyes and asked if I could translate. Of course.

I immediately felt into it and it was broken.

The story came out in rushed pieces. A motorcycle crash. Drinking. A fight. Trying to impress a girl. An attempt to get help at the hospital only to be turned away confused. He kept insisting he only needed strong painkillers to get through a flight back to the States the next morning. He said take care of it there.

I could feel he was scared and felt alone. I looked at his hand and thought, What you need is someone to care whether you make it home.

I couldn’t leave him there in that condition. So I spoke to the pharmacist to get the materials to get the wound clean and closed— antibacterials, gauze, butterfly bandages, and a good splint so his hand wouldn’t be permanently mangled. I didn’t want the wound to go septic in to the blood.

As we gathered supplies, cleaned the wound and got his hand stable, I asked him why he kept putting himself in these situations. The answer wasn’t really about motorcycles or alcohol. It wasn’t even about the broken hand. It felt deeper than that.

A Deeper Story

At one point he looked at me and said, “You care more than my mom.”

Everything underneath the story became visible.

Sometimes what looks like recklessness is grief. Sometimes what looks like self-destruction is a person trying to prove they matter. Sometimes people don’t know how to ask for love, so they ask for attention instead.

He told me he’d already broken twenty-seven bones. Twenty-seven. I remember looking at him and thinking that this wasn’t bad luck. This was a young man moving through the world as though his life wasn’t worth protecting. He lived as if he was trying to get attention and be seen. As he spoke I could see the whole story behind the words flash in my third eye.

Once he was sorted with a clean stable hand, I explained how to keep everything in tact without more damage until he could get home. Asked him some hard but caring questions and gave some sound motherly advice. Do not drink with painkillers. Keep it clean. Don’t move it around. Make wise choices.

But mostly, I wanted him to know that his life mattered. That he deserved care. That he deserved someone to look at him and say, “Hey, slow down. Pay attention. Take care of yourself. Your life is valuable. “

Why do you Care about me?

He kept asking. “Why do you care so much? Why are you helping me. My mom doesn’t even care this much. No one has ever helped me like this.” I just asked him if he needed a hug. He nodded and I hugged him long and hard. By the time we were done, he was crying in my arms as I whispered, “You are worthy of help, you are worthy of love” He wasn’t crying because of the pain in his hand, but because someone had finally stopped long enough to see him, hold him and help him through a hard moment.

I gave him my card and told me to send me a message if he needed anything.

As he was leaving, he pulled my boys aside.

“Your mom is amazing,” he told them. “Not everybody has a mom like this. Respect her. Listen to her. Seriously, You have a great mom. I wish you really knew.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the timing.

Just a few hours earlier, one of my own children had been screaming that he hated me. He was running away to the jungle. He was angry and grieving and wishing life were different. He was hurting. I had spent the day reminding him, over and over, “I care. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Then life placed this young man in my path.

A boy in a grown man’s body. Alone in a foreign country. Hurt. Lost. Making terrible decisions. Beneath all of it, carrying the same ache I had been witnessing in my own child all day long.

The details were different, but the question underneath felt the same.

*Does anybody care that I’m hurting?*

For all our complexity, maybe that question never really leaves us.

And sometimes what changes a life isn’t advice. It isn’t fixing the problem. It isn’t having the perfect words.

Sometimes it’s simply having someone stop, listen, look you in the eyes, and remind you that you matter.

I do this work because its my work to do and I don’t keep walking if I see someone hurting. Please support me and support your own healing

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