Everyone Has a Story

It starts with a phone call . . .

We have a 15 year-old girl who was sexually abused by her mom’s boyfriend while her mom took video of it.

We have an 18 month-old little girl who is being released from the hospital but is blind and has brain damage because her dad shook her so hard.

We have a newborn boy who is being taken into custody because his older brother was beaten so badly by his dad that he was killed.

We have a newborn girl who was born meth addicted and is having severe withdrawal symptoms

These are examples of phone calls I have gotten as a foster mom asking if I would be willing to take these children into my home and love them as my own with the understanding that the primary goal is to return them to their parents.

I loved each of these children, but I got very angry when I thought of the damage that was done to them at the hands of those that are supposed to protect them.

I tried so hard to love the parents also, and to understand them. But I couldn’t get past the anger I had towards them. Until one day when I took my 8 year-old foster son on what they call a “good-bye visit”. His dad’s parental rights had been legally terminated, and we were going to adopt him. He was taken into state custody after he and his five siblings ranging in age from 10 down to a newborn had been continuously abandoned for days at a time in a filthy apartment in the middle of winter with no heat, no electricity and no food while his dad went out to do meth. His dad asked to see us first before he said good-bye to his son. He walked into the room, and I asked him if I could hug him. He fell into my arms and started sobbing. As I held him, I no longer saw a 40 year-old man who had been addicted to meth for 30 years and neglected and abused his children. Instead I saw a little boy - similar to the little boys I had taken into my home, and love and understanding for him swelled in my heart.

Everyone has a story. It is our responsibility to listen to our clients, and all those in our industry that we have to work with instead of judging them. We all know that Realtor with the bad reputation for being difficult to work with. Or the client that is extremely demanding and unreasonable. If we can see them with different eyes and try to understand them instead of judging them, our jobs will be so much easier.

I challenge each of you to go find your most difficult client, lender, title agent, Realtor, take them to lunch and listen to their story. As Stephen R. Covey says, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”