Children Forgotton Because Of Their Parents Pain....

"Laddie was my brother's dog. This
collie and I had one unfortunate thing in common. In the maddening chaos, all the people who were supposed to be taking care of us forgot we existed.
.....I allowed him to hang out with me in my room even though he wasn't supposed to be in the house. Somewhere along the way in all those hours together behind that locked door, Laddie and I arrived at a certain understanding; we needed each other if we were going to make it. I would sometimes sink into the black hole of anguish and loneliness in the corner of my room. Inevitably Laddie would shuffle over and stretch out lengthwise on the floor facing me. With his head down between those big paws, he would look straight up at me. Making eye contact would prompt a slow tail wag, but he remained dutifully quiet and still until welcomed into my lap. I talked and he listened. I cried; he lay there next to me. Often we dozed off together back—to—back on my bedroom floor. Maybe he needed attention; maybe I needed a presence until the darkness passed. All I know is that neither of us was quite right from all we had endured, but we both seemed to accept this about each other, and somehow that mattered. A lot of years have separated then from now. I'm finding it takes time, maybe even a lifetime, to grieve your real losses and possess them as your own. Though I'm all grown up on the outside, I've not come along quite so quickly on the inside. I have not easily let go of the secret hope that somehow it could all magically be erased or made right or the wishful expectation that someone or something could compensate for the sadness."
(Jim Palmer.  Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion To Find God- And the unlikely people who help you.)