Avril Lavigne- I'm With You

I’m very sensitive to songs about runaways. Neither of my boys have ever run away but they’ve each had a friend come to our house after getting into a bad fight with their parents.

Jake’s friend was about 15. His Dad kicked him out and he had nowhere to go. Jake came to me and asked if it would be OK for him to spend the night.

I had to call my pastor for advice because I didn’t want this boy's parents to worry about him. She told me that legally, you can’t kick a child out of the house until they’re 16 and that I needed to talk to the boy’s father.

That’s what I did. I talked to the Dad and offered to drive his son home. I dropped him off in the darkness outside his house but could see his Dad waiting in the lighted doorway. I felt bad about it. I would have liked to have kept him overnight, talked to him, made sure he was OK emotionally. But his Dad said to bring him home.

The next day Jake told me that after we drove away, the Dad blocked the doorway and wouldn’t let his son in. I have no idea where he slept. (That bastard!)

Jamie’s little friend came to us sometime during elementary school. I think the boy was about ten. 11:00 at night, the doorbell rang and here was this friend of Jamie’s asking if he could sleep at our house. It was a school night and Jamie was already asleep.

I talked to the boy and he told me he had had a fight with his step-mom and that he had been walking around for about two hours. He didn’t know where else to go. I explained that I had to call his parents but that maybe they would let him stay just for the night.

His little face was so hurt and sad, I gently said, “come here,” gave him a hug and told him it was going to be OK. I tucked him in in our guest room and reminded him that I wasn’t sure he could stay but that I would ask. I remember his little head nodding as it lay on the pillow.

I called his Mom and of course, she said she’d come and get him. I assume that situation turned out better than the last one. I never heard anything more.

It breaks my heart to think of all the young people out there who don’t have someone like me to go to, who are so afraid in their own homes that they’d rather put their trust in a stranger on the street.

"Isn't anyone tryin to find me?
Won't somebody come take me home
It's a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life
Won't you take me by the hand
Take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are
But I... I'm with you
I'm with you"