Heart Broken

I made a new friend. He is 16 months old. The sweetest guest in the hotel! He has been with us for 2 nights. I met him yesterday. It was love at first sight. Ever since I met him all he wants to do is come to me. He literally tries to climb over the counter, out of his mother's arms and come to me. He sees me from at the end of the hall and tries running to me with his arms in the air like a little chimp. When I saw him for the first time today I was leaving the office and they were walking by. He put his arms up for me to hold him, I picked him up and he gave me the sweetest hug. He didn't even budge, he just held me and didn't let go. I had to pull him away and hand him to his Mom. He still reached out for me even while she walked away. The mother, obviously very young, said to me, "he doesn't usually do that". My heart breaks every time he looks at me and reaches for me. This look in his eyes seems to say, "please save me". I think of him and I get a knot in my throat. I could seriously cry right now thinking of him.

This small boy, what does his future hold? He has a mother who is a single teenage parent. A great grandma who yells at him and tells him he is a bad boy when he dumped rice all over the hotel room (took me 15 minutes to vacuum it all up) while she was supposed to be babysitting so the Mom and Aunt could go "out". This sweet boy has a Grandma and Grandpa who are both locked up for substance abuse. How do I know all this? They talk too much. It is obvious to me that in the brief moments I have spent with this child he has felt more love and more safety and security with me than he does with his own family. That breaks my heart. It truly does. When I finished vacuuming I looked at the child, smiled and waved goodbye, he looked up at me with his big brown eyes and reached for me one last time as his grandmother pulled him away.