A young man tossed out of his home for being gay, beaten and broken, a little over a week before he turned 18, with just a few dollars in his pocket and the clothes on his back. So, in this fantastic, stunningly crafted tale of humanity and hope, Zachary is a 17 year old throwaway. He was 15 or 16, and just opening up about his sexuality, and just a beautiful and kind and sweet young man and if I could have adopted him I would have in a freakin minute. This particular young man had a lot of issues, and his life was hard, but he and I bonded over my dog (we could bring our pets in and he learned empathy from working with pets, and he loved my lab Samantha). like some of us would throw away garbage. Mom and dad not in the picture anymore, thank God, but he and his sister were.thrown away. But there were a few special kids, and one in particular, who was a throwaway, a young person tossed out of their homes for being gay, or for getting on a parent's nerves, or whatever, but tossed out with nowhere to go and usually no money. Really.Īnd I loved so many of these kids. We were one step down from psychiatric hospitalization, and some of the stories I could tell you.you cannot imagine. These were 12 - 17 year old kids, most of whom were abandoned or neglected, beaten, raped, prostituted out. All had suffered some level of abuse - mental, physical, sexual.

So I guess a couple of things you should know about me are that I was CFO for a residential treatment center for abused adolescents for the past ten years, and that I am a gay man.

The Christmas Throwaway by R.J. Scott