A ‘little boy that was hurting terribly inside’

ON THE MORNING of March 31, 2005, Charlie Ross took his 4-year-old son, Mykah, to the Head Start pre-school program at Bryant Elementary in West Philadelphia, as he always did, and left him with the usual promise, "See you later, Kah."

But this time, it was a promise that Ross could not keep.

After school, while Mykah waited at his grandmother's house, as he always did, for his dad to come from work and pick him up, Ross was shot to death on 54th Street near Chester Avenue.

A dispute with another man over a shared car had escalated into a confrontation over respect, and turned deadly.

Mykah was devastated.

"Kah didn't want to leave me to go to school," his mother, Chantell Ross, said. "He would say, 'Mom, are you going to be here after school?' They called me from school every day because Kah was crying.

"He started to hurt himself — hitting himself, throwing himself against the walls and floors," she said. "I sent him to therapy to be evaluated. The therapist said that Kah was just a little boy that was hurting terribly inside from his dad's death."

Mykah remained angry and fearful until this past February, when he and 35 first-grade classmates arrived at Lincoln Financial Field to start 10 Mondays of mentoring and tutoring by Philadelphia Eagles staffers.

When Mykah met his mentor, Rachel Vitagliano, an amazing thing happened: After two years of anguish, he started to heal.

Vitagliano and Mykah are living proof of what can happen when a one-on-one mentor is willing to welcome a young child with an open heart.

It wasn't easy. Mykah's sense of loss was profound.

"My husband and Kah were inseparable," Chantell said. "They went fishing together. They rode motorcycles together — Kah on his tiny motorcycle alongside his dad. My husband would take Kah to his construction job and let him help, which Kah loved. I have so many photos of my husband smiling with Kah in his arms."

She sat in the living room of their West Philadelphia home, near the glass case that holds a silver-framed wedding portrait and a silver urn with her husband's ashes.

Among the photos displayed at Ross' funeral were family favorites that Chantell captioned: Mykah at his fourth birthday party, smiling at something his dad was whispering in his ear (Chantell wrote: "I love you").

Ross waking up his sleepy son on the first day of pre-school (Chantell wrote: "I'm not ready yet"); Ross brushing Mykah's teeth (Chantell wrote: "Say cheese"); Ross holding Mykah in his arms (Chantell wrote: "My little man") and Mykah crying just before leaving home for Bryant Elementary (Chantell wrote: "Stressed out").

"I felt like Kah's stepmom sometimes," Chantell said, smiling. "Kah would walk into the room and say, 'I love you, dad.' Then he'd say, 'Oh, I love you too, mom.' They were so close."

So when his dad was suddenly taken from him, Mykah became fearful that other people he loved — including his mother and his paternal grandmother, Inez Worthington — might also disappear without warning, never to return.

Chantell told Mykah that they would see his dad again when they all went to heaven someday. "His questions were, 'When will we die so we can see him? Will we die soon?'"

Despite his family's loving support, Mykah could not recover from his father's death — until the kindness of a stranger offered him an emotional rescue.

The Eagles, who have built a new playground annually for the past 11 years at the city's most underserved public schools, decided to add one-on-one reading mentoring this year to make a bigger difference in the lives of children.

While the annual playground construction involves all Eagles employees, including star players, the mentors in the Eagles Youth Partnership Power Partners program are office staffers — everyday Joes and Janes quietly reaching out to children.

As the Bryant Elementary children entered the Lincoln Financial Field club-level lobby on a recent Monday, Mykah was the first one to break from his classmates and rush toward the waiting Eagles mentors, quickly finding Vitagliano. They greeted each other with huge smiles.

At the small table where they spend each Monday searching letter matrixes together for hidden words, Mykah put his knees on his chair and his elbows on the table, and leaned towards Vitagliano's welcoming presence like a seedling growing toward the sun.

Mykah focused intensely, his purple crayon poised to circle the target words, while the two kept up a steady patter like friends that had been doing this together for years instead of weeks.

"When I first met Mykah, he was too timid to sound out words and shy about writing them down because he was nervous about spelling them incorrectly," said Vitagliano, who is the Eagles' Guest Services Coordinator.

"One of our last activities on that first day was we took a piece of paper and we each traced our own hand," Vitagliano said. "On top of the fingers, we wrote something about ourselves — favorite food, color, thing to do. We discovered that we both liked rap music.

"Mykah was really surprised. We weren't that different. We talked about our families and about plans for the next session. He was eager to come back.

"Mykah never speaks about how his dad isn't around," Vitagliano said. "Instead, he tells me his memories of his dad and the times they had together."

She has made a huge difference in the grieving 7-year-old's life.

"He just fell in love with his tutor," said Tamika Wilson, who has been a Head Start teacher and a reading coach at Bryant Elementary for over a decade and has known Mykah since pre-kindergarten.

"She just got down there at eye level with him and met him where he was and talked to him and he responded. Mykah has a hard time with meeting new people but he feels safe with her.

"You can see the changes in school," Wilson said. "Things still upset him sometimes, but he just doesn't let them consume him. He's not that child any more."

Wilson said that in the three years since his father's murder, she has seen Mykah "go from being an angry, upset child to someone who smiles every day.

"He's such a sweetheart," she said. "It's good to see him smile again."

Vitagliano said that when she first signed up for the mentoring program, "I assumed I would get the satisfaction of helping these kids with their reading abilities, things you can measure on paper. I never expected I would have the opportunity to help a child this much. I feel so lucky."

Chantell said that after her husband's death, she had to walk Mykah into school every day and it took a lot of convincing to get him to leave her for a few hours.

"Now," Chantell said, "he tells me to pull up before I get to the door and he walks in like a big boy.

"Of course, I'll watch him go up to the door," she said. "And sometimes, I'll see him look back before he goes inside. When I ask him about it, he'll say, 'I'm OK, mom. I was just checking to see if you're still there.'" *