"My Journey Through Foster Care"

 Sure every child dreams of growing up with both parents to see after you and tuck you in at night but sadly that is not how my story was.

I had a wonderful mother who I remembered doing all she could to make ends meet for me and my two younger siblings at the time. Yet sometimes our parents make some bad decisions just to put food on the table and that is what caused me and my baby sister to be separated and placed briefly into separate Foster homes. Our younger sister had the pleasure of going to her dad's family.

I was about the age of 5 years old when I was first placed into Foster Care. The first home that I was placed in was actually a really nice home. The hardest part about Foster care is learning how to adapt with a family that you know is not truly yours. Ms. Alice was her name and I will never forget it because she loved me as if I was her own. I attended Maryvale Elementary at the time and I remember her always packing me snacks and Christmas with her was amazing. Yet as with any home, the child never knows when they will be removed no matter how much they enjoy the home.

I remember the day the social worker came and told me she was taking me to a new home to be joined with my baby sister. I cried and begged to stay where I was because I had known that place to be my home but I was removed no matter how I felt. They never seem to care about how the child feels in Foster care and they move you around as if you are just a package. The second home I lived in along with my baby sister was the worst home. We have our sunny days but as usual we encounter those stormy days at some point.

I remember the day I arrived and she showed us two twin beds and we thought this would be a nice home. I tried to find a way to adapt once again. Yet shortly after the Social Worker left she told me and my sister that the beds belonged to her two sons and that we were not allowed to sleep on them. She made us sleep on the floor with blankets.

Whenever she knew the worker was coming, she would make us get the blankets up off the floor and hide them. One night she woke me and my sister up and was yelling at us and saying we were bad kids. She made us sit in front of her fire place with our knees in rice and said if we got too tired and fell she would hit us with her switch. I remember my baby sister who was only 2 at the time falling asleep and she hit her across her back. I looked at the woman and told her "She is just a baby" and she threatened to whip me and her. Even then I was always defending what was right. During dinner time she would force us to eat adult sized plates of food until we throwed up. Her kids would laugh at it and she would just curse at us and send us to bed while they stayed up and watched movies. I remember standing in the tub and holding my sister. I told her that one day we would get out of this home and I would not let anything happen to her.

These are the moments in your life as a child that you long for your parents or at least for someone to come and rescue you, yet with my mom in prison and all the family I had, nobody came to our rescue.

This Foster lady was eventually found out because I told my social worker how she treated us and after a pop up visit one morning, the worker found us sleep on the floor and moved us to another home.

We ended up living with a lady who appeared to live in the country because she had horses and cows and lots of big dogs. I would lay out on the ground in her big field and stare at the sky pretending to see angels in the clouds coming down.  She was a very sweet old lady and she was the one who told me that drinking coffee would make me short but yet she still would give me a small mug of coffee to drink with her in the morning.  I don't remember much about her but I do know she was the first to buy me a pink & grey Big Wheel!

At the age of six, I and my sister were finally returned to our mother. It was a great feeling to see my mother and to actually be able to say mom knowing that it was truly your mom. My mom went through more struggles due to some bad associations and at the age of 8 years old,  I was placed back in Foster care after a neighbor reported that me and my siblings were home alone too often.  This was tough for me during this time and I got into a lot of fights in school behind it. I was angry at the world and once again there was no family to help.

All the aunts and uncles we had later came to know but not one stepped in to get us out. Can one imagine how lonely & unwanted that makes a child feel and most of all how angry you become inside?!

That same year we were released to the custody of my younger sisters grandmother. Yet after years of verbal and physical abuse in the home, I ran away at the age of 16 and went back to the only place I had ever known to be home to me. Foster Care.
I was a sophomore at the time attending Vigor High School. I went to the counselor's office and reported my living situation and was later placed back in Foster Care. I was allowed to live with an aunt for a brief period before she took ill and turned me back over into Foster care. 

This cycle had become familiar to me. Foster care had made me angry at family and I had grown accustomed to being rejected and most of all I learned to not depend on anyone because it was always going to be "temporary".

I learned to never get attached to anyone and I learned how to accept bad news quicker than good news because I was use to hearing it. It made me tough on the outside but on the inside I was shattered. Being in Foster care makes you feel unwanted. You say to yourself that if family does not want me then why am I even here. These periods of constant depression had me suicidal during my younger years. I stayed in two more Foster homes at the age of 16 and the last home at the age of 17 became a final home for me.

God blessed me to live with a family that was spiritual and really treated me as their own. I had a father figure for the first time who taught me that God was not a monster and showed me how to let go of my anger and embrace the love of God towards others. I still had occasional moments among some who didn't want to accept me but life had made my skin thick towards the hate of others.

This is not all of my story in full detail but it is enough to show you that despite it all, I pushed through. I graduated high school and later graduated college obtaining a bachelor's Degree in Criminal Justice. Me and my mother are still learning each other but I love her and I forgive her because some faults are just a part of life. You have to learn to forgive people no matter what decisions they made. I have learned to even forgive family who were not there for me during those times I felt I needed them most.

I even learned how to forgive those who lets the lies of others cause them to reject me.

 The lack of their support did not hinder me. It made me push harder and fight harder to give my daughter everything I did not receive.

She gets those tucks in bed at night. She gets to pray with me and receive encouraging words daily. She never has to wonder if she is loved or wanted.

I think that what we go through does have an impact on us forever but our experiences make us better than we ever thought we could be. At the end of the journey you just want someone to say I care and to not give up on you. I found that and most of all...I did not give up on myself no matter how I was treated.