I sit there waiting, hands folded in my lap. I’m ready to see the woman I’ve spent my whole life with. As soon as I see her a smile spreads across my face. My heart flutters and memories are reunited and brought back. Laughing playing games and joy is something shared between the two of us. Before I know it, I look at the clock and those thirty minutes have flown by without even realizing it. She leaves and I am back with Shawnie. I get in the car devastated to leave my mother once again for another week without seeing her.
I still remember the day vividly. About age 8, I’m sitting in my room playing Barbies, until I need to go into the kitchen for some soda. I walk with heavy footsteps as I come out to the living room to see my mother standing there, with my step-dad hands around her neck. Fear surrounded me and I had no proposal of what to do. The feeling of someone hurting my mom was more than I could handle. I felt as if the whole world stopped for this moment. I screamed at the top of my lungs for him to let her go. No action was taken by my stepfather. He still stood there looking at me like I had no say in anything that was being done at the moment. The rest was just a blur to me. I remember the neighbors running over to our house and then seeing the red and blue lights flashing in the windows. I’ve never had a close experience with the police like this before. I’ve known them to be discourteous and rude people who just want to get other people in trouble. The police were inspecting the area, as I just stood there not knowing what to think, and not sure what had just happened. I had no hint as to what was going to happen after that. My mother had asked if I could be put with my babysitter rather than in a traditional foster home. The police used our telephone to call my babysitter as I overhear them saying I will have to reside with her and her family for a little while. What was I hearing? Was it my future in one sentence?
In the next couple of weeks is when my life changed forever. I was put into foster care with my babysitter. I was completely resentful towards the thought. I was a menace towards the family. They would drag me to church and I hated it. I would lie about everything, I would eat like a pig, and not listen. They were trying so hard to make my life better and all I did was push them away. This placement was supposed to be temporary but ended up not being temporary.
I had found out that Children Services had considered my mother an alcoholic which is something I had never realized being at such an adolescent age, I was just used to it. I recall all the parties my mom had held at our house, and all the mornings I would wake up and have to take a black trash bag, walk around the yard and pick up all the beer cans. I had felt like it was something I was supposed to do. Like it was normal for me to be the mother and take care of my parent when she was sick or when something needed to be cleaned. Also cooking microwave meals for myself, and getting myself ready for school. I was forced to grow up faster than a normal child should, and be an adult when I should’ve been having crushes on boys and hanging out with kids my age.
I remember living life with my foster family and eventually adjusting because I had to, and I realized I was not getting out of that situation anytime soon. I grew close to the family. I finally had a mother, a father, a brother, and a sister. A normal family is something I have always dreamed of. Having siblings to play with all the time and be able to smile, and having parents to take care of me, instead of the other way around. I became accustomed to going to church. I made friends there and became very involved with church activities. Being surrounded by people that cared for me is something that I loved. Even though I was happy, I would pray and write in my diary every night that God would allow me to live with my mother. The visitations with my mom continued as I also grew closer and closer to the family I was living with. My life had changed living with this family. I was able to be a child and I had adults who were concerned for me. Foster care is something that people probably look down upon, but in my case, I believe it saved my life. If it were not for my foster family showing me the right direction in life I might as well be dead.
Finally, after about three years my mom had sobered up, and I was “allowed” to live with her once again. It was a hard transition moving from a thoughtful loving family that I have lived with for quite a while to my old family who also loved me and missed me so much. Moving back into my room and being reunited with all of my old toys was such a great sensation. Eventually, things went downhill with my mother since then, but her wrong decisions throughout my have made me a stronger person realizing that I do not want to turn out like her. If she were not an alcoholic I never would’ve been put into foster care with my babysitter, and therefore shown the right way to live life. If it were not for the bad influences in my life and also the positive people in my life I would not be who I am today. I would most likely be doing wrong things, partying, doing drugs, and other beyond description things.
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