'I Don't Live in the Past'

When I was little I had an older sister, and a younger brother and sister. My mom seemed like a good mom until she started hanging around a man named Ricky. Ricky introduced her to smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and partying. She would sneak out of the house at night so that she could party all night long. Her bad habits led to out of control behavior that eventually got her fired from her job. She'd party so hard the night before that she couldn't wake up to go to work the next morning or take us to school. I had a really tough past but, it got better trough time.


My mom's family had many problems. My aunt wasn't doing so great because she too, had an alcohol and drug addiction. The state wound of giving my mom full custody of my cousin because my aunt wasn't a fit mother either. The times when my mom left us alone at the house, my oldest sister and I would have to take care of our younger brother and sister. When my mom brought back her boyfriends they often hit her. My mom was always crying, and she would tell us to call the cops. Sometimes we did but the other times we didn't because they would always go back to each other.


When I was six I got taken away from my mom by the state. My brother, sisters, cousin and I all went to a group home for two months. Then an older lady took us into her home. She was a very mean lady. She would throw my baby sister in the bath tub. One time my cousin got in trouble and she put a pillow on his face so he couldn't breath. We also had to stay in a hot room. We would tell our Social Worker but she never believed that our Foster Mom would do that to us. On my birthday my older sister and I went to a different home in Lake Forest. My younger sister went to a home all by her self, and my cousin and brother went to a home.



We would get to see our birth family three times a month. After a year had past my cousin got to go back to his mom. My brother and sister lived with each other. My older sister and I went to another home and they weren't very nice. Once I was eight I couldn't see my mom any more and my younger brother and sister went to go live with their grandma in Texas. When it was summer my sister and got to go live with my aunt and cousin.



We tried living with our aunt, but that didn't work. She was married to a nice man. He had two kids from his previous marriage. So they had four kids counting my sister and me, plus one on the way. My aunt had her son on February 21. I guessed my aunt was stressed out and she couldn't handle all the kids, so she made awful choices. So we were at school except my cousin because he was sick. Her husband kids were at their mom's house that day and my aunt had to take care of the baby. The office called the classroom at the end of that day and told us to go to the office. When we arrived at the office there were social workers there to talk to us until school got out.




Our life had changed again. They took us to the house and our aunt wasn't there so they were going to take us away, but then she showed up. We went in to the house and they talked for an hour. We had to get in the car and drove for two hours. We had to go to the group home again. We stayed there for a day. Then we went to a temporary foster home. We stayed there for about two months. We were finally going to be put up for adoption. There were two families to choose from and we made our choice and they adopted my older sister and me.





I'm very thankful to have parents that are around to support me. I'm happy that they have the time to talk and create memories with me and my sisters. I will always remember the day we got taken away, but there is always the day of getting adopted that I will also never forget.