Jupitervale: Special Edition

Dear Journal,   I’ve been through a lot in my life.  Nobody said it was going to be easy, but it would’ve been nice to get a bit of warning first. When I was eleven, my father ran out on my mother, myself, and my two sisters.  I never knew why and to be perfectly honest, I still don’t know.  My mother never wanted to talk about it so that left me with a bunch of unanswered questions. A couple of months later, mom seemed a little on edge, to say the least. A week after my twelfth birthday, she claimed she was emotional unstable to take care of us and needed to “find out who she was”. So, we got left with her sister and her boyfriend. Aunt Sue was young, wild, crazy, and loved to party.  She was nowhere near capable of taking care of three kids, so I basically cared for myself and my sisters.  I’m not sure she knows this but one night, when I was having difficulty sleeping, I heard my aunts’ boyfriend, Nick, tell her that he wasn’t trying to be anybody’s daddy and that if she didn’t get rid of us, he’d leave her.  I was sure she would tell him where to go and what to do when he got there but apparently Aunt Sue felt the same way.  Next thing I knew, we were sent to an adoption agency to be put in foster care.  I felt like no one wanted us.  Like no one loved us.  My heart was crushed.  Who was going to take care of us? About a month after we were put in Simpsons Adoption, a couple came and said they wanted to take my baby sister, Kirsten into their care.  I didn’t know what to do!  I didn’t want anyone to split us up.  They were the only family I had left and I for them.  Well, thankfully, I was wrong because just as soon as those people came to take my sister, my grandparents came to take us to their home and raise us.  We were so happy.  I don’t know how they found out where we were, but I sure was grateful.  Someone in our family wanted us.  I knew this not because they came to our rescue, but because on that very day they swore to us that they would never, ever give us away.  That as long as they were alive, they would care for us like we were their own … because we were blood.  We were family.  For once in two years, I felt like I belonged ...  like we belonged.  For once in two years, we were loved. Just when I thought nothing could go wrong; just when I thought my sisters and I had found a sanctuary, my grandmother was instituted in the hospital.  She had cancer and it was spreading all over her body.  They never wanted us to find out, but it was a little too difficult to hide it at that point.             “Why did you keep this from us?” I remember asking.             “Oh, Abby … you kids have been through so much.  Between taking care of you and your sisters … we didn’t want you to feel like you had to take care of us too.  All that is too much of a burden on you kids.” That’s when I realized I had to stop thinking of myself.  I was fifteen … and I needed to grow up. My grandmother was in the hospital for a full week.  The doctors were doing all they could but unfortunately, it wasn’t good enough.  The cancer was spreading too fast and her little body couldn’t take it.  March 14th, my grandmother, Agatha Murray, died. There were a lot of tears after that devastating Tuesday.  While my grandfather was still in mourning, I felt I had to be strong for everyone.  I started taking care of the chores, making sure my sisters got ready for school, took them to and home from school … even cooked so he wouldn’t have much to worry about at all.  He started spending a lot more time in his room.  I know he didn’t mean to isolate himself from the world but since the love of his life died … he just seemed … lifeless.  Four months later, when I went to his room to go check on him, he wouldn’t wake up.  I called an ambulance as fast as my hand could reach the phone, but I was too late.  He died in his sleep that afternoon. With no desire to be put back in foster care or be passed off to another relative, I decided to take care of my sisters on my own.  I had just turned sixteen, got a job, and with the money that grandma and grandpa left us … we didn’t have to worry about the mortgage for a while … so we were covered. A year has since flown by and I gotta admit … I do wonder what life would’ve been like had we not been through so much.  But the fact of the matter is, there’s no time for that.  When you’re an only child and times get rough you take care of you.  When you’re the oldest of a duo or a pack, you take care of the whole lot of you.  Even at a young age I understood that responsibility and if it meant keeping me and my sisters together, I didn’t mind it at all.  I want my sisters to know and understand that no matter what, they could always depend on their big sister.  And when the going gets tough, if we rely on each other, we’ll get through it just fine.   Love, Abitha