letters never read, left unsaidA collection of

Dear God, If you're listening, please help me get back home to my mom with my brothers and sisters, too. Please help her learn to make enough money to take care of all of us and to get a house for us all. Please keep all of us together no matter what. Don't let anything bad happen to my sisters and brothers, please. I love them all so much, and I don't want to lose any of my family. Please help me make friends at school. I love you, and I always will. Amen and Your Friend, Livvy PS Help me win the spelling bee at school and get on the cheerleader team so the girls in my class will be nicer to me. Help me ask my foster parents for new shoes and different clothes to wear to school so I won't get teased anymore at school or if you could maybe teach the kids not to be mean to me or not to notice that I'm wearing the same clothes everyday, whatever is easier. I just don't want to be the new foster kid at school anymore. Maybe you can help me learn magic or a cool trick that will help people like me more. I'm just tired of always feeling like I'm not good enough. I know that's not true because mom says you made us all perfect in our own way, and we can be loved. I don't know if I need to turn a certain age first for that to happen or what.But if you somehow already showed me what I needed to learn to help myself do this, could you show me again and make sure I'm looking this time? Thanks. OIh, and help me not to be afraid of the dark anymore. Amen, Bye. (4th grade/journal entry/1994) x x x x Who can honestly say they've never wanted to be accepted at one point in their life or another? As a foster kid, I had a lot of self- loathing as a child. I was living in a home where my mom treated me like a peer more than her child. She was only a child herself when she had me though, so it makes sense that she didn't understand that parents need to be responsible, accountable, have integral morals, are safe, caring, etc. She didn't know that treating your child as a friend could mess a kid up. She didn't know that loving and taking care of your children can mean disagreeing with what they want and hurting their feelings sometimes. Saying no to your child's requests, making them follow rules, attend school, do homework and chores, and plan a structured schedule each day. These things we considered dumb or pointless at some time during youth as children, teens, and young adults help us prepare for the real world as responsible and healthy older adults someday. Some people don't realize that children may think they don't want things like routine and schedules. If you take a child's routine away, their worlds fall apart. If there isn't structure, children worry. Their anxiety and stress become overwhelming. They might pick up impulsive behaviors or bad habits. Children's decision-making might not be great. Children learn everything by watching peers and grown ups in their immediate environment. That's why it's so important to understand these things and be mindful of how we respond to people, situations, issues and how we treat ourselves and others and the language we are using, the content we surround ourselves in, the music we listen to, tv we watch, information we read about on social media- kids are just absorbing all of it. When social services took my sisters and brothers and me from my home, I expected to be treated like an adult. I expected the caseworker to walk up to me and ask me what happened so I could explain to them that this was all a big misunderstanding: Our fridge is empty because my mom and I stayed up the night before cleaning it out to make room for grocery shopping later that day. The washer machine broke and flooded the house with water because I threw my sneakers in the washer machine, which made it bounce around and disconnect from the water in the back. I used the sheets from the linen closet to sop up the water because the towels were in the washer, too. No, officer, my sister didn't do that. That's dogshit you stepped in. We are all potty trained. We do not own a dog. My youngest sister found a stray puppy and brought it inside. It crapped on the floor before I had the chance to house train him or put him outside. It was all true, though. My mom was upset when she saw all of her hard work from last night come undone in an hour she allowed herself to sleep in on her only day off. My mom had never spanked me before but that morning when she came out of her room, I had a smart ass remark ready for her, she took a look around and tried to spank my butt in front of all my siblings, for the first time. Remember what I said about messing a child up if you treat them like grown ups? Here's a perfect example. I squirmed, and she missed. I thought she was playing with me because I couldn't believe she'd do this. I started laughing. She must've thought I was deranged. I was overcoming with church giggles and couldn't stop myself. She was so angry she grabbed a little stick made out of cheap plywood and tried to spank my bottom with that. I turned at the last minute and she missed. It slapped my thigh instead. It broke on contact, so it didn't even hurt. It was slightly pink, but I didn't even feel it. the only bruise I had was to my ego. My pride was shattered as my embarrassment quickly turned to rage. I ran from our house to the babysitter next door, a sixteen year old girl who was instructed to call police under these circumstances. After I finished venting to the girl on the phone waiting for the police, her mom yelled for her to hang up. She said, "Never mind," into the phone, as the operator came on, like her mom said to do, and hung up. A few moments later, a loud knock at the door made us jump. The cops showed anyway. I was briefly distracted and impressed by the time it took for them to arrive and find the correct house that the call came from, given the fact that we didn't give them any information. Panic and fear quickly pull me back to reality as I am bombarded with both of their faces in mine, their makeup packed on so thickly it cracked with each exaggerated expression. I ignored it. Focusing on their voices instead whispering so loudly it could be misconstrued for a person yelling with a bronchial infection. The smell of church on Sundays suddenly made my stomach turn. The babysitters mother had doused herself in a particularly stinky version of Exclamation! perfume. Her daughter followed suit with a spritz of CKOne. Then her mother grabs a colorful can of Glade as she sprayed the house the entire walk from the back room through the kitchen and living room and setting it down at the front door. She turned on a switch, and the ceiling fan began to spin the fumes together, adding motion sickness to my list of things to panic about and distract me. I'm being advised by the mother and daughter to tell police it was all a mistake. We were just overreacting, and I don't need to be in a foster home. "I'll do my best to tell them that your mom is a good mom. It was an accident," she whispered loudly. Then, to the front door, she announced, "coming" in a sing song. Nothing is wrong, voice. I waited on my neighbors sofa for a couple of hours for an opportunity to inform the police. I patiently waited my turn to speak. I expected them to come to me and ask me, "Hey little kid, do you want to continue living with your mommy? Did we get it all wrong? Okay, then, run along home. If it happens again, though, you know what that means, right?" The dream officer would feign a shaking fist in anger at me jokingly. He'd tousle the top of my head, messing up my neatly combed piggy-tails. I would nod politely, smiling thankfully while he tipped his hat at me. I'd skip home and stop at the door to look back at the officer as he waved a friendly goodbye to me, making sure I got inside my door safely. Ahhh, childhood daydreaming. I learned quickly and at a very young age how unimportant children are to adults who aren't your parents or family. As I was escorted from the home by the cops, I caught a glimpse of myself in the decorative mirror on the wall. My hair was down and disheveled. I was still wearing my pajama shirt, an oversized old tee, and shorts. I had no shoes on. I still hadn't eaten. My stomach growled. I had tear stains on my cheeks from crying at some point. A hand appeared on my shoulder as the police officer pulled me away from the image of the saddest girl in the world. I walked to the car. The neighborhood was outside. Watching. Like we were their entertainment. I saw a group of my classmates close by on their bikes. The boy I had a crush on made eye contact with me for a second. I looked away. In that moment, I realized I had lost any chance I had at being normal, having friends, being accepted. I was about to wake from a delusional daydream I lived in into a very real nightmare. This one would last for years. If there was one letter I wish I could've written back then, it would've been to the State Children Youth and Families Department and the city and state police. I would've liked to inform them of what life was like before and how we were on the run from my mom's evil boyfriend and we finally got a home of our own after living in shelters and suitcases for six months. My mom didn't graduate from high school and yet managed to find a welding program that taught her how to weld and found her a job welding that paid a lot back then. She wasn't on welfare, nor did she know about programs like food stamps or financial services that helped people in our situation. My mother took six children from danger to safety, with only two duffel bags, we left the airport with only one after it was stolen with all of the money she had saved. We moved around from shelter to shelter while she worked hard to get us a home of our own. She found us a five bedroom home in a nice neighborhood in only six months. She had a great job, we had a stable home, she managed to buy our first car but it was totaled by some jerk (a hit and run) only hours later, and we were working on our schedules. She did all of this with very little help and a very limited education, with six children she loved and adored, all at the age of twenty-six. People always wondered why I was so loyal to her. I get the feeling they got the truth mixed up with lies. I was there and witnessed my mom make miracles from the nothing we had. Maybe the lies make for a better story. We learn how to care for our health with having exercise and healthy meals and attending checkups with our doctors. We learn to be accountable and punctual when we show up to class on time, we learn how to work through our differences when we are part of a team because we understand that we can only be successful or complete certain tasks if everyone is working their best together. Turning in or assignments on time and completed shows we are responsible. Managing our time is probably learned by having a daily schedule. Waking up at the same time and getting ready for school and at the bus by a certain time, helps you understand how long you need to get ready in the morning and how long it takes to get to school at a certain time each day is done because you do it everyday. If someone asks what time you can get to an interview that day, you can figure it out by thinking about your structured schedule and giving them a realistic idea of the time you'll need plus a little extra for errors. Interrupting routines or not having one in place can make life get very complicated and overwhelming. Some people don't have any clue somethings not right at home until they have an outside source to compare it to. That's what happened to me. What's common sense to others is sometimes difficult for others to gauge. For some reason, there were certain things I didn't notice as a child with my mom that I learned were dysfunctional as an adult. What upset me was the fact that my mom could've been taught how to provide these things. Taking us away from her was way more than an overreaction. My mom didn't have the best upbringing herself. She was really young when she had me. I understand why there are so many gaps in her knowledge. Maybe my mom thought, if you magically turn a certain age, you just know how to do the thing you couldn't before. I don't know. What I do know is that there is an echo of certain information we seem to hear repetitively throughout our lives that seems to ring true one day. You're too young to understand. You'll get it when you're older. Life is too short. Don't be in such a hurry to grow up. Don't do the same thing over and over expecting different results. That's just crazy! Treat people how you wanna be treated. If it walks like a duck, acts like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably because it's a duck. Birds of a feather flock together. If your friends jumped from a bridge, would you do it too? Love always comes when you're not searching for it. Do as I say not as I do. There's no such thing as a stupid question. A guy walks into a bar and says, "Ouch!" How do cats like their steak? "Rrr-rare!" I'm just checking to see if you're still with me. Dear