My uncle, Scott, went through a rough time with the change in economy. He came in and out of my basement and other friends and relatives houses. He started to smoke. Soon his cigarettes meant nothing to him; they were not strong enough so he started to heavily drink. He would drink and do stupid things that led him to get arrested, and then the cops brought him to my house because my parents were obligated. I had been ten at the time and thought he had been overly tired from working long hours. Turned out he never worked. Once alcohol stopped working he went to strong drugs, meth, marijuana, and heroin. My grandparents moved to Florida. Scott and his girlfriend turned their old house into a meth lab and got caught. My parents let them move into my basement if they promised not to smoke, drink, or do drugs. My uncle got his girlfriend Mary pregnant. They moved out because my mom did not want to see them and they were gradually sneaking in drugs. Mary finally had her baby boy Noah. Then they started doing drugs again. We called the DCF, but Scott and Mary had done research. They found out all the tricks to show, more like act, that they did not do drugs and come off as innocent. After several months they were caught and Noah had been taken away. As his godparents they went into the adoption process. They stopped half way through because my mom noticed the only way to get Noah was to put my bedroom in the basement and my brother in the closet. Both had been illegal for our ages. So Noah was put into foster care. He got adopted by a lovely Massachusetts family. We knew they would love Noah more than Scott and Mary ever could. Another four years passed and Mary was pregnant again. She had a baby girl named Grace. Mary smoked, drank, and did drugs while she was pregnant with grace. It’s a miracle that she, Grace, has no mental or physical problems what so ever. To my family this had been Scott’s second chance and Mary’s fourth chance. Troy would go out and drink extremely heavily then come home drunk. He started to attack Mary so for safety reasons my parents took Grace and put her in my room and asked me to watch her. I had been in fourth grade at the time. I had to grow up extremely fast. They took away from my childhood. We kicked Scott and Mary out because of their behavior again and they could never come back, or so I thought. During the summer of seventh grade going into eighth grade my family went to our lake house with all of our aunts, uncles, cousins, and our grandparents who lived in Florida. Night had fallen; we ate dinner when my parents got a call from the state saying “Scott and Mary were caught with illegal drugs and DCF has taken away Grace. We see that you are her godparents. You need to come get her. We will stay with her in the mean time.” My mother responded with “Oh ok. We are at our lake house in Massachusetts. Can we come get her and bring her here? We are leaving in two days.”The state man said “Well if we can search your house and make sure you pack her everything she needs then yes you can take her. BUT, you need to call this number everyday and tell me how Grace is.”My parents went and got her then came back. Grace was three and didn’t understand why her parents had been taken away. We told her that they went to go get spa treatments.

One month ago we started to realize that our stuff was missing and we thought that we must have put it all in storage. Three months before this the druggies moved in. That’s what my family called Scott and Mary. We had been suspicious because Scott and Mary had taken out stuff before and sold it, like my dad’s car and work gear. We all carried on with our lives I went to school and dance. I did all my homework and got amazing grades. A week went by. My dad had been at work and my mom had just gotten home. My boyfriend came over my house when my mom got a call from my dad at 6:30. My dad said “Honey I just got off the phone with a pawn shop. They said Scott has pawned in a car, bikes, jewelry, tools, and a dirt bike. He said that the guy said we had to pay him back all they money for what was stolen.” My mom immediately threw up and started crying. I know what happened based on the fact that one my dad called my mom not on his break and the way my mom ran and how long she cried for. My dad and Uncle James went to the pawn store and talked with the owner’s son who gave a lot of the stuff back. Then the owner came in and made my dad pay for it all back so my dad and my uncle James being themselves started to loudly talk saying “What type of store is this where the owner takes stolen property and sells it then makes the victims pay for it!” Everyone in the store fled and said things like “Jerks who would do that? Why are people so cruel? And never going her again and will never recommend it!” I’ve always never liked Scott but after this I hated him. I never hated someone so much before that instead of praying for good things I prayed he would get her and that he would suffer and live a horrible life like the one he caused me. I went to school mad and I wasn’t nice to anyone. I managed to keep great grades, but I was under so much stress that I cried every day for two hours. I felt so alone because no one understood me and they didn’t care they had all just been rude to me. All my friends left me when I most needed them. They had been there, but they just made my life worse they made me even madder and feel even more hatred. After about a month I calmed down and realized that I wasn’t alone in fact my boyfriend had an uncle like mine. Not as crazy but similar. It turned out our uncles went to high school together and had been friends. I also started to pay attention to the news and read the paper. I noticed my uncle on the news seven times and in the paper thirty times. It only occurred to me then that this world holds cruel people that we cannot do anything about and we cannot let people like my uncle hurt us more than they already have.