I sit here in my small room. I did not grow up with a lot, my father was hardly around to see me, and my mother was too drunk to care. So until the age of six all I had was a small bed-like in a shed in the backyard. Food was a second option to not getting sick or found by my mother in her drunken ways. When my father came home was the only time I came inside, he made everything better a promised me that things were going to change he just needed a better job.
I knew what he was, a gangster and not the rich kind either. Those gangsters who run around the street stealing food/money. Sometimes he would bring his ‘co-workers’ over and I had met some of them. Many where like my father, in distress needing a job and many had children as well. One night he came home, I ran around the side like I usually did to give him a hug but there he collapsed. That night my father died of a gunshot wound right in front of me. When my mother was sober and found out the news she pulled the pistol from under the bed and shot herself. So there I was aged just 6 just watched my mother shoot herself in the head from a small hiding space under the draws. The next morning the police where everywhere, I could hear them from the shed, the next door neighbour had called the police after seeing my father’s body on the front porch. They had not searched the backyard yet so I waited. I began to cry, I remember thinking that everybody was going to lame me for their problems, that dad co-workers would hate me, that my grand ma would hate me more and that this would be put on me. In that small shed I remember a small torn up teddy bear that my father had given me year before so I got for the pillow cases filled with my mothers and fathers old clothes and grabbed the teddy bear. I placed the pillow cases and small quilt on top for me and curled up into a ball. I sat there for a while when a male police officer walked in, I gasped and curled up even more until he turned on his flashlight. I quickly flinched once his light shined on me and tried to run but with the shed being so small he simply went on one knee and held me into a hug and carried me out. Now I was a small child in all ways. I was also quite malnourished. I was sent to the hospital and treated for malnourishment, a fractured rib, a broken finger and chilblains. I remained at the hospital for 6 months with child protective service coming in every second day to see how I was doing and when I could get out. At the 7 month I was able to come out and go into a specialized foster home where I got psychiatric help and got back into the normal bmi range. At the age of 7 after being in the home for more than four months they decided that it was safe to put me out to the real world and into a new family.
My first family had me and 12 other children in; they did not try with us. The only food I got was at school with the free lunch plan and even then that only lasted 5 days a week. My foster brothers where older than me (the eldest 3 where 17, 14 and 13 )and liked to bully me at home for fun. They would punch me, kick me, chuck me down the stairs and one early morning as I was sleeping the eldest one held me down as my eldest foster sister (18 years old) stabbed me in the stomach after which that happened my eldest step brother rapped me until I lost consciousness about half an hour later one of my foster sisters named Julianna (14 years old) found me and ran to the closest pay phone calling an ambulance. Once she called she stayed with me until the ambulance and police came. Of course I told them everything, how I was physically assaulted every day, the rape, who done what and how I just wanted my father back.
The ambulance arrived after the police and I was lucky enough to have not been stabbed in any major organs. I needed blood transfusions and to make a statement at the police station but that was the end of that town.
When I came out of the hospital three weeks later and moved to a smaller, more well-known town my foster sister Julianna moved with me. This small town only had a population of 1000 so there were only two schools a public school and a grammar school. The school in which I had to move in was the public school that catered for years P-12 so Julianna was always there to help me out. I was severely bullied because of my low bmi and low reading level. I was placed in the K5L class witch was for the disability and very unwise kindergarteners to year fives. The class had one main teacher with three teachers’ aids. One of the aids names Miss Liszt or Miss L had a problem with foster children for some reason and would never even talk to me but one of the teachers’ aids named Mr Roberts made me his favoured student over the rest. Because I was bullied so badly I mainly stayed in the library reading books or drawing. One day during second break after some year nine boy had chucked a burger at me yelling at me to ‘eat something anorexic b****’ I ran away into the library, built myself a small tent in the corner with a sheet off the table and sat there crying and reading until the bell rang for home time. Mr Roberts came racing in and found me. He sat next to me and hugged me for a while then called up my foster parents from his mobile phone telling them that he would drop me home and it turned out that Julianna that day got suspended for a week for beating up that boy. I smiled as he said that, I was not a violent child but so far all I had seen was that violence helped everything so after that I became a ‘rebel’. I was put out of K5L and put in the upper class of 1/2S after an IQ test showed my IQ being 121 in the exceptional range. My foster sister Julianna had shown her results to be 103 witch she was overjoyed about the extra 3 points but when she found out my score she called me a nerd and played basketball with me until a boy from the same class decided to come to my house and tease me telling me that I had cheat and there my ‘rebelling’ began. I beat him up good and since it was outside of school hardly any consequences came. Of course my foster parents yelled at me but then I pulled fake tears and I was off the hook. My sister Julianna gave me a high five and told me that she was proud of me.
Year 3 aged 8 I had been suspended so many times; bring to the police station so much that I was known by name to each officer. At school I was fearless and feared. My friends all in year 10 or above except Julianna who was in year 9 but didn’t mind. I was drinking and smoking, getting arrested, trying weed all these things that made me well me. It continued like that until I was 10 years old when mine and Juliana’s foster parents couldn’t handle it and placed us back with child services. My next home I was not with my 18 year old foster sister Julianna but with two loving gay men.
These two men named Liam and Charlie where the best foster parents I ever had. The city in which a small school for intellectually gifted children allowed me in. My foster parents payed for my tuition, new clothes and just everything any girl could ask for. The kids at the school I went to were cool, they didn’t care that my foster parents were gay but some kids outside of school did say some things so again I got into a punch up but this time the other guys’ parents were suing me. Liam being a lawyer got me out of the situation but Charlie sent me to anger management. These two guys mean the world to me and just last week I brought my first boyfriend home and as Liam interrogated him and Charlie tried flattery to play good cop/ bad cop. I never had real parents who cared as much for me in my life; Julianna calls me every now and again and it’s all cool with her. Charlie and Liam adopted me legally last year as a 13th birthday gift.
So I sit here in my room today knowing that no matter what happens my dads have always got my back. I am fearless. I am strong. I am loved. I am Sarah