A Child of the State

Ah 6th grade P.E., it's an awkward place for most girls too afraid to do too much so you don't sweat and stink the rest of the day and too afraid to take part in the activities in case something embarrassing happens. It's a lot different from 5th grade P.E.. Where, you are likely to see the girls playing football and basketball with the boys getting completely sweaty and dirty. I believe I was doing my best to not do too much in P.E. that day. As long as the teacher didn't notice. The school principal came into the gym with a tall standing man in a suit. All the kids are curious and coming up with their own assumptions of who the bad kid is. My stomach dropped to the floor. This time I was the bad kid, so thought all the other students who witnessed me leaving with the principal and the mysterious man. I was told to go gather my belongings and come back to the principal's office. When I got back, they introduced me to the man in the suit. He was a detective from the police department. I had to go to the state's Child Protective Services' office and tell them what I had told a counselor from our school earlier that day. When I got into the unmarked, but very obvious police car, I was beginning to think I truly was the bad kid. What have I done? There's no turning back from here. This was the most frightening moment of my entire life. There I sat in this very depressing state office, like most of the city's state offices they are extremely depressing. Filled with sad clients, sad employees and their sad little offices. I guess no one believed in feng shui. I told the cps worker my story in great detail as requested. Then what I had to do next was even harder than telling the story. I was lead to a separate room, it was filled with dolls and a little table with little chairs. Don't be fooled, this was no play room. There I was instructed to show the cps worker on the dolls what my father had been doing to me all those years. Let me step back a few to help you understand why it was so hard. The cps worker, had the grumpy old lunch lady vibe about her. She was stern and hard to look at even for a little girl. She would make me repeat the moves to make sure I was not making this up. When all complete, the next phase was, where would I be placed? They would come up with relatives names and I had an answer for every single one. My mother was brought up, but quickly taken off the list. I was taken from her by my dad when I was 8 yrs old. The school officials told my dad he better come and get me or they would be contacting the state. My mother was an alcoholic and didn't worry too much about sending me to school. I missed over half of my 2nd grade year. I had two older sisters who already had moved from our mom's to our dad's house about a year before that. Then there are aunts and uncles who were all alcoholics as well, not a good choice for the state. Many of the relatives on my father side were not good choices due to my safety, since they were all so close. I was going to be placed into a foster home. They tell me their names, their last name was all to familiar with me. They shared the same last name as two of my dad's best friends, they were brothers. The state not concerned with the connection, told me the foster mom will be there to pick me up in a few. I kept wondering if I had done the right thing. What about my sisters, what about my mom, what about my grandparents, will I ever see them again? Oh I felt awful, I felt like I was this little tattle teller telling on the bully where, the whole class has to get punished for one one misbehaving. Very scared to stay at this foster home, I asked if I could have a friend stay with me the first night. Now that I am a mom I wonder who would let their daughter stay at a foster home for a night. I was lucky, they were going to let a friend stay with me. This tall bigger lady walks into the cps office with a rushed feeling about her. She says to the cps worker, "is this her?" referring to me as if I was an object. To her, I guess I was. Another kid in her house was another check in the bank account. I walk into her home, it's nice with everything perfectly placed, all the furniture matched and was very clean. This was far from what I lived in. My dad's house was an old little house, with very little to put in it. He was messy and dirty. He didn't bother to teach us about being clean. He also didn't have very much money to take care of his three daughters. She showed me to what would be my room, it had the french provincial canopy bed with matching dresser and desk. I didn't know what to think. I never had a room like that before. My friend and I stayed in that room the entire night except when it was dinner time. Dinner time was a surprise for me as well. The entire family sits at the table with a well balanced meal,  not what we did at my dad's house. I hadn't ate a dinner table since my younger years with my mom when she tried a lot harder to have that perfect family atmosphere. My dad on the other hand, liked chips and pop and ate in front of the tv. I too, took this way of life and enjoyed every moment of it. What kid wouldn't like junk food and tv for dinner?! My poor older sisters tried hard to have dinners, but it was inevitable he had already adapted to his ways. I felt so out of place in the foster home, I really can't explain the feeling a child has when they are taken from their home and put in another. It's not a good feeling that is for sure. I kept thinking of my family the entire time. I began to feel bad for my dad too. Because even though he had done something so horrible to me, he still after all was my dad. I awake the next morning, it was a weird feeling. I was reminded as soon as I opened my eyes what had taken place the day before. So this is it, this is my home now, this is my new family.