I am the product of what my foster parents invested in me. So let my accomplishments, words, and impression upon you, be a direct reflection of my parent’s influence on my childhood. I will share with you today the greatest lesson I learned from my parents; the lesson of love.
There was this little girl, who stood at the gate of her grandmother’s house. Her legs and bottom stung from the lashings delivered by her mother. Her nose was runny and it burned every time she rubbed her gloved hand across it. Her tears felt cold on her cheeks as she breathed the cool air, she could feel the bitter wind bite at the toes of her shoes, and the wetness seep into the soles of her sock-less feet. She stood there, wishing she could be on the other side of that gate; waiting for her grandmother to come and save her. She waited for her to make her sore legs and tired soul feel better. She held back that long wail until she could smell the sweet scent of her savior.
Eight years later
The girl could hear her heart beat so fast as she waited for it to jump completely out of her chest. She kneeled next to her grandmother feeling helpless as her grandmother lay there convinced that this was just another headache due to high-blood pressure. But something in the girl’s spirit told her it was different and this day would change all future days to come. And so she sat next to her grandmother and she prayed. She prayed and she negotiated. She rocked, and prayed, and negotiated until she heard the faint sound of sirens in the distance and she cried and prayed and negotiated as she walked along her grandmother’s stretcher in the emergency room. And she prayed, cried and listened as her grandmother whispered words of wisdom and love. She prayed, cried and cursed as she sat in the waiting room. And finally she thanked the Lord, as she found out her grandmother would survive, and wept when she learned she would never walk again. And as she walked out of the hospital, she reluctantly left their eight years behind.
Soon afterwards Cuyahoga County Children Services in Cleveland, Ohio took her into their offices. The young girl stood biting her lip only to stop the trembling, but it did not stop. Her legs continued to shake, her palms to sweat and her throat to swell. She stretched her eyes to restrain her tears from surrendering. Her fists were clenched tight against the palm of her hand, a clear sign of her inner anger. What lay before her, she did not know. She struggled with the idea of being alone, with the realization that she was unloved. She fought back that childish need to be accepted and wanted. Her last thoughts that day were she would do anything to prove everyone wrong. She would become the smartest most successful person there was, and then they would be sorry that they had not loved her.
When she met her foster mother for the first time she sat in a room in a beautiful, immaculate home wondering where she fit in. She saw the beautiful woman smiling. The girl had the instinct to run toward her and cry her heart out, but she did not. She was cautious and afraid. She was suspicious and on-guard. I mean really, what was the deal with this woman? “She obviously isn’t doing this for the money” she thought as she looked at the large jewels on the woman’s hand and ogled her lavish home. “What does she want?” she thought as she eyed the large family portrait on the wall. Someone to keep her company? Someone to clean her house or watch her kids? She had two children of her own and a husband all needing her love and attention. How would she have time for her? She was immediately jealous of them but as time passed she would learn to share. At that first meeting she never would have thought this woman could love her as a mother, and her husband would love her as a father, and that many years would pass and they would continue to be in her life. The woman she met that day would prove to be very meaningful in her life. She would teach this young girl how to be strong and how to love. She would teach her how to be a woman. She would listen to her concerns and cry over her stubbornness. She would push her to be brilliant and to believe she was beautiful. She would take her places and show her things and most importantly she would accept and love her…as her own. And slowly as the years went by this girl would shed the defenses one by one. Her heart would soften and she would learn to allow others in. And that would come in handy one day…because that young girl would become a woman and then a mother to two beautiful little girls. And they would grow her heart with the seeds of their love and adoration. They would give her the unconditional love she had longed for so long. And they would appreciate her for everything that she had passed to them….and the pride that came with it.
As time passed the young woman forgot about the little girl inside of her, although from time to time she would come out. She would tell the woman her fears and the woman would be afraid. She would tell the woman her sadness and the woman would cry. She would tell the woman she was mad and the woman would act out. She would tell the woman to not feel and the woman would shut down. This young girl, who was tormented by her dark hue, had a hard heart and was afraid to let people in and she traveled with this young woman everywhere she went. And the young woman decided one day that this little girl was too heavy to carry. So one by one she let go of the fear, and then the sadness, and the mad and she found that this young girl was becoming lighter and less heavy to bear. It was at this time that the young woman learned to accept and love that young girl as a symbol of her past. She learned to love and embrace her, but not carry her and her burdens. She acknowledged and accepted her past and made the choice to direct the path of her future.
There was this young girl I know who was once tormented by the perceived misgivings of her cocoa hue that she had not yet grown to love, held captive by the titles that others had given her…DUMB, SKINNY, POOR, UNWANTED, UNLOVED, JUST LIKE THEM, JUST LIKE THOSE, NO GOOD, LOSER… Her heart hardened, afraid to let people in. Trapped by her past that she had not yet learned she could escape. Bound by her desire for acceptance and love no matter where it came from. That young girl NOW stands before you a woman. I stand before you proud of the rich dark hue of my skin, because it tells of my royal heritage and the culture within. I stand before you glad to open my heart because love can happen if you let it and all wounds can heal. I stand before you no longer trapped by my past, because I made the choice to accept it and move on. I stand before you in love with myself because I am my greatest possession and I am of value. I stand before you not afraid to cry because it shows that I am human.
Life is a series of crises, large and small, expected and unexpected. For me entering foster care was unexpected. I felt hurt, unwanted and unloved actually before foster care. Entering it only added fear to that equation. I feared what would happen to me and made a decision that I needed to be the grown-up in my life and do whatever I could to take care of myself. It was my foster parents that struggled to take that away from me and give me my own childhood back. I am aware that my story is not the norm and my story is not perfect. By the age of 17, I was doing so much to prove that I was worth loving, and that was no fault of my foster parents or the system. It was something that happened before I entered care, and that was never addressed during. The need to feel accepted and loved led me to working two part-time jobs, attending college and high school, and trying to advocate on my own behalf within the child welfare system. I didn’t realize I was making myself sick; within six months I was having heart surgery. And it didn’t stop here, over the course of the next ten years I would go on to be a drop out, teen mother, welfare recipient, and rape victim. I would go through bouts of homelessness, battle breast tumors, and lose my oldest daughter in the very system from which I came.
So what next? I can tell you that I am still far from perfect, but a very important person in my life told me that a mistake does not mean you are a failure. How a mistake turns out is determined by what you do when you make one. If you get up again and learn from it that mistake becomes a lesson. So let me tell you how I turned my situation around; made a negative situation into a positive one. The simple answer is after I regained custody of my daughter, I began to devote my time and attention to helping youth in foster care move on from the crisis that is their past and the potential crisis that could be their future. But it is much more than a simple answer. I tried to figure out what exactly it is that I am meant to do. I didn’t feel particularly talented in one thing or another, and I just tried to be satisfied with the comfort of a stable job and paycheck. After, listening to the story of one kid from foster care, I became angry that children who only wanted hope were left without encouragement and opportunity. I felt a connection and purpose, and I dreamed of a chance to help. For the first time in my life, I had found a purpose for being who I am - a survivor of foster care. I began to see the potential for greatness within myself fueled by their eagerness to be cared for, guided and challenged.
I am a representative of a foster care alumna and a birth mother. I put a face on what becomes a cycle in the foster care system so many times. But, fortunately I am also evidence that the cycle can be broken. In addition to working in Contracts for Booz Allen Hamilton, I have served as an advisor to Arlington County Child and Family Services on foster care issues, worked to train future foster parents and mentored several youth in care. I am also a proud recipient of the First Annual Ruth Massinga Award, an honor named for a woman that left a legacy so great, I can only hope to follow and learn from her. I am currently founder and Executive Director of Youth Business Initiative Programs (YBI), an organization that works in partnership with non-profits, for-profits, and government organizations to promote growth and success of youth in care in the areas of post-secondary education, career exploration, cultural enrichment, economic empowerment, and civic participation. Outside of reuniting with my daughter, YBI is the accomplishment I am most proud of. YBI is a program designed and implemented by alumni of foster care, and organized to help provide a network of resources and opportunities to youth currently in foster care.
Through this and in all of this, I advocate for the youth that I once was and the half a million youth still out there looking for a chance to make it. My goals are to work to help better the system that serves as loco parentis (“in the place of a parent”), and to build strategic relationships with community organizations and businesses in order to provide windows of opportunity and to better the lives of foster youth. My most important job however, is being a good mother to my two daughters. They have taught me how to accept and move on from my past. I hope that in some way I can make them proud and demonstrate a clear definition of what strength and character is.