I grew up in a single parent home
with a sister. My father had been put into prison when I was two years old. My
mother had just turned 15 years old when I was born, and was just 17 when all responsibility
of parenthood was placed on her shoulders. It was not long before she developed
a major drug addiction. Continually moving from house to house due to eviction
after eviction. As you may have guessed, this put my family in sever danger on
several occasions. We lived in a small 400 sq. ft. apartment on the South Side
of Saginaw in Michigan. There was a lot of gang activity in the area and due to
the drug addiction, my sister and I were left home alone often. I started
staying home alone with her when I was 8 years old. By the time we lived in
Saginaw, I was 10-11 and the addiction had gotten so bad that we would be left
there for upwards of three weeks at a time.
There is one time during a
particularly long absence of my mother that a man tried to break into the
apartment while we were there. Fortunately, the deadbolt and door were brand
new and the window that was just off of the staircase was a bit too far to
access easily. Although, that did not stop the assailant from attempting to get
in through the window. He was ultimately unsuccessful at gaining access to the
inside of the apartment.
One of the more pressing issues
we continually ran into is the fact that with the drug problem, there was no
way for my mother to hold down a job, let alone one that would have paid a high
enough salary to live off. That being said, we only got groceries once a month,
and that was when food stamps were issued. The biggest problem with getting
food in the house was that this time of the month always led to an upcoming absence
of my mother. We would regularly run out of food to eat in the house. When
there is no adult in the house, and no food, what should a child do? I remember
one time, my sister and I found fifty cents in the couch cushions. We lived
only four or five blocks from a party store. We took the change and went to the
store to buy little Debbie cake snacks because we knew they were only 25 cents
each. One the walk to the store we past a house with about 14 gang members
hanging out on the front porch. They all had their gang color displayed for all
to see. When we walked past, they all continually hollered at my little sister
saying crude and vulgar things. She was only 8 years old. They said a few
things to me as well, about hurting me but honestly I cant remember what they
were because I was more afraid for her safety. Ultimately, this never turned
into anything but it was a traumatic event because if anything happened, there
was no one either of us could go and tell. We would have been gone.
Eventually, we moved from there
into a type of Foster care where my sister and I were split up. We did get
reunited a year later, back with my mother at my grandfathers house.
There is a lot more to this
story, but I really just wanted to say this. I believe God was with me the
entire time. He had to have been. There were so many things that should have
equated to me being dead, or in prison, or addicted to drugs, or all of the
above. To not only come out of this virtually unscathed leads me to believe He
has a plan for my life. I did not starve to death, and no one was ever able to
get into any of the houses we occupied while we were home alone. There is no
doubt in my mind He is real and watching over me.
I plan to add more to this in the
future.
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