A Chance for a New Life

A girl on her own...  

A few years ago, during a home visit with a family, a parent told me that "someone needed to do something" with this little 12 year old girl in their neighborhood. They said that she was running wild all hours of the night, smoking cigarettes and pot, and vandalizing.  I was never able to get any more information about her, but the next year I got a new case, and putting two and two together, I realized this was the kid they'd been referring to. When she came into care, we had to put an APB out for her...and then deal with her felony burglary charge.  
 
She'd been born in prison. Her mother, a drug addict,  was diagnosed with liver cancer related to drug use and had since been released to come home to die. Her father had died a few years before, as had her brother.  Her older sister, who'd been raising her, was also a drug addict. She had attended school three days the entire school year, and those days she was only there long enough to beat someone up and leave.  She failed every class.  She couldn't do homebound school because she wouldn't stay home.  She was often gone from home for days at a time and no one would know where she was.  

After she came into our care, she ran away more times than I can remember.  But we all hung in there with her.  Her mother died a few months after she arrived here.  She and I spent many painful hours at the hospital waiting.  She would run away during this, but we just went right back up to the hospital after she was found.  Her mother wasn't able to have a funeral of any kind, but we all worked together to help her grieve her mother as best we could.  After it was all over she said to me "I never had so many people care about me."

A chance at a new life...

In June of last year, she was moved from a residential placement into a foster home in a very small town.  We all held our breath, not knowing if it would work, but knowing we had to try.  
 
I just got home from a visit with this child in her new home.  My eyes tear up as I'm writing this, because we didn't talk about "Why do you keep running away" or "Why are you flunking school" or "Why are you cussing your foster parents".  Instead, we talked about the trip she's taking to the state capital in Jefferson City tomorrow  to receive an award for charity work. Nominated by her school, she is 1 of only 8 students in Missouri to receive this award.  She's being honored for organizing a fundraiser to help a teacher at her school who lost everything in a fire.  We talked about her "four year plan", which was a list of classes she'll take in high school to be able to pursue the college degree she wants.  We talked about how disappointed she was in herself for having two C's at midterm, and how proud she was that she'd now officially brought them up to B's.  We talked about her track meet.  We made plans for me to attend her 8th grade graduation and the dress she was going to get.   We talked about the sleepover she was having with two friends this weekend.  We talked about her summer job and her driver's license.  
 
She wants to grow up and do what I do.  She wants to make a difference, to help, which says to me that we've made a difference to her.  It's so easy to get discouraged in our work.  It's easy to feel like all is for naught, that what we do matters very little.  Well, it mattered to her.  
It reminds me of the story of the boy and the monk walking along a beach covered with thousands of starfish.  The monk picks up some of the starfish as they're walking and throws them back in the sea.  The boy exclaims, "You'll never be able to get all those starfish back in the ocean!  There are too many! You can't save them all! So what does it matter?"  The old monk held up the starfish to the boy and said, "Yes, but it matters to this one."

 

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