Daddy's Girl

As I search through countless pictures of my past I find the one picture that I love the most. The orange printed date in the lower right corner reads July 16, 1997 (I would have been 6)). My adoptive dad and I are in the center of the picture. A creek is at our feet as we sit on a rock. A red mountain slope is behind us and just behind that are the hillish mountains and their many trees. The sky above us is a glorious cloudy blue one.

I always thought that my dad was the coolest dad ever and he is. In the picture, his brown skin shines from the sunlight and his short wavy black hair, black sunglasses, and black facial "chops" made him look cool. His white t-shirt had the logo of our foster agency printed on it and with it he wore blue jeans--nice ones with hardly any wear or tear to them. He wore a watch on his left wrist, completing his look. When I picture my dad   I always think jeans, t-shirt, and a watch for the weekdays and a nice white shirt, slacks, and a charismatic tie for Sundays. He is a very clean-cut guy.

In the picture, my straggly long blond hair is a slight mess and I am wearing a white shirt with ruffled short sleeves under bright pink overalls with the leggings only reaching my knees. My facial expression--it is laughing as I am being tickled by my dad who is holding me close to him. I am content as I am in the arms of a man who would do anything to protect me--and he has.  

The other "dad"--my biological father

I have found pictures of me on my fourth birthday. My hair was way too short--barely reaching my ears and going around my head like a misguided bowl-cut and the bangs being way above the eyebrows. My hair had been curled in to give my bad hair cut a better look. My skin was a pale white--even paler than my current color. I wore a long sleeve white shirt with a small bow at the neck along with stretchy-waist pants that looked very patchwork-like what with the many squares featuring tulips, hearts, poca dots, and checker board designs--all in purple, pink, blue, and white. I am also wearing a blue and yellow beaded necklace that someone had made for me.

In the three pictures that I have of this day I am seen with my biological father as I open every present--a glass mouse piggy bank, a 26-piece plastic tea set (very much like http://www.oocities.org/eureka/company/6745/l080lg.jpg but just made by a different company), and a "Baby So Beautiful" doll (http://thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/m/mf_NjkrojLdZ40X7-oZAuAA/140.jpg this type but with blonde hair and pink overalls).

In one picture, my biological father is behind me, holding me up so that I can take a picture with the doll still in its box which was half my size. In another picture he is smiling to the right of my face as he is helping me hold the tea set box above my head for the picture. In another picture he is steadying me on a chair so that I can hold up my new piggy bank.

To me, he was my world then and I was his. This event had taken place a few months after we had all been taken away and about a month after I had arrived at my future adoptive family's home. I was more happy about being able to see him than about the presents. The birthday party didn't take place in a home or a normal birthday place--it was in an office area (at the headquarters of the foster agency and it was complete with authorized supervision).

This man, my biological father, looked somewhat like the bad guy off of Kindergarten Cop--just make the hair messier, add some facial hair, and turn the black stylish clothes into a grimy black leather overcoat that wreaked of cigarettes and that's pretty much him.

Due to the fact that I was young and naive, I was unaware of who my biological father really was and what he had done. All I knew was that I couldn't live with him or my biological mother anymore because the state said so. When I was six he was put in prison for a very long time. I didn't know what for and I became an angry child because the system had taken my world away from me. I remember the therapist who had made a home-visit to explain it all to me. I threw a fit and sent her running from my room. I only wanted the love of a father and to help quench my curiosity about my father's prison sentence I fantasized that he had been something "cool"--like a drug lord--to get such a long sentence. Little did I know...

That pain settled down and I learned to not be so angry about that. Soon, it seemed as if I had forgotten my biological father and with every passing day I lost the image of his face and the sound of his voice in my memory. And, in his place, then came my complete and full love for another father--my dad who would do anything for me.

From this experience, I am glad that I walked away from that time in my childhood only remembering the love I felt from everyone involved, unaware of all the painful happenings that occurred during these times. However, I am even more grateful to God for Him having given me a second chance at everything in life--even a second father figure, my very awesome dad who would do anything for me and whose love for his kids radiates from his being every time he talks about and looks at his kids.

I don't believe in coincidence. I believe that everything happens according to God's plan and that families are predestined in heaven even if they are made up in complex ways on earth. The biological father I came into this world with is not my real father because of what he did--my real father is my dad who lives every moment for his kids. 

"Where did you come from?!"

The question was innocent. The man before me, my then foster dad and my now very awesome adoptive dad, gave me a smile as he popped his head at me like he had just realized I existed, acted shocked, and jokingly said "Where did you come from?!" I gave him my sly smile and said "Kerman!" because, to me, it was the obvious answer. Any other "normal" child would have laughed and been like "Oh, Dad!" However, I was not just any child. Around this time, I had to have been four years-old and been in the foster system for about a year. I knew things--things that normal children should not have experienced.

I knew Kerman--one of the last places that my biological family and I had resided. I knew that I did not understand the concept of home what from having always moved around in an unstable nightmare. Sometimes we had a place but that never lasted long. Sometimes we were pretty much homeless. There is a story that I have heard from my older siblings about us having lived in the back of a restaurant for a little while. I remember very little of that experience--all I remember is red seats. Also, to add to the unstable nightmare some mistakes had been made and those mistakes resulted into a life-changer.

That life-changer was this: Goodbye, Innocence! The state had to do what it had to do. Let's just say it was not pretty--at all. Us siblings, we got split up into three separate homes. The eldest of the siblings and I, the second youngest, got sent one way and I am unsure of the exact journey of everyone else. The eldest and I, we went to a group home called Craycroft (spelling?) to wait everything out until we could get into a home. We were there for about a month. My two other older siblings were there with us also but only for the first two weeks.

Our first home was nothing less than difficult. The woman was an elderly black lady named Leola who wasn't exactly the nicest lady the county could have given to us as a caretaker. It was obvious that she was in it for the money--some people actually do that.

The place--an apartment--was small. The front door opened up into a living room that had a three-seat couch and an old box television. The place had an open format design and the kitchen was attached to the living room. The actual kitchen parts--counters, stove, sink, fridge--were squashed up against the wall in an L-shape design. A sliding-glass door was at one end of the kitchen but it was hardly accessible due to the table that stood in the kitchen for eating space. It wasn't a large table but it could comfortably fit five or six small kids.

There was a bathroom--just the one in a hallway that led away from the living room and kitchen area. At the end of the hallway was a rather empty room with two beds. That was mine and my eldest sibling's room. I remember it being the brightest part of the place. Back in the hallway and right outside our room was another room--the foster mom's room. It had a bed and a mattress on the floor. The mattress had a couple sheets on it and that's where the woman's grandkids slept that she would watch during the day--there were three of them and all of them were boys.

The woman was strict and to this day I cannot understand the rules that she imposed on me, my sister, and her grandkids.

1) We could not drink during meals--only when we had finished every single bite could we then drink

• note: I have always had an eating disorder--even here when I was three years old. I had no problem      with eating. Binge eating--that was my specialty. I had a problem with the drink issue because I felt like something was being kept from me and, that, I was not cool with. Things like that are what created my eating disorder in the first place.

2) I, personally (this rule did not seem to be applied to anyone else), could not use the bathroom without permission--even if I had asked for permission, been denied permission, and really needed to go. Several times, this would result into me having accidents and being in trouble for soiling my state-issued garments which I did not have too much of. This rule also often resulted into me being secretly taken to the bathroom by my oldest sibling and she would be in trouble for that. 

• note: for the next few years of my life this experience resulted in my neat-freak personality. I hated being dirty and I could not stand it if anything I wore was not clean or perfect.
• note: this persona has been gotten over

3) I was not allowed to sit on my oldest sister's lap or even allowed to hold her hand. 

• note: I was three years old at the time and had no one. My oldest sis and I only had each other.

4) Our bedroom door was not allowed to be closed--even when changing

• note: My oldest sibling would have been fourteen. I don't know about you, but any other fourteen year old would not be taking to that too kindly. 

I remember that all of our belongings could fit in one small cardboard box. It had a few clothes in it and a yellow Barbie jeep with some red on it. One day, out of no where, our things were put in the back of the the foster mom's grey car. I guess my older sibling was already in the car but I was grabbed by the foster mom and was carried practically upside down outside and to the car, as she banged me around and I am pretty sure my head hit the car door frame. As she pretty much dragged me out of the room I cried for my toy which I had been playing with on the bed. It had fallen onto the ground and she would not let me retrieve it. It was a kids-meal toy--a white horse with a cowgirl on it. It was a cheap toy, but it was my toy--something that I did not have much of. The foster mom seemed pretty mad about something and I had no idea why; however, later I found out that she had lost her fostering license after the way she had cared for us. Thus, we went on to another home--another pit stop on the road of a foster kid's life.

Why was it time to leave? That is the norm of a foster child's life. However, my oldest sister had told a social worker how it was living there. She even threatened that if we didn't get moved to a different home then she would take me and run away. 

Pit Stop: Fresno

My older sibling and I were ushered into a room to meet our new foster parents. They seemed nice enough, but we were shy. They were all smiles as they signed the paperwork that other people would sign as if they were just handed a package from the UPS. We were quite the package with a lot of extra baggage attached. These people, they signed the forms with conviction--they weren't just signing to take care of us, but they were promising to be our parents too--a promise they never backed out on. Later, we were all then ushered into a very crowded and small meeting room where I propped myself next to my box, pulled out my car, and played with it. And that was the first miracle. 

The horse was sort of like the one featured on this ebay link, except it was white http://tinyurl.com/7s8pno3 

Anyways, isn't it just wonderful that the first memories someone has are:

• red seats from being homeless and living in a restaurant
• A pretty bad foster mom and her neglectful antics which, fortunately, allowed me to be moved on to a better home and when God started to allow miracles into my life. 

They say that the first few years are the most pivotal of a child's life. I guess you can say that I missed out on the positive first few years that were supposed to strengthen me academically. Despite this, though, I would never give it up for the world. It has taught me so much and has made me realize the miracles and opportunities that God has invested in me (more on this in a future blog)