week 5

It's the morning my Caseworker comes to see me, and I'm ready to leave with her for errands. Little did I know this day was to be very eventful. We head out with permission from the hospital, first to my bank and then to my apartment.
"How do you have so much junk?" She asks.

"Well, I've moved around so much in my life, leaving sentimental things behind, so now I don't want to leave anything behind or get rid of anything."

"You should be on that hoarder's show." She says jokingly.

I chuckle and we get going. Cleaning, packing, and stuffing the trunk until there was no room to see out the back of the vehicle. Her vehicle was tall, far off the ground and had a lot of room for storage in the back, but it still wasn't enough to get all of the stuff I had in the apartment moved to storage. By the time we left, we knew we had to make a second trip, but it wouldn't last as long on the second trip as it did the first, because everything was packed and ready to go.

On the way to my storage unit we stop at a red light meeting up with union street nearby to the Red Cross. The lady in front of us had a canadian license plate and had no clue where she was going. The roads were slippery, the wind was at lightning speed and we had plenty of space between our two vehicles. Then the lights turn green and as the Canadian lady starts to drive, we start to drive.

She stops abruptly. I see it all coming, but in the conditions of the road, the weather and the short reaction time, my caseworker cannot stop in time. I brace myself for impact, but it seems I only make it worse. Had my seatbelt not ben on I probably would've gone through the windshield, but now my shoulder and neck hurt.

WHAM!

Now the two of us have collided, her tiny vehicle smushed in the back, so badly that it looks like her trunk is an accordian. I see her laugh in the front of her vehicle. Meanwhile, my caseworker is trying to hide her frantic emotions and thoughts.

"What are we going to do? I'm going to be blamed for this. That lady shouldn't have stopped when she did."

She makes random funny comments that I can't help but laugh at, though I know the situation is too serious for laughter. Soon we will find out that because she's a Canadian driver and we ran into her, although it was her fault we did, it was now on my caseworker's shoulders. It became her fault in the screwed up justice system we have, and I go back the the hospital with a sprained clavicle and a pulled tendon in my neck.

week 4

Sent to my Grammy's house, and I'm told it's supposed to be for the whole year. I wonder what it's going to be like living with my grandparents and being homeschooled. Certainly it has to be better than the life I had before. I really don't want to do anything anyone wants me to, but I'd rather listen to my grandparents than my parents.

I get the care I need from an adult figure immediately after walking through her door. She has me wash and change, takes care of any health problems I have at the time. Inside it soothes and unsettles me at the same time.

" You really know how to care for kids, don't you, Grammy?"

Though I don't know it, these words both break my Grammy's heart and warm it at the same time. Now the cat is partially out of the bag, and I immediately regret letting those words slip out of my mouth. If my mother finds out I told anyone anything about how she treats me, when I go back there'll be more hell to pay.

I'm only ten years old, but I feel so much older than that. Still my grandparents treat me like the little girl I am, and on the inside I enjoy that fact, except I show her more trouble than she needs. I try so hard to push Grammy away for fear if she gets too close I'll tell her too much and she'll either hate me or get me in more trouble unknowingly. Secretly I wish I could stay here forever, but I show Grammy just the opposite.
...

"No! I won't do my homework!"

...

"No! I won't do my sit ups or take a walk!"

...

"No! I won't eat that!"

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"No! I won't help out around the house!"

...

Every time I had my little temper tantrums, all I heard from her was

"As soon as you're done, you'll realize you can come to me for anything. I will always love you, no matter what."

At the time I was so confused; how could she love me when my own mother hated me no matter what I did?

Soon after each fit I had, I did just what I said I wouldn't do; help out around the house, sit ups, taking a walk, eat whatever I said I wouldn't, and so many more things I gave her trouble about. She knew I was a troubled little girl, but she didn't know anything about what was going on whenever I was with my mother. I would always try to give her hints, but they were never big enough to clue my Grammy in. I love her so much and I knew she would save me if she knew, but I didn't have the courage to straight out say everything that was happening.

So when my mother came around begging me to come back, and like the child I was I believed she had changed, so I went back with her not more than a month after moving in with my Grammy. I knew the possibilities of things going back to the way they were before, but I still left my temporary heaven for a more long term hell.

week 3

This is much more than the common car, train, bus and air rides many consider travel. More than walks and bikerides and motorcycle ventures. Much much more.

I moved more with my mother than I ever did in DHHS care. Strange, right? Wrong. Not for me. We stayed in one place an average of 2-4 months, though we didn't always get a new school. At first traveling from one place to another was great- until I learned why we moved. Moving to keep the secrets, always changing everything from schools to therapists was more travel than a young girl could handle.

Travel soon made me feel like we were all fugitives running from the law, which in a way we were. From all over Augusta to many other cities and towns, I found that my mother was trying to keep up a reputation that wasn't her own, trying to hide us from people who could possibly save us.

My sister and I rarely unpacked, knowing if we did our stuff would be left behind in the next move, and when we did travel to another place, my sister soon found out traveling wasn't as great as it first seemed. She lost many good friends in moving,and soon began begging to at least stay in the same schools. "Kerrie" got her wish and had to be driven from one town to another to get to school.

The things we saw in our travel didn't mean as much as the new lives we were about to live. Traveling soon began to mean to me that things were about to get worse. Traveling meant trouble as a young child. I didn't focus on the different trees we passed by or the weather the sky was displaying, nor did I focus on the cars passing by, but rather the possibilities that were opening up. By the age of 10 I knew I needed to do something to stop the traveling- to stop the danger that came along with it. We landed in a town called Vassalboro, and it soon became my mission to take the bus to school and search for someone trustworthy to confide all of my fears to.

Travel was soon to become a good thing. Running away on the railroad tracks hidden in the woods so I wouldn't be caught as I escaped to another town became a several days a week occurance. On those railroad tracks I knew I couldn't get lost, but danger was around every corner. Every house I saw between the trees as I walked became the possibility of being caught escaping. I knew if I was caught they'd send me back, so I picked up giant old rusty nails from the track, hoping it would protect me from any danger that came my way. I was less afraid of the coyotes in the woods or any other animal than the strangers who would see me and send me back. Traveling the railroad tracks was my temporary getaway.

Then shortly after I started running in the night, hoping the dark would hide me from anyone and anything, but I made the mistake of coming out from underneath the blanket I took from someone's garage while someone was out searching for me. Traveling that road where trucks sped by, where there wasn't anywhere to go without getting lost, I began to think my mother was purposefully living in areas I couldn't escape.

Only when I traveled to a temporary placement from DHHS, the sixth time in that place, did I find travel could be a good thing. When I was sent to an emergency shelter in Lewiston I found travel relaxing. It was no longer the sign of things getting worse, but instead travel was the sign of things getting better. Knowing the place was temporary I expected travel to take me anywhere but back. Travel became the sparkle in my eye, as I moved from home to home.

What was the best part is it was more permanant housing in DHHS care than it ever was living with my mother. Travel became less frequent, and more time was spent in each place I lived. Soon travel became clothing shopping, school and fun activities we did in the places I stayed. I began to look forward to travel, where before DHHS care I dreaded any travel. Today travel is more than car, bus, train or air rides- it's proof I'm headed for a better life.

week 1

Outside on a bright sunny day. It's hot enough to cook eggs on the tar, but not humid at all. The grass is greener than I could imagine, the trees are in full bloom. Of course I don't pay all that much attention to the beauty around me, too engrossed in the life I live, and only ten years old. A backpack full of books slung over my shoulder, and headed for the best climbing tree I could find. Hiding from the world and trying to escape into my books is all I can think about. When I reach the rough bark of that old sturdy tree, I begin to pull myself up where my sister and cousins reside.

It's our favorite tree, and you can see so much from where we sit. There's red robins with brown bellies chirping, pecking at the ground and I wonder what they're pecking at. I see no worms where they stand, and the ground is dry enough for their search to be almost futile. What it would be like to be a bird is all I can think about as the breeze brushes across my face.

It's not long before school will be out and us children will all be forced to be outside all day every day. Of course, as long as this tree stands, it will be my place of residence while outside. Medium brown colored bark, rough, uneven, great for keeping your balance getting into the tree, sitting in it and climbing down. The grooves are low enough for even the youngest of us to be able to easily get up and down the tree.

The sky is the opposite of how I feel; blue, with bright white clouds and a sun so bright and warm I almost can't bear it. Squirrels and chipmunks run playfully around, while also being wary of everything around them. To me it seems they know the world can bring them danger at any time. Horses down the road graze calmly in their prison cells, seemingly pleased with their wherabouts. I wonder how they can seem so content in a world nothing like where they should be. I wonder if they communicate with each other about the good ol' days; the days back when animals roamed the lands free and wild. I wish I could rescue all animals and set them free somewhere no person would dream of trying to tame them.

I especially empathise with the food they have to eat; horses and their grains and hay, when they could be somewhere free and wild eating whatever the lands provide them with. Then I think about captive dogs, cats and birds and how the food they once loved and the land they roamed before people came along is so much more than any human could ever provide them with. Their primal instincts almost gone; all captive animals, how can humans ever think they are doing these animals a service?

So many people who care about these animals, but not once have I ever heard them talk about sending all animals back to their primal free and wild lands. Then there's zoo's; they save countless animals, but only to cage them in lands much smaller than the animals used to roam. I feel for these animals; I feel for the land we as mankind are destroying. We continue to multiply as the animals who used to be a much larger population are dwindling away.

So, yes, I sit here in this old bark oak tree with my sister and my cousins, and it's only when some strangers who know nothing about saving the land and the animals come and try to saw the branches of the tree we are currently sitting in. All of us children protest, but those young adults who know nothing about nature and preservation destroy our tree as we sit in it. Too young to save the tree, let alone the poor animals in captivity.