Finding Katie: The Diary of Anonymous, a Teenager in Foster Care
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Tomorrow Melba Lacy and I seriously start working with Donita. We’ve tried to hold her and love her, to take her for walks or brush her hair or scratch her back, but nothing works. We’ve got to find a new way…but we also have to be aware that she really might have, as Melba Lacy says, “a broken mind.” I thought about that in the night and cried myself to sleep, but I am not going to give up!
Saturday, November 13
Melba Lacy and I have been working with Donita for weeks, but we haven’t gotten anywhere! She still runs and hides under beds and behind chairs and stuff. It is really heartbreaking. Sometimes she even snarls at us, but without making a noise. We’re both stumped!
I don’t want Melba Lacy to get involved in this, but I think the next time the people come from Child Protection, I’m going to slip one of them a note asking if I can talk to someone about baby Donita. She certainly deserves something better than what she’s getting here.
Surely there is someone, somewhere, who can help her! I’m praying for her with all my heart and so is Melba Lacy, since I’ve taught her to pray.
Monday, November 15
Every day I pray that the Child Protection people will come. It used to be that I hated having them come: asking us questions, giving us strange looks like they didn’t believe a thing we said, and all kinds of other things that made us feel embarrassed and lowly. And unimportant! Will I always have to live here in this home of no future? Will dear little Donita and Melba Lacy? I want to pass a note to one of the welfare people, asking if I can talk to them alone about Donita. Surely they have some books or something that can help Melba Lacy and me help baby Donita out of her almost animalistic behavior. Right now I feel that everyone in this house is totally imprisoned in a no-growth cycle!
Will the rest of our lives go on like this? Life sucks! Life really sucks! Life really, really sucks! Stop the world, I want to get off!
Wednesday, November 17
Every day is becoming more dreary. I’m helping others in school and at home but nobody is helping me. I know that sounds selfish and self-centered but it’s true. How can I ever get out of this situation? How can I ever get an education? Without an education, how can I ever get a job? I don’t want to be like the Jacksons! I don’t want Melba Lacy and Donita to be like the Jacksons, either. I am so confused!
Friday, November 19
I’m getting so skinny that I have to use a big safety pin to keep my pants from falling off. Nothing tastes, or looks, or feels good. It’s like I’m on automatic pilot.
When I first got here, Mrs. Jackson was doing some of the work around the house, but now she’s as lazy as Mr. Jackson. They both sit and watch TV most of the day. Melba Lacy and I are expected to do all the cooking and cleaning and tending to Donita, etc. Not that there is much work in tending to her, she’s like a little skinny shadow looking for a dark hole to hide in. Melba Lacy and I are trying our hardest to get her to let us hug her, or rock her, or even touch her. Most of the time she pulls away like we are trying to hurt her.
Saturday, November 20
Today it rained and Mr. Jackson put a big ladder up by the front window. Then he called Dick and Frog to go up and fix the leaks, which of course they didn’t do!
Melba Lacy and I have been putting pans and buckets under all the leaky places, but we can’t empty some of them fast enough. It’s horrible. I wish I knew how to get in touch with the Child Protection people so I could at least report the problem. Once I looked behind a chair where there was a big leak, and there was little Donita with the dirty black water dripping down on her, and her looking like nothing unusual was happening. She always looks empty inside, like maybe there isn’t a real person in there at all. It’s scary!
Monday, November 22
The rain has finally stopped, but nobody has bothered to take down the ladder. Melba Lacy and I have been busy cleaning up the wet carpets and floors and stuff, including my bed. We tried to get it out of the way, but the room was too small, so I guess I’ll sleep with Melba Lacy. It will be a tight squeeze in her cot. But at least we kept baby Donita’s bed dry, not that she’d notice the difference. That was not nice to write! I love baby Donita with all my heart, and as much as I’d like to leave this dump, I can’t even imagine being without Melba Lacy and Donita!
Thursday, November 25
The most horrible thing happened. It was just getting to be dusk when I felt so depressed I decided I’d climb up the ladder and sit on top of the house. I don’t know why! I pulled myself up to the chimney and looked around the landscape. Everything looked green and clean, which made me feel a little better. Then I noticed some movement by the old chicken house. Dick and Frog were there with baby Donita…and for a second I couldn’t believe what I saw. Dick had put her on the ground and was pulling down her pants. She was lying as still and quiet as a dead person.
I slid down the roof, almost missing the ladder, and ran toward Dick like an angry animal. Just before I got to him, I picked up a huge rock and smashed him on the head with it. He slumped down and I tried to hit him again but Frog stopped me. Blood was gushing out of Dick’s head in all directions, much of it dripping on baby Donita. I kicked him aside and pulled Donita up. She was limp as a rag and her eyes looked totally blank.
I screamed at Dick that I wanted to kill him, and I certainly was going to notify the police. All the time I was hugging limp little Donita and rocking her back and forth. Frog put his hand over my mouth and told me they “weren’t doin’ nothin’.” That infuriated me so much that I kicked him in the groin as hard as I could while still holding the baby. He screamed, then whimpered as he pulled Dick off the ground and the two of them hobbled off to Hades: the home of the dead beneath the earth! I savored that picture in my mind!
Donita didn’t move a muscle as I carried her into the house. I cleaned her up and sat in the rocking chair snuggling her and petting her head. In a way, I hoped she was nearly brain-dead, because I didn’t want her to have the awful reruns I often have rushing through my head, and probably always will have!
Friday, November 26
I sneaked a note into the principal’s office box about Dick and Frog abusing baby Donita, but, of course, I didn’t leave my name. I hope they are both caught and put into a juvenile detention place until they are old enough to go into a regular prison for forever!
1:35 A.M.
I woke up in the middle of the night having a nightmare of my horrific past experience. I wondered how many times poor little Donita had been abused. Only four years old and…I had to get up and throw up.
Thursday, December 16
It’s been three weeks since the Donita thing. Dick and Frog have disappeared. The ladder is still leaning against the house. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson are still glued to their TV set. We haven’t heard anything from the police or the Child Protection people. Each day each room in the house smells more moldy, and nothing has been done about the roof.
Monday, December 20
I’m worried about Donita’s nutrition. According to what I learned in Sister Martha’s health and nutrition class, mush and dried milk for breakfast, mashed potato sandwiches or plain bread sandwiches and water for lunch, and macaroni or beans for dinner aren’t what one would call a good balanced diet. But what is there to do? There must be millions of kids who don’t have the privilege of being wanted, or fed properly, or educated.
I’m getting thinner and more depressed every day!
Tuesday, January 4
Today I am on my way out of the dumps. Why? Because Donita smiled at me! It’s the first time since I’ve been here that she’s shown the slightest bit of interest in anything.
I was just sitting there rocking her, singing to her and patting her, after I’d cleaned up the breakfast things, and for one moment the veil lifted from her eyes and I knew that there was an important somebody inside that shell! It’s a miracle! Just as I was going down for the third time in my own life…Donita smiled. Now I can’t stop smiling myself.
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nbsp; I told Melba Lacy about the smile on the way to school, and she is as excited and delighted as I am. Somehow we’re cracking open Donita’s shell!
What a lovely, lovely day!
We’re on our way!
Friday, January 7
The Child Protection people came today, and since I recognized their car coming down the road, I quickly scratched a little note about our bad food, and handed it to the lady as I opened the door. The ladies were shocked at the condition the house was in and immediately one of them pulled out her cell phone and reported the roof problem.
I was scared to death that I would get into trouble for reporting the lack of nourishing food, but the lady I gave the note to was cool. She didn’t even look at me when she told the Jacksons she was going to increase the money amount given to them so more could be spent on nourishing food.
After the Child Protection ladies left, Melba Lacy and I wondered if baby Donita would be better off in another home. She was alone all day with the Jacksons while we were in school, and we knew they gave her little, if any, care. But we cared! And she was, each day, acting a little more like a human being.
And what if they sent her to a place where she might be abused again? Wouldn’t we forever and ever be guilty of that?
Maybe we better think on…whatever.
Monday, January 10
Today a girl at school gave me half of her cookie and I stuck it in my pocket to give to Donita. Not that I didn’t want to eat it. I wanted to like everything! But I wanted even more to see Donita’s face when she tasted the cookie.
By the time we’d had dinner (this time, thanks to the note, a decent dinner) and we’d straightened things up and got Mr. and Mrs. Jackson settled in front of the TV, it was nearly twilight.
Excitedly we sat on the porch steps and gave Donita bits of cookie crumbs. With the first bite she looked like her old stoic self, with the second there was a tiny glow in her eyes, and with the third a beaming smile on her face! We were elated!
Melba Lacy took one hand and I took the other and we bounced Donita up and down the garden path. It was the first time that she had ever seemed like even a semi-real kid.
Laughing, we crumpled down on the ground and watched a few fireflies. Donita once even reached out like she wanted to touch one. Our hearts almost exploded with joy. Her mind wasn’t blank. She wasn’t an empty box!
Thursday, January 20
Every single day Donita is learning new things. She used to crawl more than she walked; now she loves taking walks with Melba Lacy and me, and she’s beginning to talk a little, too. Her “Love you” doesn’t sound much like “Love you,” but she’s trying and we’re loving it. I know that there is no chance that she will pick up things like Melba Lacy, but she at least seems motivated to try, and maybe she can. I hope she can!
We haven’t heard a thing about Dick and Frog. Maybe the Jacksons have, but they probably wouldn’t have told us if they did know. I wish that I could wash the terrible thing with Donita out of my mind, but I guess it will live with me forever, like the other awful garbage that sometimes rolls around in my brain.
Tuesday, January 25
When I got home from school today, Donita was sitting on Mrs. Jackson’s lap and Mrs. Jackson was rocking her and singing to her. I couldn’t believe it! I’d always felt like the Jacksons were just kind of “wardens” for us who didn’t care. Now I feel like they’re probably doing the best they can with the education and background they’ve got. They, like us, at first thought Donita was just basically a body without a mind. It just shows how wrong all of us can sometimes be, and I’m really, really sorry about having felt that way.
Mr. Jackson is like a big, fat, lazy cat, sprawled out in his big chair, but he’s never actually mean to any of us. I do appreciate being here with Melba Lacy and the precious new Donita who is beginning to unfold like a shining little miracle. She never hides under beds or behind chairs or in dark corners of closets anymore. She’s our little sunbeam. Often Melba Lacy and I call her that. She sometimes even calls herself “Saabeam.”
This is certainly a different world than the one I used to live in. In some ways it is better! At least we all know we’re safe here, now that Dick and Frog have disappeared—into the underworld, we hope!
Sunday, January 30
I’m sitting out on the porch steps, writing in the moonlight. I hate to admit this but I miss a lot of things I used to have: the pool, the tennis court, Mrs. Jolettea, Cook, my wonderful old Catholic girls’ school, the nuns (especially Sister Mary), my mama…shh—don’t go there.
I’ve cried buckets of tears sitting here with the stars sprinkling down on me like even more tears. Actually, I think it’s been therapeutic! I haven’t been able to put Mama into a place in my heart where she belonged, until this very night. Often in the past, I’ve thought of her and her drug problem negatively. I’d felt that she was a wimp for not getting out of it, then tried to believe that she didn’t really have a problem. Sometimes I blamed it on Daddy and sometimes on her weirder-than-weird doctor and her shadowy nurse. Now my heart breaks for her, and I think I’ll call her from the school phone this very day. Just the thought of hearing her sweet loving voice gives me goose bumps. I know she’s always loved me, she just didn’t…I wish I knew how I could help her.
Monday, January 31
I’m completely fragmented! I called our old home number and it has been changed! Why would Daddy do that? Does he just want to hurt me more by hurting me through Mama? What if something has happened to her? She could be dead and I wouldn’t even know it. I worried all day. Then, just before leaving school, I fearfully called Malie, Daddy’s private secretary. I’d called her so often in the past that her number was filed in my brain.
Malie seemed glad to hear from me and wanted to know where I was and what I was doing. But of course I couldn’t tell her, so I just hedged, saying my new school was really interesting and different…half lie…interesting? No. Different? In every way under the sun!
After a while Malie talked about Daddy’s financial problems. I wanted her to mention Mama but she never did.
I hope Mama’s happy there, but I can’t wipe out the bad things Daddy (the stranger) said about her when…stop! You cannot allow yourself to think of those things! You’ve got to concentrate on your new family: Melba Lacy and Donita! You have got to teach both of them everything you have been taught!
Oh, please, please Jesus help me!
Tuesday, February 1
Melba Lacy and I have got to start praying for the Jacksons. I know they are doing the very best they know how, but it isn’t much! That wasn’t necessary! I know! And I’m going to be more considerate and appreciative of them. After all, I could be walking the street on Skid Row, or in Hollywood. Please, please Mind, don’t ever let me think about that again!
Friday, February 4
I’m becoming depressed again. I’m fighting it like crazy, working my hardest at teaching Melba Lacy manners and social standards, working with her reading and math, begging for the privilege of taking home books from the library on subjects she will need if she ever gets the chance to go to a decent school. And at school I’m still my teacher’s aide. Sometimes I think I work harder at teaching than she does. I’m also spending as much time as I can with Donita. She’s coming along but she needs more assistance in more things than Mrs. Jackson can give her. I hate to say this, but love is not enough. Mrs. Jackson now rocks her and cuddles her as she watches television, but she isn’t teaching her any of the skills she’s going to need to become a well-rounded, successful person.
I feel so incompetent! I want to help everyone! And I can’t even help myself. Each day I’m falling backward educationally. Will I ever be able to go to college? Wear nice clothes? Associate with people who are intellectuals? Do some little something to make the world a better place? If it weren’t for Donita and Melba Lacy I’d just want to go to bed, go to sleep, and never wake up!
Monday, February 7
I’m trying my hardest to be positive and helpful, but each day it seems like I’m sinking deeper and deeper into the cold black earth.
Melba Lacy is doing so well in school and socially that I’m proud of her to my very bones. And dear, precious little Donita is the light of my life! I’m teaching her to enunciate instead of garble, and she is totally amazing. We play games with sounds and then we, in our own silly way, make them into words, then short sentences. Today she is saying, “Donita is happy.” To everything she sees; birds, flowers, people, and especially the doll the Child Protection lady gave her the last time she was here. She’s also standing straight and tall now, not like a string of wet spaghetti.
It’s amazing what a few months and lots and lots of loving teaching can do to change an almost-vegetable into a cheerful, trusting child. Often when I’m rocking her and singing to her I feel almost like she is my child. And at times, like now, I think maybe she is the only thing that keeps me afloat.