Transplant

I knew when I saw the skinny elderly lady open her trunk and unload my bother's high chair something strange was going on. This was apparently our new home. My mother had gone to the state to see if she could get help. She couldn’t afford to take care of us. She asked them if they could place us in a home until she could find a job. They told her it would be no problem. My mom soon learned that she couldn’t have us back until she was either married or had a job that could support us and she only had one year to do it.

The house was a newer home in Yakima, Washington, about a half hour from the city I was born. I had never seen a home so big. The owners were a fairly young couple with two children of their own, a boy and a girl.

One fourth of July I was sitting in a lawn chair watching the fireworks. It was daylight so they were just lighting sparklers and those ground flowers that I think are now illegal, at least in some states. I had decided I would get a little closer for a better view. That darn ground flower headed right towards me and whenever I would move it seemed to go that direction. I ran for my chair and it went under it. I was so terrified. I had a hard time watching fireworks after that. I would make sure I was far away.

Another memory I have living there is when I went to get some cereal. My brother was there in his high chair eating Cheerios. The father was in there and I had asked him a question. He told me that I needed to call him dad. I didn’t want to call him dad and it made him pretty angry.

One day they loaded us kids up to get some new shoes. We all got the same shoes. They were brown and I guess what the call velour today. Soft to the touch. They had a weird sole to them. They were about ¼ inch rolls all down the bottom. I’m sure they had a name. In fact we all got a free backpack with the shoes so I’m sure it had the name on them. I would keep my stuffed Ernie doll in it. Pretty much the only toy I had at the time. I’m not sure where I got it.

One day I apparently left Ernie in the livingroom. I went to the restroom and I hear the father yelling…. “Sharon, did you leave this in the living room?” Remembering a backpack I saw on the floor previously, I replied “No, it’s -------“ [daughter’s name]. We both had the same backpack and I knew it wasn’t mine. He came storming into the bathroom while I was still on the toilet and threw my Ernie into the trash. Of course I started crying. That was my only toy. After I left the rest room. He took me into the bedroom, grabbed me by my shirt and held me up to the wall and started slapping me on the face for lying. He just kept slapping and yelling at me.

Another time the father was in my room laying on the bed and he grabbed me and started throwing me into the air. On the way down, he would tickle me and of course the impact of the landing made it more of a digging his fingers into my side instead of a tickle. It hurt so bad and I was crying so hard that no sound was coming out. I couldn’t breathe. He finally stopped after I somehow managed to get some are and just wailed. He yelled at me and told me to stop being such a baby and left the room with me laying there crying. To this day, I'm not ticklish.

One day the couple’s children decided they would go to a neighbors to play with their kids. They just said come on let’s go. Not knowing if they had got permission, I went to ask the father. “Can we go over to the neighbors” He said “no we can’t but they can. If you want to go then you ask if you can go. I asked if I could go and he said “No!”

One thing I do remember though is how they had Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, and Legos. I loved those things. I would play with them for hours in their basement which seemed like a really huge room to me. It was carpeted and there was a sliding glass door to the outside.

I don’t remember much about the mother. I remember her painting her nails in a chair once, just like I saw my mother do. She painted my nails for me. She seemed like a nice lady, but for some reason didn’t seem to do much with her children. I don’t have any memories of her and her children.

A lot of mornings I would wake up and my eyes hadn’t quite focused. I would see the light coming in the window up above me. I would see the curtains my mom had above the window through the sleep in my eyes. I thought I was finally home. I would blink again, I still saw the curtains… blink some more, the real curtains finally came into focus. Those were not my mother’s curtains. Then I would cry.

On Christmas the elderly skinny lady came and gave me a doll. I had another toy of my own. I would carry her everywhere. For some reason I remember a rag doll that was fairly large. It had yarn hair and a flowery dress. Kind of like Hollie Hobbie. I think my mom bought it for me. It could have belonged to the daughter, I’m not sure. I don’t remember ever removing it from the bed.

The next time the old lady came back, she loaded my brother and I in the car. I asked her “are we going home.” She said “I have a new home for you.” My heart sank, but I was curious about the adventure that lay ahead for us.

I had told my mother of the abuse in this foster home but she did not believe me. She told me that their son had something wrong with him and that he was going to lose his leg. That is why we were moved to a new home. She said he must have just seemed angry. I told her exactly what happened and she still didn’t believe it.

[to be continued...] @};-