House Of Innocents: Part 2
HOUSE OF INNOCENTS
My name is Dennis Collins. My story is about my life as an abused child and foster kid. In my personal narrative I talk about how I made it to where I am now. I also talk about how I was abused as a child and moved around a lot. It took a toll on me as a kid because I did not know where I belonged in life until I got older.
Over the next couple of days, I really started appreciating how great my new foster home was. Then Christmas came. I got presents that I had never thought I would get in a million years. I got new shoes, new clothes, and a tablet! I had never even seen a tablet before so I was really excited to use it. I also got a radio.
Later in the day, we had a Christmas party. All of my foster mom's family came to the party. And the food that we ate was so delicious! We had deviled eggs, potato salad, fried chicken, and macaroni. It was a fun night.
Eight months later, something terrifying happened. Our new foster mom got sick and had to go to the hospital! My siblings and I had to leave because our foster mom couldn’t take care of us. I was scared because I really liked our foster mom and didn’t want to leave. We had to go to a new foster home.
This house was in a nice neighborhood. The foster mom volunteered to take care of us because when she got married, she wanted to have children but couldn’t because of a medical condition. The foster mom thought that she was just getting our baby brother and not all of us. Her husband had to talk her into taking all three of us.
So she agreed and I was so glad because I didn’t want to be separated from my baby brother. My sister was scared of the foster dad because he had a hump on his back and it made him look really scary. When I got to my bedroom, the bed was so high up that I had to jump to get onto it. The foster dad had gotten us some uniform clothes for school because we had school the next day.
My new foster dad took me into his shed and showed me his chainsaw. I was amazed because it was so heavy. He let me explore some more and that’s when I saw a pocket knife. I had been working on my stealing problem but I didn’t know what came over me. I took the knife and put it in my pants pocket and told my foster dad that I had to use the bathroom.
I took it to school with me. When I got into my classroom, I showed this boy the knife. About five minutes later, my teacher told me to go to the front office. The boy told on me.
I had gotten suspended from school for a week. The only positive thing that came out of the whole knife situation was that me and my sister were already going to a new school.The new school that we were going to was called Wheeler Elementary. I was happy about this because we got to wear regular clothes and not uniform.
The night before our first day at our new school, our foster dad told us that the school was close enough to walk to. I was so nervous because I had never walked to school before. Me and my sister had started the walk to school when I forgot the first turn! I had turned left instead of right. We eventually got to school and weren’t even late.
My sister and I went our separate ways to our class. I don’t know about my sister, but I was totally confused and nervous at the same time. When it was time for lunch, I was scared that nobody would let me sit with them. But when I got my lunch from the lunch line, this boy let me sit with him and his friends. When the lunch bell rang, right then and there, I knew I had just made a new friend!
As soon as the bell rang for us to go home, I jumped out of my chair and started for the door. Then tripped on someone’s backpack and went sliding across the classroom floor like a hockey puck. I started to laugh at myself when my new friend from the lunch room helped me up from the floor. I asked him what his name was and he said his name is Aric.
When we were home later that night, my sister had tried calling our old foster mom, Mrs. Marcia, and guess what? She called back and said that she missed us. My sister told her that we wanted to live with her again but we didn’t think that was possible.
The next morning when my foster mom was walking down the stairs, she had an accident. She fell down the stairs and had a heart attack at the same time. Just in case you’re thinking that me and my sister had caused the accident, you are wrong.
The foster mom had a lot of medical problems, so after the accident we had to move to another foster home. One year later, the foster care system called our new foster mom with some very good news. They said that me, my sister, and my little brother could all go back to live with Mrs. Marcia! I was so happy that I felt like running around the house.
When we pulled up to Mrs. Marcia’s house, I saw her wonderful, smiling face and I jumped out of the car and ran to her as fast as I could. When I hugged her, I felt a cloud of safety wrap around me because I knew that she would keep me safe in her home. In 2017, me, my sister, and my little brother were adopted by our new mom at a courthouse in downtown Louisville.
