|
From Foster Care to Here . . . At an early age, I had to learn how to be responsible for myself. The reason for this was my mother's addiction to drugs. She would leave me alone in our house in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, for weeks at a time to feed myself, clothe myself, and take care of hygiene the best way I knew how. At that point in time, I thought this was the way things were supposed to be. I had no guidance. I didn't like going to school because my peers would tease me about my mother's lifestyle. They used to have a song about her that they chanted called "Johnny Mae the Junkie." They would always say to me, "Your mother's a dope fiend." This was a very painful situation for me, which caused me to become very rebellious towards school. Soon, I had no enthusiasm for attending school at all. I remember one day, when I was about eight years old,
returning home and my mother never showed up. I finally came to the conclusion
that I had been abandoned and that she wasn't coming back. Feeling the
needs of a lost little boy and wanting and longing to be part of some
family, I began staying at a next-door neighbor's apartment. This lady was
also a single parent who had three sons, one of them about the same age I
was at the time. He was a playmate of mine. This
Soon after, she began to question me about my mother. There was nothing I could tell her because I didn't know where my mother had gone. As time went on, this woman began receiving financial benefits to provide for me. She took on the responsibility of being my guardian by law. I am grateful to her for her compassion, but, by the same token, throughout this period of time, I experienced feelings of unhappiness and loneliness. I always felt like I was being treated differently from the rest of her children. For instance, I would have to walk the dog and mop the floors, while her other children didn't have to do any of those things. As time went on, I ran into a childhood friend from Bedford-Stuyvesant and began staying at his house. He was currently living in downtown Brooklyn. I stayed at his house until his mother asked me to leave. She was well aware of who my guardian was and became curious about why I didn't want to go home. Because of the situation and how I felt, when I left there I didn't go back home. I remember, one evening, falling asleep in front of my friend's door. When morning came, I was awakened by the sound of a policeman's radio. The officer asked me what my name was and did I live in the building? I think one of the other ladies who lived on the floor called the authorities, because I had slept in the hallway in front of my friend's door for quite a few nights. After all the questioning was done, they knocked on my friend's door and asked his mother did I live there? She told them no and gave them the information they requested. They took me downstairs and wanted to know why I didn't want to go home. Soon after, they contacted the Bureau of Child Welfare (BCW) and took me home. When I arrived at my guardian's house, she had no idea that I had been staying alongside my friend's door. When the police officers informed her where I had been apprehended, she was a little bit shocked, because all this time, she thought I had been spending the nights in my friend's house, not in the hallway. A couple of weeks went by, during which BCW visited my guardian's house. When I came home from school one day, my guardian asked me what did I tell the authorities, because BCW was taking me out and I could no longer stay with her. (To be continued . . .) -- Maurice Burns |
|
|
lady knew my situation and showed compassion by taking me in.
