Sometimes I wonder what a child would say if they could tell their story. Sometimes I wonder who would listen. Sometimes I wonder what the listener would do with what they heard.
The Present
My name is Trukie, pronounced like, “True-Key,” but roll the R. Until recently, I haven’t been wanted, or at least that’s what I’ve been told my whole life. But NOW… well I’ll just start at the beginning.
May 2011
My short hair is tightly braided and my light brown skin appears like fertile soil between the neatly crafted rows that adorn my head. Normally I wear a shy smile but today my lips are stitch straight, I hate hospitals. The sterile smell and morose air are suffocating. I sit by his bed, he is dying, my Daddy is dying. It was the same when Momma passed; she also had IT, you know that thing that we don’t talk about.
I had been living with my Gran for as long as I can remember, that was until she died. Since then I’ve bounced around to just about every member of my family, but it always ends with the same four words, “We don’t want you.” I keep my bags packed; it’s easier that way. Sometimes I think my nine-year-old body is too small hold all this sadness. Sometimes I feel like my heart is becoming chalky, as if it would crumble if streams of tears didn’t fill the great fissures.
This world can be a cruel and lonely place.
June 2011
Now that Daddy is gone, the family is trying to figure out what to do with me. I hear them whispering about the money they might be able to collect from the government for taking care of me. But when that social worker lady told them they wouldn’t be able to get any of the money, the tune suddenly changed. I’m out of options; there is nowhere left to go.
July 2011
The family council has decided that they don’t want me anymore. They all say I’m stupid and a burden to the family. Even my teachers say I’m dumb and can’t learn. I think they all might be right. I try and try at school, but can’t ever seem to make sense of it all. The letters and consonants are like algorithms explaining distant galaxies oscillating at the speed of light. Formulaic dissonance. Incomprehensible equations, my eyes cannot compute.
The family’s decision means I am officially an orphan. I’m so scared.
At the same time I am almost relieved by the decision. I might be stupid, but I knew they didn’t want me. It is the one thing I have always known, it is the one thing of which they have constantly reminded me. I’m not wanted.
Since December, I have been asking this nice lady if I could move into the house where they take care of the other children like me, you know children who aren’t wanted. She said that she would check into it for me. I don’t know what I’m going to do if she says no.
August 2011
That lady finally got back to me and she said that the government SAID YES, they agreed to place me in the LUO house!
The Present
Until recently, I haven’t been wanted, or at least that’s what I’ve been told my whole life. But NOW… NOW I have a home and a family. I have new brothers and sisters, and a new Momma. They tell me that I am so loved and so wanted. They tell me I’m beautiful and that I can be somebody.
They even took me to get this test done on my eyes and my brain. They said I did a good job. ME, I did a good job?! I could hardly believe it. The lady who ran the test said I was really smart. ME, smart, that’s a first. They also told me I have this funny thing with my eyes and brain, a special thing that not many people have called dyslexia. They said they think can help me make sense out of the chaos.
For once, things seem to be going my way. I have never felt so safe and secure, so loved and looked after. I don’t know what comes next but I’m not scared. Okay, maybe I’m a little scared but only of this; that when the morning sun shines brilliant orange through my sleepy eyelids, that I might wake to find that this was only a dream.
This is my story.
Could you hear it? It is the faintest whisper of the wind. It is the sound of small sapling punching through the parched soil. It is the sound of hope growing where it once was forgotten.
Sometimes I wonder what a child would say if they could tell their story. Sometimes I wonder who would listen. Sometimes I wonder what the listener would do with what they heard…
LOVE. JOY. PEACE.
Zach
