Group Home Stories

It's a reality far removed from the average experience, but to those that have lived it, it was home.

Institutionalized smells and cheap linoleum floors, the slickness of fear, the comfort of schedules, and the love of a few staff members that gave you the gift of giving a damn, this was all part of it.

I lived in Sacramento Children's Home for three years of my life. From the ages of twelve to fifteen. I have a thousand memories inside my heart, both dark ones and ones so dear and sweet to the taste it alone recalls Hattie's lemonade she would trade for chore work.

Hattie had dark red-black, roughened cleaning-woman's hands and a quick laugh. Her eyes were sharp and weary around the corners. Up to cottage one she would come, cooler tucked under her arm, or ambling across the field to the other houses. There were four one story houses on one side, labeled cottage one through four, and one house for younger children, divided for boys and girls on the other side of the property. We did chores for checks to be cashed at the on site "bank". Green slips of paper with dollar amounts and staff signatures, (forged sometimes, by the braver kids). But for a small styrofoam cup of that pure, sweet sunshine, we'd do anything. Wash windows, sweep floors, whatever! And the pride that she made lemonade so good... so good!...it made some obstinate hood rat kids jump into chorework....well, that was some damn good lemonade! The pride nestled into some old dimples in the side of her cheeks, conjuring up a time when, perhaps, she had been young and beautiful and her fire was pure sass and not fuel for long work days. Not that she wasn't sassy now. The general temperament of most of the staff, especially people who came from the neighborhood the group home was nestled in, were people you could not get over on. The ain't-gonna-take-none-of-yo-bullshit type.

This time had a greater impact on shaping who I am than maybe any other time in my life. For the first time I could count on certain things that I had learned before were not dependable. Simple things most people take for granted. Like food.

There were many times in my life I remember going hungry.

The walls always changed. Faux wood paneling of a trailer, or marked and stained creme of a cheap apartment, but I would stare off, stomach so tight and noisy from hunger and fear I would flip flop between desperately ravenous to nauseous and unable to eat.

It was food stamped hotdogs wrapped in white bread on reused white plastic T.V. dinner trays, stamped "Swanson" right on the bottom. Two dogs. Microwave blistered in their little generic-want-to-be-wonderbread blankets, laying side by side in the main dish compartment of the tray. Maybe a glass of milk in a bright plastic tumbler. Maybe powdered milk, that pale, sick creation some Nazi probably created to torture poor little white girls in trailer parks. It looks just like milk. But it tastes like dust and urine, lingering afterward on the back of your throat and reminding you you're not, in fact, drinking real milk

Many afternoons or late evenings my sister and I would sneak into the kitchen to steal a can of corn or green beans. The monster was either passed out or hungover. Do not wake her up. Do. Not. You kept an ear cocked for her snoring, praying as each step landed that the floor wouldn't squeak. If she woke, there would be a few small waves, some yelling, a few "gawdamns" and "fucks" but the tidal waves hit when you heard the sharp bass of rapid stomping rush toward you. Then the violence. Nope, better to go hungry, laying on your bed with your mind for company, until it was two, three, and you couldn't stand it anymore.

Summer vacation was a hell endured only up till our Father's parents came and got us for our regular extended visits in San Jose. But, that's a different blog entry.

In the group home I lived for a year on the younger kid's side and then transferred over to the older side for the next two years.

I wish I could share all the memories I have of these staff. There are a few children too.

Like Jatiya. I miss Jatiya. If there was anything like a real sister I had in there it would be her. In good ways and bad! Haha!

Jatiya was my first roommate. She had an M.C. Hammer poster and wild, thick spongy hair she didn't really know how to take care of. She was gregarious and had a wide smile and also bore some heavy emotional wounds like me. She had no idea of her self-worth, her strength, her beauty. She was, like me, just another dirt poor-throw-away kid. Only difference was she was a ward of the court. I wasn't. My mother still retained custody of me. Most of the kids were wards of the court. I knew it made me different. I had somebody. Somebody who smiled for the social workers and used my placement to get every possible service for herself she could. The same woman whom I visited three times in a psych ward for suicide prior to my placement. Good for her I guess that she got the help she needed, but the fact that it was at the cost of myself, my childhood, my own sanity, still hurts.

What I don't regret is my time in S.C.H., the people I met, the way it changed me. I'm grateful. I do wish I had been able to go into a foster home after, instead of being released back to my mother at fifteen. I have been taking care of myself and struggling to get somewhere ever since. When more dreams blow up in my face, and I gather the remnants together and try again, consoling myself that, "Hey, I've stayed out of prison! I'm already a success! Haha" I think of the faces and hands of the strong women in that group home. Like Hattie, like Annie, like Cory, Kayponti. These are the faces I take with me that give me strength.