As the New Year came and started, I started doing a lot more at the Home and with the church. The Homes were affiliated with People’s Baptist Church which sat at the front of the property. The church had other ministries associated with it and one was a Bus Ministry. I was given special privileges and allowed to work with the Bus Ministry. They needed people to help ride the buses with the children when they dropped them off after church was over. Soon, I was asked to teach a Sunday School class for preteen girls. They needed someone to teach them and I was chosen. It was quite the challenge but Ms. Bobbi knew I could do it.
After getting my flute for Christmas, I was allowed to play with the others who played instruments in Church. We kind of had our own little mini orchestra, Nathan would play trombone, Jason L. would play trumpet, Micah would play violin (I think) and I would play my flute. I loved it! Playing my flute though meant I would have to step out of the choir but I was okay with that, I would rather play. So soon, my Sundays mornings would be pretty hectic. I would go off to teach Sunday School to my bus girls who I was quickly becoming fond of, rush over to church and get in place to play and then rush back over to the buses and ride with the kids home.
It kind of broke my heart to see where these girls and bus kids came from. They came from poverty stricken homes, parts of the town of Corpus Christi that was really run down, and most of the kids were Hispanic. I never had the opportunity to get attached to one single child but I will always remember them and I will never forget the introduction I had into the world of the ‘Bus Ministry’, little did I know that later down the road in my life I would get to help with another Bus Ministry.
The months went on, the adopted mother came and paid me her visit that turned out to be heartbreaking (mentioned in an earlier post, kind of got a head of myself). As the months went on though, I was getting more attached to Jonsey, he and I would do whatever it took to pass notes and communicate. The passing of the notes would increase as we would find places to hide them in the kitchen and some of the staff that worked in the kitchen would help us pass the notes. It was silly, looking back and just childish but at the time I was just craving attention and I guess ‘love’. I didn't know any better. I had never been allowed to date at home, I wasn't even allowed to ‘look’ at the boys in the ‘Gothard’ church. The adopted mother was just paranoid about all that, even though she would flirt and smile with men that were younger and maybe better looking than my adopted Dad. She probably didn't know that anybody noticed but I did. She would always smile and laugh and make herself obvious and it was such a turn off.
Anyways, the more Jonsey and I communicated, the more I became attached and slowly but surely I would be convinced that we were meant to be. But, I would be blinded to all the red flags that were popping up everywhere and I wouldn't listen to people who tried to warn me to stay away from him. So, what were the red flags? For starters, he was always staring at girls, from head to toe. He especially stared at the younger girls in the Home for teenage girls. Any one that was pretty or relatively good looking, he would stare. He would stare and flirt with some of the other girls in my Home but it was the younger girls he would watch the most. Most times he would sit at a table in the dining hall as the younger girls came through the lines and got their lunch. I do remember at one point it came across as odd to me and the other girls in my Home. But, once again, I didn't know what the signs were of a man being inappropriate and I didn't know it would be paired to other acts and signs of inappropriateness.
When I was in the choir in church, I would spot him in the back section of the church where he always sat and he would always watch the girls. The warnings from people? He was angry and had a temper. I saw it once in a while but I just thought he was just having a bad day. Ms. Bobbi didn't like him, a few other people didn't like him and I just didn't bother to figure out why but then those that didn't like him would never be up front with me and tell me themselves why they didn't like him. So, I would just keep doing whatever it took to talk to him and I really didn't care what other people said or what kind of trouble I would get into.
But, I did get into trouble as the months went on. In fact the closer it got to May, the more trouble I was getting into. Getting into trouble with Jonsey cost me the opportunity to go on a trip with the Ensemble group that got to go to Missouri, I got to stay behind and be in charge of the dining hall. It was funny how convenient it was for me to have certain privileges while the others got to do things. I was slowly starting to be treated differently. I’m not sure what it was, I just started feeling like I wasn't wanted. There were other girls that were getting more privileges than I would and they would get to do more with Ms. Bobbi. I just wasn't sure what I was doing wrong besides finding every way possible to be around and see Jonsey. He seemed to be the only person that liked me and wanted to be around me.
Slowly but surely the passing of the notes turned into passing small stuffed animals and other small trinkets. But, the more that was passed and the more I tried to be around him and talked to me, the more trouble I got into. It was out of character for me to be in trouble so much I didn't have a whole lot to look forward to but uncertainty and a future that led to nowhere so it didn't matter much to me.
The closer it got to May the more acquainted I would get with a man who would frequent the Home while I was there. He had a girls home that was split between locations in North Carolina and Milton Florida and for some reason he would always make his way to Corpus Christi to visit the Homes there. He would come into the dining hall before lunch times and hang around and talk to us girls, he was married (even though we had never seen his wife) so we didn’t think it a bad thing to talk to him. He was kind of odd though but I wouldn’t realize how odd until years later. He would always make his way to the ladies’ Home and talk to Ms. Bobbi, and eventually he would in a way recruit a couple of the girls that were ready to leave the Home or needed an opportunity and they would go with him to work in the girls home in North Carolina. I eventually found out that it was him, Mr. Dave W. that had bought my flute for me at Christmas. He had bought it but had given it to the Home to give to me from them.
So, for some reason this Mr. Dave had some interest in me and I wasn’t sure why. I talked to him just like the other girls did, not really sensing a problem or anything odd about it. He would soon find out that I was attempting to go to Pensacola Christian College in the fall and he had an interest in that too.
Finally May came and by then, I had really gotten away with talk to Jonsey and we had managed to pass a lot between us, things that nobody knew about. But, the weekend came when my year anniversary came, it was the 10th and I was excited. I was excited because I finally had hit my year mark, but I was anxious because I still was unsure of what I was going to do with my future. I had decided that I wanted to go to PCC (Pensacola Christian College) but that was in the fall, it was May. As those in the Homes would hit their year mark or graduation as we called it, they would be represented with a signed certificate signed by the Dorm parent of the Home they were in and signed by the Pastor of the entire Home. It would be given to the graduates in a church service so that others knew they had accomplished something, it was indeed a big deal and meant a lot. My night in church came and I officially graduated the Home, I had finished my year.
As I made plans to go to PCC after my year graduation, Ms. Bobbi and I had realized that I was going to need a GED, I had nothing in the form of a diploma, so we arranged for me to take the test in town over a couple of days. Unfortunately, I was never going to get my scores or find out how I did on the test. For some reason, on a certain day at the Home, Ms. Bobbi would be made aware of how close Jonsey and I were getting and someone had told her that he and I were passing a lot of things between each other and notes. It really made her mad and angry. I never understood why she reacted the way she did ( I heard over time that she was bi-polar and had mood swings), Jonsey and I were not the only guy and girl who had gotten caught or in trouble for interacting with each other or for passing things to each other. The guys and girls in the Homes did it all the time. But, for some reason what Jonsey and I had been doing and getting away with was just bad. She was angry and said she had to call the adopted mother and tell her what was going on. She also said that I was going to have to leave the Home and that I couldn’t be there anymore. I was totally shocked. Again, I don’t know why all of this was being blown out of proportion but it was.
Within 24 hours, Ms. Bobbi had me pack up my stuff, she had bought a bus ticket and made arrangements with the Mr. Dave for me to go to North Carolina and work in his girls’ home. It was too much. I did not understand why I was being treated the way I was, Jonsey and I hadn’t done anything immorally wrong. We hadn’t touched each other; we hadn’t kissed or fooled around, nothing that merited that much anger and sudden change in my life like that. I never talked to the adopted mother whom Ms. Bobbi had said she called and who was furious. I never talked to the Pastor of the Home, even though Ms. Bobbi had told me it was him who wanted me to leave. It was all just weird and scary. I packed up my stuff, packed the important stuff that I could fit into the one suitcase that I had arrived with at the Home with a year ago. The rest of my stuff would be packed into boxes and sent to me later.
The other girls and ladies in the Home were just as confused as I was and the round of goodbyes would be filled with tears, so many tears. The day after the madness had come about, I was taken to the Greyhound bus station by Ms. Bobbi, she would drop me off, hand me my bus ticket, a Walmart sack of snack foods to eat while on the bus and $12 in cash. She said she loved me but part of me wasn’t so sure of that at the moment. If she loved me then why was she treating me like this? What had I done so wrong? I did not understand. All I did understand was that I was about to leave a life I had known and loved for a year, my friends who were like family to me, a guy who I thought I loved (who by the way I was not allowed to say goodbye to or see before I left), I was about to leave it all. I had never traveled anywhere on my own in my entire life. This was the first time. Yes, I was 18 but you have to remember mentally I was still catching up and physically too. I still looked like a little girl to most people and here I was about to get on a bus full of people, strangers and I was about to travel for close to two days by myself. I had no phone, no nothing. I had a backpack that was like a purse because I didn't own one and my one suitcase was underneath the bus, it had everything that was mine that I could take with me.
Ms. Bobbi left as soon as she handed me my ticket and said goodbye. I sat for a few minutes trying to figure out how to get on the right bus, I had to figure out how to read my ticket, I had never seen one before. I managed to get on the right bus; it was full of people, a lot of Hispanics. I had heard over time that when you travel on a bus that you had to protect yourself and hold your belongings close. I found my seat; it was next to a window, I put my backpack on the floor snug in between my feet so no one could steal it. The bus started out and we were headed to Houston, we had a small stop on the way there to have a bathroom break and pick other travelers up. We went to Houston from there, where I would transfer buses.
The Greyhound Station there in Houston was massive and I was amazed that I had found my way to the right bus and didn't get lost. I was frustrated though, I was in Houston, my home town and I didn't have anybody I could call. I just boarded the next bus and moved further towards North Carolina. The whole way there, we would make a hundred stops it would seem like; I remember stopping at the Bus Station downtown Atlanta, GA and it too was big. Little did I know I would live in Atlanta in the future. On the bus, I sat next to people that were just odd. I remember when transferring buses at one of the stops in North Carolina the bus driver asked me a question and I responded with a ‘Yes sir’. He looked at me oddly and snapped at me saying ‘Don’t say that to me!’ I forgot that northerners did not take yes sirs and no ma’ams as a form of respect and I was quickly reminded that I was indeed up ‘north’. Somewhere in South Carolina, I met a man who looked like Santa Clause who talked a lot, he was kind enough to buy me a full meal at a burger joint there at the station. It tasted so good, the food that was given to me had run out a long time ago and I didn't have much left of the $12. The Santa Clause man let me use a calling card, where I was able to finally get a hold of Jonsey, he was confused and hurt by all that had happened. We promised to get in touch when I got to the girls’ home and then we said our goodbyes.
Finally, I would reach my destination which was Asheville; it was the closest to the town where the girls’ home was that had a Greyhound Station. When I arrived, it was late, I think it was after 9pm and it was a very small station, maybe a fraction of the size of the station in Atlanta. There was nobody there waiting for me, I thought that Mr. Dave would be there but he wasn't. I called the number that Ms. Bobbi had given to me to the girls’ home and talked to somebody there letting them know I was there. The town where the girls’ home was at though was like 30 minutes away north of Asheville. It was getting later and darker. I was in a part of town in Asheville that was kind of set apart from the city, probably on the outskirts somewhere. I remember I had to sit outside the station with my suitcase and backpack, I sat in the parking lot in the dark and there were two other guys there who were also waiting for their ride. The guys looked like they were military and eventually as we all sat there, they sounded like they were military. That was the first time I had literally heard cussing and cuss words. It kind of took me by surprise but then it made me nervous too.
Here I was, 18 years old, in a state I had never been to before, sitting close to a couple of guys who were cussing every other word and I was just a little scared. Finally, close to midnight, Mr. Dave showed up, by himself , I felt really relieved to see him. Finally I was with someone relatively familiar. Finally, I was heading to the last stop in my journey, a stop that would start a new chapter in my life. The days of the Home were forever behind me and what laid ahead of me that night was a highway that lead over a mountain, into the unknown, into a life that I would be forced to live in and live out. Until next time, be Blessed and Inspire to Make A Difference.
~The Adopted Child
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