Life Unscripted

Coping Through Adversity

My Nana was gone now about two months and I found myself in a new home. My adopted mother took me and my two adopted little brothers to her new apartment far away from all I was familiar with. I was now in charge of watching over my adopted brothers while my adopted mother went to work. She now had two full times jobs and was gone most of the day and night. She gave me my orders of household chores along with cooking dinner each night before she got home.

One day she said put out the frozen chicken and fry it before she come home from work. She warned me that if it wasn't ready I'd better be ready for my punishment. Well at this time I am almost eleven years old and I've never had to cook fried chicken before. I didn't even know the first steps. I do remember meeting our really nice neighbors and I just so happened to see her outside when I got home from school. I thought she must know how to cook. I asked her for her help and luckily for me she knew what to do. The chicken was still a little frozen so she put it in the microwave to defrost and showed me step by step how to cook the chicken. Since it involved heating oil for a long period time I was a bit apprehensive to put the chicken in it, but I did and the neighbor told me to make sure that I didn't turn the stove on too high or the outside of the chicken would over cook but the inside would still be uncooked. Anyhow, I tried my best to have it all ready as my adopted mom was due home soon to eat and change her clothes for the second job.

She arrived home and I set the table to make sure she and my brothers could eat as soon as she got in. I was proud of myself for accomplishing something I had never done before but when she sat down to eat it the chicken she had wasn't quite ready and she became upset. I was trying to apologize but I knew she was exhausted and didn't want to hear it. She got so upset with me, she went into the freezer and threw a frozen turkey leg at me. I tried to dodge it but it hit my knee. I cried and ran upstairs to my room thinking man is this what life is going to be like now.

This night I think was the beginning of how I became closer to God! It's almost as if He was in the room wiping my tears away. I would talk to my Nana and Him daily. In my little eleven year old mind I had no more friends in my new neighborhood and school so why not talk to them. I promised myself something the next morning after crying myself to sleep. I promised I would never let anyone get me down with their words or how they treated me.

Each day I went to school to finish out the sixth grade and graduate from elementary. I thought it would be easy but the days ahead were far from it. I was in a new school and didn't know anyone. I began to have trouble with some of the girls there. They had all grew up together and didn't like me much. I tried to be nice to them but they weren't trying to be the same way back to me. One day I went to school and on the girls bathroom door someone wrote something so horrible in my eyes. It said Jerusha is a B#%CH. I saw it and ran to my teacher to let her know. I was so discouraged but I thought I'm not gonna let these people make me fearful. In efforts to stand up for myself I confronted the group of girls who I thought it was. They tried to threaten to beat me up but told me they'd wait for me after school. Not only was home life crazy now my school life was crazy too.

Everyday after school I just walked home and didn't really care about anyone or anything. Somewhat like a loner. I was constantly feeling like everyone was against me. Don't get me wrong I did meet a few people in sixth grade that really cared for me. I had an after school program director whom God brought into my life to help show me my worth. She was amazing always caring about all the kids in her after school program. In a sense I felt safe with her. Slowly throughout that year I was basically seeing so much at home that made me grow up way too fast. The thing that impacted me, was seeing how much I had to endure because my adopted mother was so consumed with her life, then trying to support three kids and at this time her marriage was falling apart.

I remember this one Saturday morning my mom and I were driving home from the store and we saw this lady driving our other car whom her husband had at the time. My mother immediately started following her and pulled up right next to her but on my side. She rolled
down my window to start arguing with this woman asking her why was she driving our car and she told my adopted mother that this was her and her boyfriends car. The look on my mothers face I'll never forget! She told the other lady she was the wife of the man who owns the car she was driving. Suddenly the women and her exchanged some really harsh words and the lady drove away. My heart was racing with so many emotions but the worse part was seeing my mother sob uncontrollably. I was mostly sad for her. She drove me home where I then heard her call her husband to confront him about this incident. I was just sad and confused and tried to take my brothers upstairs so they wouldn't hear all the drama going on.

After this moment I tried to be more understanding of all that my adopted mother was going through and tried not to take how she treated me too personal. All the harsh words and treatment I would get from her as the years past by I just took it with a grain of salt, but there's only so much a young person can take. My life as I knew it was having to face adversity as it came and figure out my next steps in life. Just when you think it couldn't get any worse, well unfortunately it did. Stay tuned for the next chapter of my life.