Living with "family"...Carmen & Scott

Since my mom didn't return in a "timely" fashion, the neighbors took my sister Brandy and I to DFS (Division of Family Services) in Pensacola, Florida. Once we officially entered into the foster care system and moved beyond emergency housing...we were fortunate enough to go to one family for almost 3 years.

 Unbeknown to me, the state of Florida made every effort to contact any member of our family. Not sure how they got the information. However, no one was able to get to us. We went almost 2 full years without ANY contact from family. So, we stayed with Carmen and Scott. Living with Carmen and Scott was very different than in our own homes. Brandy was much younger than I was and was the little "cutie". They treated her like a baby. After realizing that no one was coming to get us, I was able to finally settle in.

Carmen and Scott had 3 of their own daughters: Sandy, Debbie and Julie. All 3 were in high school when we first went to live with them. Scott was in the Navy. I don't remember exactly what he did, but he was high up in the ranks. He also flew out of the country quite a bit on trips. Carmen was a stay at home mom. She was much older and was originally from Spain. She cooked a lot of Hispanic food..most quite good, but I remember I did not like hominy (Mexican white corn - GROSS!) She made homemade flour tortillas, soups, etc. It was nice to have someone actually cooking real food. We had chores each day - making our bed, helping with dishes, etc. The Harts were a strong Catholic family. We went to church every Sunday. I found it boring at best - we never went to Sunday School. We always sat in "big people" church. Then, we would all go to Godfather's Pizza for lunch and then come home. I remember the first weekend we came to live with them, they took us shopping for some new clothes. I can only imagine we didn't have much when we came to them.

Carmen did a lot of sewing. She taught us how to cross-stitch along with a few other things. I remember she had this really cool sewing room too. It was an enclosed porch off the back of the house. Brandy and I shared a room in the front of the house. Julie had her own room and Sandy and Debbie shared a larger room at the back of the house. The girls would take us to a lot of different places, mostly to the beach though. Sandy's boyfriend, Randy - loved to surf out at the beach and they took us often. Debbie worked a lot and we didn't see her as often. Julie was the youngest daughter and she didn't get out as often. She would take us to different places - to the mall, or a movie, and sometimes to the beach. I remember the girls would occasionally break curfew and Scott was generally not happy. Usually, it had to do with being out with boys :-)

Carmen & Scott taught Brandy and I how to swim. They installed an in-ground pool in the background our first summer there. It was awesome! I remember being thrown off the diving board as my first lesson. Once I got over the fear, I loved being in the water. When school was in session, we had to complete our homework, read for 30 minutes and then braid our own hair. Then, we could go into the pool. What a motivating factor. The braiding was interesting - I had to make sure my part was exact and everything was even. If not, I had to return until it was done correctly. Being 8 and learning how to braid your own hair was a real treat. But getting into your own pool was well worth it.

(Below: My sister Brandy and I - sitting on the diving board)

(Up above - Brandy and I near the pool - I was really tan and skinny with long legs - Check out my braids!)

I remember our first Christmas with the family. We were spoiled rotten! We had so many gifts under the tree that year and lots of toys to actually play with. I got my first watch - it was a Cinderella watch. I also remember that it snowed that year (enough to cover the grass) and Scott had made sleigh tracks in the front yard and prints up on the roof to make it look like Santa arrived.

Being in the foster care system in Florida, their primary goal is to reunite you with your family. Our situation proved unique in that they had a hard time locating my mom or other family (remember, Alan was locked up from the burglary and shooting charge). However, they eventually found her, in Tennessee. I remember there came a time for us to begin visitation. We started out by meeting with our parents, under supervision of course, at the DFS Children's Center. (Below is a picture of L to R: Brandy, Kizzie, Joseph, and myself. This was a Christmas time at the center. As you can see, my sister Kizzie grew up and I gained a little brother). We did this every week for about an hour. Eventually, that led to 2-3 hour visits, unsupervised. Usually we would go out to eat some lunch or to a park nearby. Eventually we had a few overnight visits. These were a little weird, as I gained a baby brother and a new sister before returning to my parents. Not to mention, one of my sisters was still in Texas. My mom's boyfriend (Alan's former cell mate - he was also the biological father of 2 of my new siblings) beat the crap out of my younger sister. She had several broken bones and was hospitalized and then taken from my mom. She went through the foster care system in Texas.

Now, mind you, Carmen & Scott were reaching a point that they wanted to adopt us. Depending on who you ask (my mom or my step-dad) the other will lay blame on the other one on who was going to "sign us over". I remember being heartbroken. Carmen & Scott were having to relocate to Jacksonville, FL in the coming months and really wanted us to stay with them. It could only happen through adoption. Once the adoption process was declined, they had to start looking for another foster home that was willing to keep us while we were going through the court system with visitation with an eventual permanent return to our parents. The Harts had some close friends that they knew were also foster parents and would be willing to keep us. By this point I was entering the 6th grade - middle school.

The Early Years...Part I

I spent some more quality time with Pastor this week. It was 90 minutes of traveling back into time of my childhood. I left the office having learned an important lesson...I had no other choices in my life at the time. 

Let's venture back to when I was very young. I was an only child until I was almost 4. I often wonder what it might have been like, had I been the only child...or the oldest of a few, not 7 kids (on mom's side) and the second oldest of 5 (on dad's side). I never remember seeing my dad or his side of the family until I was an adult. However, I remember bits and pieces of my stepdad's (Alan) side of the family growing up.

Alan married my mom when I was 3. They would have celebrated 35 y ears of marriage this year, had he not passed on nearly 10 years ago. I remember from the get go - I was the stepchild - I was not "his". I was constantly reminded of this growing up. My sister Brandy came in '76 on a cold, wintry January night in Minnesota. I remember this vividly, because we lost our first house and everything in it, in a major fire that very same month. Our neighbor (duplex) left an old water heater on the front porch and it exploded! Our house was old, and had wood floors throughout. We stayed with family for a while and eventually moved to Florida a few years later - I never knew why?!? I don't remember any family in the area. But it set a huge path in my life. Before we left, there was a total of 4 kids: Brandy, Heather '77, and Kizzie '79.

I remember living near the red clay - "dirt" in Florida. I remember my third grade teacher - never understood why - her name - Mrs. Jackie Coppenger. She was an older lady with white hair. I remember that the classes were in a huge room and were just divided by moving walls. My favorite subjects were math and spelling. The next memory I have of Florida was not so happy. The cops came to our door early one morning. You see, Alan went out the day before to get hamburger buns for dinner...and didn't come back that night. I remember my mom crying when they came to the door and I remember her leaving shortly after......and she didn't come back that night either. It turns out that Alan broke into someone's house and tried stealing something. He shot the man and was arrested and went to jail. Apparently, my mom ran off with his cell mate. He was from Tennessee. You see over the next 3 years my mom had also left...she took two of my siblings and left. She left myself and another sibling at a neighbor's house. Two weeks later, after no contact with any family, they turned us over to Division of Family Services.

We spent a few nights in an "emergency" foster home. It was horrible. I remember it being really hot and there being daddy long leg spiders. We only spent a couple of days there. Then we moved into a more permanent foster home. Carmen and Scott became our foster parents for the next 3 years. I was 7, almost 8 years old at the time. I remember crying for my mom. Brandy was barely 4 years old. She had no idea what was going on either. Nothing like this had ever happened before.

The  next time I would see my mom - I would have gained a little brother, Joe '82 and another sister, Amanda '83.