Sarah White
Period 8
Lavita Jones

My name is Lavita Jones and I’m a homeless teen who has had a lot of struggles. I have been trough a lot in my life. Now I’m a Harvard student who has student who has a job working at a newspaper. If you want to know how I got this way. If your mad that a homeless person made it this far and not you. I will tell you I’m hard working and determine. It wasn’t always that way though I remember a time when I was young and I couldn’t get any food I had to dig in the garbage can. My childhood was the most horrible childhood a child can even imagine. My mother and father were both crack heads. They worried more about getting their next hit than putting clothes on my back and shoes on my feet. I and my old sister Lisa had to fin for ourselves. We had to steal clothes and food just to survive. I hated the fact that we could even wash up in the morning because we didn’t have any water because whenever my dad use to come up own some money him and my mom just smoked it up. We stayed in this like crack house were mostly crack heads and homeless people lived. Me And my sister are two totally different people. She loved going to school and getting an education but I hated waling into school smelling like old dirty people. That’s why I never went I stayed home taking care of my mother. I loved my mother dearly even though she would get violent with me when she smoked crack. I still tried to help her out by cleaning the house washing the dishes just trying to make the place look good so that the DCFS wouldn’t take me and my sister away. It was this one old homeless lady that stayed across from us. One day she was looking threw the garbage and found two whole sets of encyclopedia. Which was the greatest gift I had ever gotten this gift was the start of a new chapter in my horrible life. When I got my books I just couldn’t stop reading. That’s all I did was read it was so interesting. I just never could go to school and whenever I went I would always come on test days and every test I would past. The stuff was easy because I read and everything that we were tested on I read about. I was a smart kid but I just didn’t like going to school because I was scared to come home and find my mother dead of overdose. That’s why I stayed home and my sister would always get mad at me because I would never go she would always tell me that the people were going to take me if didn’t go. Every time she would say that I went. One day I went and my teacher told me not to take the test because I wasn’t here to know what the test was about. I told her that I could take it anyway. After class she stopped me and asked me why I haven’t been coming to school like my sister. I just wanted to tell her to mind her own damn shit and stay out of mine but I didn’t I just I had family issues. She told me not to take her next comment as a threat she told me to take it as a promise. She told me that if I wouldn’t start coming to school that he would call DCFS on my mother so that they could take me away. Then she handed me a bag of clothes and told me to keep my head up. I was thinking how I could keep my head up when my life kept bringing me down I mean it was impossible. I did take the words to heart that she said about calling the peoples on me. The last thing I wanted to do was go to a group home and be away from my mom. I tried going to school but if I didn’t really work out. My mother needed me and I was going to help her no ifs ands or buts about it. My teacher did call DCFS and they came to my house but they gave me a warning. A few weeks later my mom came home more messed up than usual. She was completely gone I mean she didn’t even know me. She came in screaming, “Who da fuck are you and where’s my daughter.” I started to tell her that I was her daughter but I knew that it wouldn’t matter. She started tossing thing around saying things like, “You people don’t know I will kill all of you.” I was in the corner crying my eyes out because I couldn’t help the drugs had taken my mother and I wanted her back. I tried to calm her down so I got up to get her and she hit me with a pot in my head and I was knocked out for about an hour. When I woke up the police was at my house and DCFS they took my mother away and I was alone not knowing what to do. I sat in her chair smelling the secant trying to remember the good days that we had together. A few months later I was walking on the streets wondering what my mother was doing. When I came home she was sitting in her chair the chair that I had sat and cried in for the past few months. I always loved it when my mother when see was out of rehab. She was the mother any little girl could want. While we were sitting their talking and laughing she looked kind of troubled. I wanted to know what was wrong so I asked her even though I knew it was going to be something bad I wanted to know anyway. “Mom what’s wrong.” “Nothing baby I’m find but there is something that I have to tell you.” “What is it mom.” “I have to move back in with my dad.” I was shocked because her dad treated her and my ant so badly and I wanted to know why. I knew the next words were going to be bad but I wanted to know anyway. She told me that she had aids and I started to cry my eyes out I didn’t want her to die like that. She tried to comfort me but I knew that after that things wouldn’t’ be the same. My mom and my older sister left and went to ma so called grandfathers house I didn’t go because he was such a cruel person and I hated what he did to my mom. I hate everyone that hurts her I want them dead. When she left I really wasn’t going to school. My teacher called DCFS again this time they came and there wasn’t anyone at the house my dad had gone out to get some food. They stormed in talking about why I haven’t been going to school I couldn’t even answer them I was stuck. Then ma dad walked in with the food they pulled him outside and was talking to him for about 35 minutes. When they came back in they told me to pack my bags and come with them. I was kicking and screaming I didn’t want to go but they made and my dad couldn’t do anything but shoot up. I was so mad at myself for not going with my mother now I had to live in a group home away from my family the people that I loved the most in the whole world. I hated that but I guess it had to be that way.