The Runaway

​ At fourteen years of age my mother found her birth father after many years of searching, she planned a two week vacation with my brother Bruce, myself and now my brother Paul (who was adopted by my mother and step) to see her birthfather for the first time since she was seven years of age. My birth mother had not seen her father since she was seven because at that time my Ninny and her husband “Uncle Fred” drove to Tennessee where my mother and her sisters were born, and drove them all back to Massachusetts where my mother’s brother Keith was born. (my grandmother was 4 months pregnant when she left Tennessee.)
​ We had a fun two weeks where at the end I was invited to stay the whole summer and return home with them to my mother’s at the end of summer as they were going to meet my mother’s brothers and sisters. Debbie, Lori, Keith and my youngest Uncle Glen who was a product of my grandmothers last marriage, that ended one evening when her then husband told her he was “going out for cigarettes” never to return.

​ I spent the summer tagging along with my mother’s step sister Theresa who was five years older than I. I felt once again like I had found a place where I belonged. Boy was I ever wrong. I returned home in August three weeks prior to my fifteenth birthday. After the week was over my new found grandparents and Auntie left to return to their lives in Tennessee. I wanted out of my mother’s life and home so bad that at fifteen years old, 3 weeks after my birthday, I stole one hundred dollars from my mother’s purse, purchased a greyhound bus ticket to Tennessee, not even knowing that I would find my grandparents and aunt. (I had forgotten where they lived.)
​I made it to Nashville on the bus and found myself homeless. I lived that way for at least six months. I met a few kids my age a few days after I arrived in Nashville who were also homeless. The teens I met taught me about a place called safeplace, a new organization that helpd homeless and at risk youth, by giving them a hot meal, a place to sleep if they need it and clean clothes. I had seen how some of the girls were prostituting themselves to be able to live. I knew I did not want to live this way, as I had already lived that life, the whole reason for running away from home was to get away from sexual trauma as well as other trauma in my life. I had experienced prostitution with my birth mother while she was married to my step dad. My mother would offer me up to her “Johns” as a perk of paying her more. I was not going to willingly go into this lifestyle, without at least trying to get a quality education.

​I desperately wanted an education, so I hitched one day in December to Franklin and asked where I had to go to register for school. The person who picked me up dropped me off at the superintendants office for Franklin Special School District, back then known as Franklin City Schools. I had a copy of my school records with me that I stole from my mother’s file cabinet before leaving. I took the school records because I felt like my education was something that was mine and mine alone and I deserved to have all that went with it. Little did I know, that they were more useful than I gave them credit for. I handed the receptionist my records and lied to her, telling her that my mother was disabled and couldn’t get there to sign anything so I would need to take the registration papers with me and bring them back after my mother signed them.

​The receptionist behind the desk bought my story; I took the papers with me and returned four days later with my mother’s signature forged. It wasn’t hard to forge my mother’s signature on my registration papers and make it look like the signature that was on all my old school documents, as my mother rarely signed anything, I usually signed it for her. I was promptly enrolled in Franklin Junior High, and started classes in February. I have always said I was homeless for approximately six months because after I was enrolled in school I felt like I had a home. I made friends quickly and many of them were generous enough to let me stay with them from time to time. When summer came I stayed under the church street bridge with my “street” friends, I learned to beg for money to eat, and on occasion I slept at the shelter. When school begun again I was transferred to Franklin High where I figured out that the band room was rarely locked so as long as I was in the band I was able to sleep in the back band room. So I joined the Marching band as a flute/ clarinet player turned guard girl. This would be my sophomore year and I had plans for my life.

​ When I wasn’t sleeping in the band room and washing my clothes in the bathroom sink and hanging them to dry in my locker I was sleeping over at friend’s homes. In October I found my grandparents and moved in with them only to find that I was to be the victim yet again of sexual abuse, at the hands of my own grandfather. I had faced this type of abuse in the past, perpetrated on me by my step dad’s father and my mother’s many boyfriends, that she had while married to my step dad, and even a neighbor. This just reinforced the thought that there was something wrong with me, that everyone wanted to do these horrible things to me. I can remember not even realizing that it was something that other girls didn’t go through, as I was so young when it all started. But one day while watching television there was a commercial on television that spoke of the National Child Abuse Hotline and how if someone was hurting you in any way you should call the number and someone would help you. I called that number that day, only to be put on hold for 45 minutes, I hung up.

​ At some point in the first few weeks of living with my grandparents I was taken to the local police station, by a police officer, because I had been reported by my mother as a runaway and she wanted me to come back. The police officer that questioned me listened to my story and opened the back door of the police station and said “honey you are a very smart brave girl, if you want to run there is the door and I understand and will not come looking for you.” I told him that I had gotten myself into this mess and that I would stay and face whatever I had to, but that I was determined that my life would be more than what was dealt me by my mother and her problems. The police officer told me that he thought I was a very bright brave girl and that he understood my decision. I went back home with my grandparents and after many phone calls from my mother I was allowed to stay.
​By the time my sophomore year in high school began I had befriended my computer teacher (Judy) who I confided in (in my junior year) that I had a “friend” who was being abused and she needed to know what to do. She told me “tell you friend to come see me” I emphatically told her that my friend would not come forward for fear of what would happen to her, she then told me ok she would talk to me as much as I wanted. The subject was not brought up in school again. I was home alone that Thanksgiving (during my junior year) and was invited to dinner at my then teacher’s home. She fed me, and rented a movie called “Angel” the movie was about a teen runaway turned prostitute that befriended a police officer. Half way through the movie I was sitting on the floor sobbing and Judy pulled me back into her bedroom and said; “I know you don’t have a friend, I know it is you, please let me help you.” So I told Judy the whole story about my life, my abuses and my fears. She made a phone call to a local juvenile judge (Judge Franks), who signed a temporary guardian order so that I could stay where I was until court was back in session in two weeks.