Prologue
She says she never abandoned me or my siblings. It’s been four months since we last saw her, look I love her and all she’s my mom but for real how she’s acting is ridiculous. I wouldn’t be as mad if it was the first time and everything that she did, didn’t happen but it’s not the first time, and probably won’t be the last. Everything she did happened God this is so stupid you know what I just realized you have no idea what is going on, let’s go back about fourteen years.
~March 9, 2008, ~
It’s about six at night Katie just got done with labor and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl which she named Elizabeth. Hello, my name is Elizabeth Rodriguez and this is my story. Now during my mother giving birth, my father was outside having a screaming match with my older cousin who at the time wasn’t much older than my mom who was sixteen and about to turn seventeen in four days and my Father just turned nineteen. Which would make my cousin about twenty-two or so.
I don’t quite know what they were arguing about but I do know it resulted in my Father getting hit in the face and someone’s widow getting busted and my cousin also getting hurt. When I heard this story I thought it was pretty funny because I didn’t know the full story just that my cousin punched him in the face and bashed his window. Well anyways my mom finishes high school with me on her hip and then goes on with her life and the first two of mine were pretty okay other than those two years are when it started. She started doing things she shouldn’t have, like drugs and other things. She didn’t get in a whole lot of trouble during my first two years of life but about three weeks after my second birthday everything changed.
~March 28, 2010, ~
The day I became an older sister my dad was in and out of my life for the first three years of my life but he was around enough to have another child with my mother. And today is when my First baby brother Leon Rodriguez came along. I loved my baby brother to pieces but also didn’t know that’s when I would learn to take care of a baby because my mom would just leave and go off places. She was around sometimes my brother was born with a condition when he was a baby and up till he was like two he had to do a breathing treatment and he had to take medicine so after they showed me that and I knew how to do it they were gone more often or really just didn’t pay attention as much.
We would occasionally go to my Great Grandmas but it was rare. Mostly we stayed at my grandma’s apartment who was exactly like my mom and did everything she did. We would also occasionally go to my mom’s friends. Then a year later, my other brother was born.
~June 29, 2011, ~
The day my other brother Liam Smith was born about a year later. He was a very loud baby so I was told. He cried a lot and it was about the same thing. She would stay around for a little while eventually, we moved in with my mom’s friend Those years were the worst and by then I was starting school and she was doing a lot of the worst things, and well he didn’t have to deal with it as long neither did Leon but they didn’t have as much either just like me they weren’t in school they were in the house most of the time.
~The next four years~
For the next four years after he was born a lot happened. And a lot of stuff would happen when I was in school so I couldn’t stop it from happening. For instance, when I was about five I was in kindergarten, I came home from school and Leon came up to me and said Hey guess what we got Ice Cream today. I got excited because I was six and it was ice cream so I went and looked and there was none so I was like “no you didn’t” and he looked at me and said, “yeah huh me and Liam went to the store when you were at school to get ice cream and then they took it from us and we were in the back of a cop car and had to wait for Granny Jame to come and get us.”
I was in shock and was like “why didn’t take Uncle Robert or Grandma Robin to go with you?” And he responded that they were asleep and wouldn’t wake up I was mad I understood Uncle Robert because he has to take medicine to sleep and he’s a heavy sleeper on his own but grandma Robin is not a heavy sleeper and whenever she doesn’t wake up with the slight sound of her name that means she was doing stuff the night before. Side note: we ended up having to Live with our Great Grandma or Granny Jane as we call her and her son Robert lives with her. I’ll tell you more about them later.
But that incident was the year my sister was born.
~July 24, 2013, ~
The year my little sister Mia Smith was born while we were living with my mom’s friend and her son. My sister and I are five years apart but are pretty close I would say. We stayed with my mom’s friends for a little while only about a year tho but in that year a few things happened. I was in summer school and coming home and I rode the bus my bus driver would put three to a seat and I was sitting by the window and I was also the first to get off out of everyone in my seat. When my stop came they wouldn’t listen when I told them to get up so she drove past my stop. I wasn’t the only kid getting off at that stop there were a lot.
But I yelled at the driver that she passed my stop but she was already driving and she didn’t hear me so I just sat down and stayed quiet and when the last stop came I didn’t know what to do so I got off there and the boy that also got off there’s grandma asked if my mom is coming to get me and I said she doesn’t know where I am and explained. She was really nice but she asked if I lived on that street and I didn’t. I soon learned I was across town from where I lived but eventually, when my mom was looking for me she passed me but was on the phone and didn’t see me. I was taught to never interrupt anyone on the phone and if I did I would get in trouble I have before and they would yell and scream at me if I did and even sometimes threaten to whoop me, so I didn’t say anything other than telling the lady my mom just passed and explained why I didn’t say anything.
Eventually, the woman called the police and I knew a lot of the police in that town because of my family not all of them just a select few but I was able to tell him how to get to my house because I was able to remember how to get there and had a great memory and was able to remember little things. When we got there I waved goodbye and thanked the officer and went inside I told my mom everything and why I didn’t say anything when she drove by and then she told me in a moment like that I interrupt her.
A Few other things happened but eventually, we went back to Granny Janes and lived for about a year and a half I was able to go to first grade in august after I went to summer school. During that time my mom got arrested again and my sister wasn’t with us because her aunt took her because she thought she was in a bad home with people who were unable to take care of her. She wasn’t wrong but still, she was gone the whole year and a half we continued to stay there but never really got to meet her. So not so much happened and a few social workers were back and forth.
The last one I had was the one before it happened she told me that my siblings and I might have to leave and go to foster care if they can’t find a family member who was willing to take all three of us kids and there was a chance we would all be split up into different families if we were to get adopted. I didn’t know how to feel but I didn’t show any emotion I was wondering about my little sister because she wasn’t with us she was taken by her aunt and we haven’t seen her since.
~June 15, 2015, ~
Fast Forward to June 15th, 2015 I just got out of school and I just turned seven about three months ago I was playing with my friends outside when my Grandma Robin came and got me she was crying I didn’t know why she just told me to come on I told my friends goodbye and followed my Grandma home. She didn’t tell me till we got home what was happening she told me to get dressed and get my shoes on someone’s coming to get us and I thought well I really didn’t know what I thought but about ten minutes later a woman and her daughter came I didn’t recognize them but I was told their names were Jacqueline and Adrianna but Jacqueline went by Jakie anyways when she picked us up she took us to the nearest YMCA to have us shower and change into different clothes.
Not much happened after that we went to their house and got settled. Eventually, my mom got out and she and her boyfriend got visitations because her boyfriend was my brother and sister's dad I didn't know that this would have been the first day that every problem to come in the future would start.
