Keeva

The foster care system in this country is a necessary evil. Me and my siblings are blessed, we eventually were reunited and over time our mother regained custody and jumped through the hoops needed get us out of the system. Not all children are as fortunate.

There are children who stay in the system until they age out, others are lost, and others are abused in worst conditions then were removed from. I’m not going to start listing statistics, because numbers can be twisted and blended to paint a picture that removes human faces that numbers cannot capture. In stead I’m going to share a story of my foster sisters.

Keeva had the mis fortune of being born beautiful to a mother addicted to crack and an unknown father. Keeva was a light skinned with long curly brown hair and grey eyes. Her mother sold her to her dealer when she was five years old. The dealer prolly thought he would raise her until she was old enough to prostitute, but his girlfriend didn’t like the idea of being weighted down with a kid that she didn’t birth. She lived neglected for almost a year until she was placed in her first foster home at the age of six.

Keeva said she never owned her virginity, she had been sexually abused all her life. Her first foster home, she said at least they were kind to her. She was cleaned up and her curly locs were tamed and her foster dad would take her to get candy and touch her on her way home. She stayed there until she got pregnant at 11, she doesn’t even remember getting first period. She was hospitalized durning her miscarriage and she was removed from the home. She bounced around from home to home for two years until she ended up at Ms. Brown’s pregnant.

I was removed from Ms. Brown’s prior to Keeva giving birth. A year has never passed when I didn’t think about Keeva. I wonder if she had her baby, if it was a beautiful baby girl, if she was allowed to keep her. Keeva had plans. She spent her days dreaming and planning. I wish I remembered her last name to look her up. But since I don’t know, I allow myself to imagine her happy.