"My name is Jillian, and I am a survivor."
I never knew when the day I got out would come. But when it did I had no clue where to go or how to start. I was removed from my house at age two, for the first time that is, I was in foster care and bounced from house to house. I tried to be good but there were so many kids there, and they all tried to make me mad... in each house I always ended up fighting them to get them to leave me alone.
But there was something that happened before I was two. When I was a newborn, less than a year old, I lost my mom and dad in a car crash. I was the only survivor and I was placed in an orphanage. A few months after I entered the orphanage I was put into a foster home and that only lasted about a month, or so the other kids told me.
I didn't know many words yet because I was so little but I was learning and at age three, I think, I was placed in my second foster home with another kid from the orphanage. They fostered us together because I refused to leave without her, I don't remember her name because it was quite a few years ago now. A few months past, maybe three or four, and they brought me back to the orphanage one morning and told the lady in charge that I had been nothing but trouble for the past month. They claimed I pulled things apart on purpose to upset them, but really I hadn't. That was the first time someone had burned my hands.....
A year came and went, I turned 4 and I met a man outside the orphanage one day when we were all playing. The others had made me leave the game because I was so little so I ran out towards the street not thinking and he caught me. He introduced himself as Alex, and I told him that my name was Jillian. He was different than other people, he sat down on the sidewalk with me on his lap and asked me why I was there.
I told him my story and then he asked if I wanted some ice cream and lunch. I was really hungry that day so I agreed and he took me by the hand and we walked to a little burger shop and he got me lunch and an ice cream cone, my last meal of toast had been hours before and I was super hungry so I ate it all after he brought it to me.
"Jillian, how old are you? You look so tiny."
"I'm 4 Mr. Alex. My mommy and daddy died when I was 2 and the orphanage doesn't have much food so I get very little there being one of the youngest. I wish I could stay longer but I really should go back so nobody thinks I'm missing."
"Alright. How about I come back one day and take you with me for good?"
"I would really like that Mr. Alex! Bye bye!"
"Bye."
I ran as fast as I could back to the orphanage but I was late and as punishment I got hit one time for every minute I was late. After that I wished I had returned sooner..... I got hit 20 times that day because I was having a good meal. After that I stayed on the property day after day. Kids kept excluding me from games and I kept thinking about what I would do when Alex came back, it kept me going through the next foster home a couple months after I met him.
I was put in the new foster home at the start of summer and that lasted until a week before I was supposed to start school, they decided that I wasn't good enough for them to give me an education. So I went back to the orphanage and after a few months it was my fifth birthday and I sat outside until it was dark to see if Alex would come back for me that day.
Alex didn't show up on my birthday, as a matter of fact he didn't even show up before I was placed in another foster home that year. This foster home was worse than any of the others I had been in or heard stories about. I had to have the house spotless or I went a few days without food, that went on for maybe a month and a half before they gave up on me and sent me back to the orphanage covered in bruises.
After that they stopped trying to place me in a foster home and just kept me at the orphanage. Another year and a half past and I turned 7, on that day I was outside all day avoiding people and Alex showed up. Alex walked up to me and I dragged him inside. The lady that ran the orphanage started talking to him and she agreed that Alex could take me with him after he went to court to prove he could take care of me.
Alex agreed and they went to court later that day. The judge decided that Alex was able to take care of me and raise me. That was the start of my new beginning, the day I was set free and I had no idea what to do. I am Jillian and I survived.
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