Just for the record;
I am nineteen years old.
At eighteen years old, I was living on my own. I had to wonder, every month, if I would literally starve to death. I struggled to achieve my A grades in school when I was often too hungry or worried to think.
I had provided my mother with resources to learn about chastity, and was wounded that year with the realization that two of my siblings – one younger, one older – had been brutally murdered before they were even born.
I had been a social action coordinator for a youth organization and I had helped to organize and run a conference for 100 Canadian Unitarian teenagers. That same year I left the Unitarian faith, despite how much I loved them, when I realized that to go to a UU service was to commit idolatry.
I had a working knowledge of a multitude of faiths and was yearning for God.
I had to struggle with the fear every night that if I didn’t make it home safe, no one would notice I was missing. I had to defeat my pride and turn to the food bank, the Church, my school, for simple necessities.
I had the experience of being promised $150 a month from my father, hoping over and over again that he would come through, when he only did maybe twice.
I learned that my mother’s boyfriend was emotionally abusing my younger siblings and had gone as far as hitting my nine year old sister in anger. I heard my mother tell that same sister that if she didn’t behave, he would have to leave for hitting her, so she had better remember that. I brought her back to my place to share my one remaining can of soup and I was the one to check for bruises on her face, hug her better.
I had already overcome the addiction of self-injury at the age of eighteen.
at fifteen, I had been chased down the street and attacked by a group of twenty-something boys – and was told by my parents that I was an adult, and to deal with it on my own.
my seventeen year old roommate from last year has had it even worse than I have – her parents receive disability from the government for the care of her and her siblings but spend the money on drugs while they go hungry. She tried to leave, but they refused to give her her birth certificate so she couldn’t seek government support – they still wanted that money.
they prevented her from attending school frequently enough that she lost her year twice in a row, yet she was blamed as being truant. she worried when she left that the next sibling in line, her sister, would receive the brunt of the abuse. she was struggling through a break up with her fiancée because she wouldn’t sign a prenuptial agreement.
others of my friends suffered – and persevered – through similarly harsh realities. all of them were under eighteen at the time.
that’s how it is where I grew up. the children are the adults, and there is no childhood – and there is no responsibility – and often it is without hope.
I grew up in Canada – but in the low income neighborhoods. we lived in the homes no one wanted built in their neighborhoods, for fear of having the property value of their houses drop. we lived in the area where abuse was common place, and the children who were brave enough to report their parents were ostracized and often thrown out in response. or simply threatened.
yet I persevered.
I am only nineteen years old. but I have had experiences in my life that I pray none of you have had. many of my friends have had those same experiences. most do not make it; many kill themselves, and others simply exist without hope.
those of us that do survive – and escape – are either too wounded to function at all, or only ever heal by the grace of God in our lives – and have only our faith to cling to.
Now that I am on my feet with a job, living with a Catholic couple who have shown me how a real family operates – I hope to study Catholic Studies at university, and then go to teachers college or maybe to work in missions with deprived children (I, of all people, should know the difference one good teacher or role model can make – it is immense – sometimes it is the only good thing a child has).
I know I have a waiting period, being a new Catholic. I still have so much instruction in my faith that I need to receive – so much I need to learn.
but please, though I know you’ll say my case is not common, do not assume that 18 years is not enough. God gives us the experiences we need, and the time that we need, and the grace that we need, to do exactly what he wants us to – when he wants us to.
and do not make the mistake of believing my case is all that uncommon – the only thing that is uncommon is for me to have survived and for me to have been blessed with the gift of faith, which has been and shall be my strength in all things.
with love, and faith,
Saoirse
