Her name was Ms. Gold and she was amazing. She was the first person to help me out of my life with the mother and into my new life. After the doctors I really got to meet her and we sat down and got to talking about life at the house. She brought me to my first foster home where we sat down on the couch in the living room and had a chat. She was like an angel to me which is why I regret some of the things I said to her. But it was hard for me to adjust; I wasn’t ready to expose my family secret. I knew my mother would come back and get me. But Ms. Gold proved me wrong she took me to court and we won! I got into foster care I wasn’t sure about going to court at first. I was almost going to testify for my mother out of fear of what she’d do to me. I almost went up there and told the judge that I made everything up. I thought, one lie wouldn’t hurt my mother had always told me I was a bad boy anyway and that everything was my fault and that I deserved her punishments. But Ms. Gold told me otherwise and for that I will always be grateful.  She took me from foster home to foster home and was always there for me, which I why I was devastated when she left. When I got into trouble and was sent to Juvenile Hall, Ms. Gold was replaced by a new guy, another ‘social worker’, more like a parole officer. Mr. Gordon was nice but not comforting and affectionate like Ms. Gold and I still miss her.

            I have always tried my best to fit in. It started at ‘the House, my brothers never did accept me. They probably blamed me for all the family’s problems. They all did. When I was at Aunt Mary’s I would show off to the kids and steel candy from the counter at the local store. But when I really went wrong I was living with the Catanzes. There was a kid who was going to beat me up after school so I let him in on my past ‘accomplishments’ and he let me join his crew. He was the kind of boy who was always up to no good and the only reason people were friends with him is because they were afraid of what he’d do to them if they weren’t. One day he got extremely mad at a teacher and had us all planning something extreme to do. He wanted us to all burn down the school. We assumed he wouldn’t do it and didn’t think that much of it. On the day he had planned I went down to the school to make sure everything was okay. He had just lit a match in the class room and had begun to run away. I could not believe what I was seeing. I began to put the fire out and was almost successful when the cops showed. He was long gone and I was there to take the blame. I tried to tell the truth, but my mother had other plans. She told the cops that I was always throwing fits around the house and the therapist reports saying that I was violent didn’t help either. No one believed me but Lillian Catanze and it was nice to know she would be there to comfort me. But my mother got her way; I was sent to Juvenile Hall. When I got out I was a different person began to think about how terrible I was being. My mother was trying to get me put away in a psychiatric rehab and my actions were making it all too easy. I was not sent away but I was still on my best behavior because I knew at 18 I was out of the home and I needed to be ready.