We are the Champions

In an ideal world, a child’s champion is its own parents but that is not a reality for some. I have grown to understand that it only takes one person in a child’s life who shows love and encouragement to make a difference. I had one such person who changed my life forever. Grandma Baker was my seventh foster mother. I lived in her home for two years beginning when I was fourteen. By then I was already a pretty beaten down individual. I had been abused in every imaginable way, taken away from my mother when I was seven years old, and shuffled from one foster home to another. My self-esteem was nil, and school meant nothing to me except a place to be away from home. No one in my family had ever made it through high school; many were illiterate.
Grandma Baker accepted me for who I was, good and bad, and encouraged me at every step to better my life. With her trust and love I quit smoking, doing drugs, and drinking alcohol. She taught me to dress modestly, eat well, exercise and take care of my body. I began to choose better friends and spend my time in useful service. My mind opened up and school started making sense to me.
When I was sixteen I was forced to leave the Baker’s home because of the definition of a “temporary foster home.” The transition was extremely difficult, and though I retained the lessons I learned from Grandma Baker, the move was agonizing. It would have been so easy to slip back into some of my former habits, but I knew that I did not want my life to end up like my mother’s, so I plunged through the darkness and determined to make a better life. Grandma Baker, to my relief, kept in contact with me for the rest of her life.
At the age of eighteen, when the welfare money was no longer available to my new foster parents, I was escorted to the front door of my eighth foster home and was told I now had to make it on my own. College had never been discussed and was not an option. So much of my life to that point was spent on survival that I did not even know how to go about going to college. So, I did what many girls in that situation do; I got married eight months later and within five years I had four children.
However, my determination to make a loving home for my four boys led me to a life of total involvement in everything they pursued. I was the room mother at school, T-ball and basketball coach, den leader, merit badge counselor, BSA committee member, Day Camp Program Director, and eventually I earned my Boy Scout Woodbadge. In my efforts to be involved with my children’s lives I have run across children and adults who needed a champion in their lives, and I have been blessed to be in the right place at the right time to touch the lives of many.
While improving myself and growing in many ways I never deemed possible, I had a yearning to go to college. I attempted to go to college when my boys got a little older, but then my husband left me after fifteen years of marriage, and I was forced to go to work full time and shelve my dreams. Being a single mom of teenaged sons for six years was the most difficult thing I have ever endured in my life. And then in the middle of my single-mom years Grandma Baker passed away, but I was blessed with the sweet opportunity to dress her body for burial. It was one final gesture of love to a woman who meant so much to me. With courage and determination I held my little family together and we persevered. College began to feel like something I wanted, but could never have.
Later, as my boys began leaving the nest and were pursuing paths other than college, I would hear myself telling them that nothing should get in their way of a college education. Nothing! Even if it meant taking out student loans, and living penuriously for four years, a college degree was worth it in the end. Then I had one of those aha! moments. Why did this counsel apply only to them? Maybe it was time that I practiced what I preached. So, with the love and support of my current husband, I quit work and plunged in. Quite a brave feat considering that it meant cutting our income in half! Now two years later I have completed my A.A. degree at Front Range Community College, and am off to run with the big dogs at CSU!
My motivation for attending college has shifted significantly in the past two years. Being an example to my children was primary in the beginning, but now I have fallen in love with learning. I have earned A’s in every class I’ve taken because I absolutely love every subject I have been exposed to, and I can’t get enough. I feel that my brain has had a great awakening. The best part is that now three of my boys are in college, and the other earned his EMT. We truly have broken a long family line of illiteracy and abuse. I hope with an English Education degree I can help battle illiteracy in a broader arena.
How wonderful and amazing to me that this little foster girl, from Brighton, Colorado, could accomplish so much, with so few resources, just because one person had the caring and compassion to encourage her. The desire that drives me to succeed is to be a champion in someone else’s life and give back what Grandma Baker gave to me so many years ago.