Look Out Now, This Post is a Doozy!

So I watched this movie tonight on lifetime television. And let me tell you, I usually don't watch movies, usually Reba and Still Standing during the week during my break, and so for the past couple of weeks or so they had been advertising like ridiculously their new movie called "America". I had my doubts, but I decided to check it out anyway tonight. And I actually have to say I actually enjoyed the movie. The gist of the movie is this biracial boy who ends up in the foster care system and gets lost,and went through some traumatic events in his young life, and the therapist at the foster care facility that he is sent to works with him to deal with and overcome his problems. (I enjoyed the movie so much that I am watching it again on Lifetime). In a way this movie made me realize a few things. First, that even though I perceive to have bad luck and rough patches, that I should be grateful to God and fate for allowing me to get where I am at today. Not a lot of young people at my age have been blessed to even finish high school, let alone go to college I have been able to. The movie made me realize also how grateful I am to have had a grandmother and uncle who cared so for me, who took care of me, who filled so many roles as best they could (i.e. mom, dad, brother, sister, aunt, uncle) with as few resources and limited funds that they could because by all rights, if it was not for their love and support and them taking care of me, I don't really know where I would be today. I used to think that I would end up in the foster care system because our house's condition wasn't exactly the best and I thought some stranger would call CPS or something and remove me from their care. Even with this, I would be at times more afraid to have to go with my mother. When I was younger, she was only able to visit at my grandmother's house. I used to remember she would try ways to get me to always come with her, come stay with her. I don't even know if she ever had a place to live at, but anyways, I remember how my grandmother and uncle use to tell me if she tries to make me go with her, to not go, to yell, to run away from her. She tried to drag me away when my grandmother was inside the house and we were outside. They used to watch her as a hawk when I was like a toddler and a young child whenever she came to visit me. She used to always give me $5 or $10 here, as if that was to suppose to makeup for her not being a mother. I have this one vivid memory in which I was like 3 or 4 years old, she somehow grabbed my hand, and me not knowing any better started walking with her. And I remember that we walked prolly for like 15, 20 minutes, across some train tracks. I think we were waiting to catch the metro bus to somewhere. Then I remember my uncle coming up on the train tracks in his brown pickup truck, and when she saw her brother coming our way, she literally ran away and my uncle grabbed me and brought me back home. Then after he brought me back, he got sick, because he was scared and worried for me terribly. Shortly after that, I remember he had to sit down on a couch because he wasn't feeling good. He ended up having a major heart attack. He got to the VA, and was there for like 2 or 3 months I think. I remember I went to go see him a couple of times when he was in the hospital. I remember vaguely that my birthday had came around too shortly. Its amazing when you are younger, there are just certain events that happens when you are really really young and it feels that when you think about those moments its still perfectly etched in your mind in vivid memory, as if it just happened yesterday, never mind if it had been 21 years and counting. Every time I see this Polaroid pic of me when I was like 4 years old or so on my birthday and it kind of reminds me of time when things were simpler and I didn't think there was alot wrong with the world. After awhile, I guess she realized that I never wanted to go with her and she left me alone, and after awhile she stopped coming to visit me, and after while I kinda just forgot about her. When I had found out that she had died from another one of my uncles, I just shrugged my shoulders.I didn't even bother to go to her funeral. I know it may seem wrong and everything, but I just did not have any love in my heart for her. Does that mean that there is something wrong with me? Later on as I got older, I was told that she was diagnosed with a mental illness (either bipolar or schizophrenia) and when I found that out, I used to worry alot (along with the many things else I used to worry myself about, I swear instead of acting like a 10 year old, I had the mindset and thought level of a 40 year old, and that's not a good thing, so I have been told by my friends) that I might end up being diagnosed with some kind of mental disorder. I mean I realized it prolly ran in the family, my uncle was severely depressed, had been after he came back from Vietnam. I was told that my mother had did drugs, even when she was pregnant with me. I was also told later on that they believe that she had been raped once and perhaps more than once in her lifetime. There is so many things about her that I have no clue about, or could understood when I was younger and may never understand. Don't even get me started about the guy who donated the sperm that ended up creating me.
But I said all of this to say that there are so many kids in the U.S. in foster care, its really sad and pathetic. And I feel most Americans feel that since they are damaged goods that hey its not my concern and to just wash my hands of it. It hits hard for me because of the possibilities and the chances that I could have easily ended up in the system. I have thought about before adopting kids and raising them and showing that it is possible for an adult to care and to love and to nurture; who wasn't a bad adult who had either other ulterior motives or only cared about getting a check. This is partially why I have a problem with critics who do not advocate a woman having and exercising the right to either have an abortion or not. Because the same critics who denounce a woman receiving the abortion, I don't see them jumping up and breaking down the doors eagerly with their arms wide open to adopt and to take care kids who ended up in the foster care system because of neglectful, irresponsible and just downright wretched parents who were more useless than a lump of coal. It sometimes gets my blood burning to even think about it. When I see that there is a guarantee of a child born into this world will be born to 2 loving parents (whether heterosexual or homosexual couples) and that every single child in the system won't ended up aging out of the system and there is no longer a need for it because there is no child left for foster care, can I really question the continuing need for abortions as an option.