Say Hello

I was born into a decent family. My birth father and mother had jobs and could take care of a family. I don’t remember spending time with birth mom in my early age, but I do remember my birth dad. I was with my mom alone up until I was five year old, because dad was in jail for some mafia crime. When he came back, I didn’t know who he was and was scared of him…until he gave me a chocolate bar. We were best friends from then on.  He taught me how to fight off boys in first grade, I learned from him that sucking on chocolate rather than chewing it let’s you enjoy it more and it lasts longer, he would always tell me I was beautiful and should make beautiful habits like picking my nose with my pinky finger not my pointy finger because my nose nostrils might stretch out, dad was the one who I learned how to give good massages. To make this short, I grew up learning from my dad. He was a big man, not tall but muscular. He used to tell me his experiences in being in a mafia and the story of how he got in jail while walking with me on his shoulders. He loved me more than my sister, I could sense that when I was young. While he was in jail, mom got together with another man and Lena was born. Even though she was gone a lot and was only my half sister, I loved her. I used to play toys with her and hide and go seek. I learned to be a guardian for her. I didn’t like it when dad would leave Lena behind whenever we went somewhere. That’s how the first year with Lena was with him being back.  He grew to love her though; he would pick her up and twirl her in the air like he did me. So, we were a happy family…until the year I turned seven.

            It all started with my dad drinking at his work. Mom was mad at him. I guess she knew he’d become addicted and it would ruin our family. He didn’t stop drinking; instead things began to go down hill. His mafia friends would come over. Sometimes it was a good happy drinking time, but sometimes it was a bad, lets-beat-him kind of visit. Mom and him started fighting. I used to take Lena outside to get her away from them. Sometimes dad wouldn’t let me, because he wanted me to learn how to fight, he said. I understood he was drunk and that he’ll be happy in the morning, so I stood and watched. I’d always close Lena’s ears and eyes though. It didn’t take mom long to lose all control and patience and start drinking also. She had friends over too. Guy friends. I’ve never seen a girlfriend at our house, except for my aunt and that was before dad came from jail.

            Lena and I often ran away from home to live with our grandma. She was always happy to see us, would feed us and read us books while we played dolls she made. Sometimes, though grandpa would be there and he hated Lena and me. He’d tell us that we have diseases and lice and that he doesn’t want that at his house. Those days, Lena and I were forced to go from house to house and beg food. Lena was really a cute baby, so people would give her extra warm clothes. Lena and I were never separated.  We knew we needed each other. We saw our parents’ maybe twice a week, but we were basically street kids. We slept in a burn down houses, in house where nobody lived, in old garages, you name it. We walked miles everyday, never showered, and hardly ate anything except for candy. No wonder they sent us to the orphanage. The last time I saw mom was when she was looking out our house window and the last time I saw dad was when he was in a hospital with two broken legs from jumping off of a three-floor building.

            I was nine and Lena was five when we finally got sent to an orphanage in a completely another town. For the first two or three months, the adults there put us in a room together and did everything to make us healthy again. I know Lena and I was super skinny and had sores in our bodies, but I didn’t know why we had fever and were puking every hour. We didn’t see anybody for a month except for people in white coats with medicine. Lena and I barley spoke. We slept most of the time, but I would wake up very time Lena had nightmares. They shaved our heads, so no more lice, they showered us with smelly soap and hot water, they put medicine on us everyday day, and they fed us until we were full. Only when our sores were gone, we stopped having fever, we stopped throwing up the food we ate, and when were talking…only then did they let us out of that room. I grew so tired of that room; it was on the top of my list of the-rooms-I’m-staying-away-from-here.

            At first, you couldn’t separate Lena and me. We were so attached, people called us glue sticks.  I’d hold her hand for meals, I’d stand up for her and won’t let anybody to talk to her, and we’d even sneak out at night to sleep together. However, there was a lot of kids our age there and soon we found friends.  I became friends with a boy who at first thought I was a boy and Lena became friends with a girl that looked like her. Even though I had fun playing games and climbing trees with my new friend, I was mad that that Lena had a friend. Other kids called Lena and her friend twins. I would spy on them sometimes playing on the play ground. Lena would talk about me, referring to me as her mom. Every time they played “house”, Lena would pretend that she was a kids and when her friend would say “okay, I’ll be your mom”, Lena would say “No, Tania is my mom”.

So, I knowing that Lena still remembered me I let her be with her friend. We still sneaked out to sleep together though.

            Life in the orphanage was full of adventure. We didn’t have families, and even though we had adults to tell us what to do, we would rebel. Rebelling became my habit. I started smocking and hanging out with people who stole all the time. We were the cool gang of whom most kids were afraid of and on whom the adult gave up on. If there was running away from the orphanage, one of us was involved. If there was a fight, one of us was involved. If there was a fire, one of us was involved. We were firecracker and never got bored. We’d go to clubs and stay up until midnight, never afraid of getting in trouble because we were used to it.

            While I was in this gang, there were three things constantly running through my mind. Lena, school, and God. I never forgot Lena, I’d tell her where we were going, what were doing and when I’d come back for her. I had good grades at school, I knew it was important for Lena’s and my future life. I had this dream of getting to college and sneaking Lena with me. For some reason, I knew I had to have good grades. The adults always used this again me. “You are a smart girl, and you have good grades. Why do you hang with that gang? It’s going to ruin your grades, you know”, they’d say. Mother Anya used to drag me by the ears whenever she cut me smoking. That’s another thing…God. We were Catholics. Every Sunday, Mother Anya, came to our orphanage woke up those who wanted to go to church. Lena and I were on the top of her list. To be honest I went because Lena went and because they always had candy. At the same time though, I had some sincere prayers. I remember one prayer that I’ll never ever forget.

            It was the time when an old couple wanted to adapt Lena and me. Lena adored them. They came to visit us in the orphanage and took us to America for awhile to spend time with them. They had no kids except for an eighteen year old. Their house was too big for them to live in. The only two things that kept me acting nice and not rebelling was to see Lena so happy and the fact that they had a dog. Everything else I couldn’t stand. I tried telling Lena, when the boss of the orphanage said that they were getting documents ready, that those two parents were our grandma’s age and that they will die soon anyways. Lena wouldn’t listen to me and kept on telling everyone how great they are.

I slept on a top part of the bunk bed. One morning, I was especially upset with the whole adoption thing and I decided to pray to Mother Mary. I sat down on my bed on my knees, closed my eyes, and started begging Mary to please delete the adoption documents. The sun was shining from the window that I was facing and I was warm. I prayed for a long time and for some reason my prayer turned into asking Jesus Christ to delete the documents not Mother Mary. I fell asleep and woke up in the middle of the night. The next day, I wanted to run away from the orphanage.

            It was random and completely unexpected. When I told my friend, Tania from the gang, that I’m running away she wanted to go with me. We took Lena, packed bread, and walked out. We walked for a whole day through the forest, lakes, and grass. We hid from the houses as much as possible. I stole a bike and let Lena ride on it because she was tired of walking. We were really far away when we ran out of food, so we ate plants that we stole from people’s gardens. Tania and Lena were getting tired. They regretted that they ever went with me and complained a lot. In the middle of the night, Tania wanted a warm milk and begged me to stop at a house near by. The lady in the house, to which we came in to ask for milk, let us in and began to question where we were from. Lena started crying and the lady called the orphanage. We got picked up and got in trouble, which wasn’t a surprise for us. Nothing good came from running away, we lost trust, the adults thought I had bad influence on Lena, Tania and I were separate, and they gave an assembly on not running away which made the kids mad at Tania, Lena and me. Well, everything bad, except for one thing.

            It was actually a very important thing. The day I ran away was the last day that we had a chance to sign the documents and obviously we weren’t there, so the orphanage couldn’t sent Lena and me to our old adoption parents. That was good not only because I didn’t like them, but also because it gave a chance for another parents to adopt us. The parents that live with right now. The parents whom I wouldn’t change for anything.  Not even for a chance to visit my birth parents.

            Lena and I were in the orphanage for four year and a half. I was almost thirteen years old when we moved to our new home in the United States. It was a whole different world for me. I’ve been to America before that time, but living with a family was a whole new world, going to school with good kids was a whole new world, and letting go of the motherhood of Lena was a whole new world. School wasn’t a big challenge for me because there were teachers that helped me. I got out of ESL (English Second Language) class in three years with their help. Getting used to being in a family and letting go of protecting Lena was psychologically challenging. Having parents who loved Lena and me, therefore told us what to do and what’s best for us was hard because I was used to being on my own and breaking the rules. Having a mother who took care of Lena was hard, because I wanted to take care of her still. I was so used to being her mother that it made me jealous when Lena would hug mom. I ran away lots of times from home because of family misunderstanding which I would have understood if I was raised on a family. I’m still trying to figure out how families work. I’m grateful that God provided a way for me to be in America with a family I’m in, it gives me a lot more opportunities that I’ve would have not had if I was still in Russia. I’m ready to take chase those opportunities until I ran pass them and say hello to the new ones.