Joy Cometh in the Morning

Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning is a verse from the Bible, which means you might have to cry for a while, but when you’re through crying, there will be much joy.

Believe it or not I was born a crack baby, which means my mother used and was addicted to crack the whole time that she was pregnant with me. I was born nearly two months before my mother’s due date. The doctors said I was no bigger than grown men’s hands. I was kept in the hospital for three months, where I was injected with methadone to stop the pain I was feeling because I born addicted to crack.

For some reason I was released from the hospital and sent home with the parents who would later neglect and abuse me. I was brought home to a house filled with abuse, neglect, hunger, pain, anger, and hurt. I witnessed domestic abuse every day of my life until I was three years old. My father was a drunk, and he would go out and drink until he was filled with rage and then come and take it out on my mother, my siblings, and me. My father would hit my mother with brooms, pans, belts, and anything else he could get his hands on at the time. My father would go as far as to rape my older sisters. I actually have a nephew-brother, which means my father had a baby with my sister. I do not know if my mother knew what was going on. Either she was too high to realize or she was trying to stay out of my father’s way.

I do not know why mother stayed with my father for so long after all the stuff he took us through but I think a part of her was afraid to go. We would go hungry for long periods of time because neither my mother or my father had a job and they really couldn’t afford to feed us.

When I was three and a half years old, a guardian angel saved us. The guardian angel was the landlord of the house we had been living in. He called social services because he sensed something wasn’t right about the house. In the middle of the night the cops and social services raided our house and found a refrigerator with no food, no lights, no heat, filth, four mattresses, roaches, rats, twelve nasty children, and a mother who was mentally insane. They took nine of my siblings and put them in foster homes, and I haven’t seen them sense. They then took me, my younger sister, and my older sister and put us on FOX 6 so that someone could adopt us. My now foster mother had just adopted my youngest sister and decided to take us in also.

Meanwhile they punished my mother and father for all the things they took us through. I do not know who my real mother and father are but I do forgive them for what they did. My foster mother is the only person I’ve known as “Mom” all my life. She is the most caring person that I know. At first I was filled with anger and did not want to let anyone in because I did not know how love felt and I didn’t think anyone could be so kind. I am currently a senior at South Milwaukee High School and despite my learning disability I have made the honor roll many times. I will be going to the Navy in the summer.

I know and love four of my thirteen siblings. I am actually one of the happiest people ever. I thank God each and every day for getting me out of that house. I sometimes cry myself to sleep wondering why I was so blessed to come out of something so hurtful without one scar. My belief of the verse “weeping may endure for the night but joy cometh in the morning” has been challenged many times in the beginning and throughout my life but somehow I still believe. Even though in the beginning I cried a lot, I barely cry now and I am very joyous, so Weeping May Endure For The Night But Joy Cometh In The Morning. This I believe.