If you only knew half of it...

After my Step Mother demanded I leave or it would be her, my father (who either concurred or was just a coward) called my mother and told her I was on the next plane to Michigan. My mothers response, " she's not welcome here".

I stayed at my best friends house for about two evenings before she broke the news that her parents could not allow me to stay there. So many reasons and all of them legitimate. I loved them and I love them now and understand their reasoning at the time and may have done the same as an adult.

As we sat in her kitchen the day I was to leave, I started calling numbers from the yellow pages and dialed the United States Army recruiters..."Ma'am you are too young to join the Army, why are you trying to join?" ...me, "because I have nowhere to live, I'm homeless". I wish I could remember his name. Because of him, I found Alternatives for Girls, I think I was the second or third girl to live there. I was really going to miss my friend...I really only had one good friend.

At 16 an Army Sgt. in Detroit helped me find my new place to live. A homeless shelter in Detroit called "Alternative for Girls" which is still in existance and I encourage you to donate if you can to them. They saved my life and for that I will be forever grateful. It was their job to not only provide shelter but to try to repair girls and families.

While staying there, we had to apply for financial assistance, welfare basically. I remember sitting in Social Services office in downtown Detroit amongst women with crying babies, guys pacing back and forth talking shit like they were going to kick someone's ass however they were talking to themselves. Here I am, a young girl of 16, looking like I was 13 sitting in an office smelling of a combination of urine and alcohol with an after scent of pot. I would notice tons of people looking at me, I wasn't nervous, I was too young and immortal to be nervous. I did stick out like a sore thumb, I was one of few white people just by proxy of where I lived however the white people that were there were "different". Anyway, finally after hours of sitting in the lobby I hear my name, "Angela Roberts". I sit down at this desk in a cubicle with a stern woman asking me personal questions. "is your mother and father living"? , "Yes", "then why are they not taking care of you"? "Because they don't want me anymore". The stern and annoyed lady asks for the phone numbers of my parents, she called each one identifying herself and each parent hung up right after the introduction...Alternatives for Girls wasn't going to repair this family ever...

A month later a letter came to me in the shelter, a letter!! It was from some judge in Mt. Clemens, I couldn't understand the legal jargon so the counselor sat me down and explained to me that my mother gave up her parental rights and that legally, I was on my own, nobody wanted to be responsible, I was officially a throwaway.

I had an allowance of $20 a week for food, had to take the bus to get my groceries, they were teaching us life skills, I hated it but I appreciate it more than words could ever do justice. I worked fast food jobs, watched girls my age 10x tougher than me and way more experienced than me, have miscarriages, abortions, admit to prostitution and drugs and here I was a virgin, suburban girl in downtown Detroit, in the second floor of an Episcopal Church, Father John was the head of the church...He would ring the bell every morning for us girls to come to the chapel to pray, faithfully and without fail. Sometimes his attendance always being on the low side, he would get clearance to come up to our floor and start ringing that bell, yelling "prayer in the chapel"!! Father John was like Santa to me, every time I saw him he made me smile. I never went to prayer...