Savasia's story: one foster-care survivor talks to another about the legacy of powerlessness and pain that is the lot of too many of our children - Foster Care in Crisis
On the surface, Savasia Simmons seems like your average teenager--lively, friendly and full of effervescent chatter when she talks about her boyfriend, Michael ("The first time I saw him I got whiplash, I turned my head so fast to look at him!"). But look closely and you notice something different about Savasia, a spiritual depth that belies her 18 years and an inner resilience that is an odd mix of courage and emotional vulnerability. One often sees these traits in soul survivors, those whom life has called to walk through fire and drink from a well deep within in order to keep on walking. In Savasia's case, that has meant surviving the destruction of her family, living through a childhood spent in 19 foster homes--and making sense of the aftermath.
Thousands of teenagers, like Savasia, are living with the complicated legacy of foster care. New York City's foster-care system alone has more than 42,000 children, the vast majority of them Black and Latino. There are more Black foster children now than when I aged out of the same system more than a decade ago--the result, officials say, of the rise of a drug called crack and the deterioration of the the Black family structure. Savasia's young life is a case in point.
Mrs. Herndon, an elderly widow. "She was such a nice older lady," Savasia says. "But I stayed there only for seven months until they found a permanent foster home." Almost 13, Savasia was then sent to her third placement, with Mr. and Mrs. Daniels, who were also Jehovah's Witnesses. By this time, Savasia had entered a rebellious period and could be provoked to fits of anger. Her hopes of returning to her mother vanished when her social worker told her that Queen Esther had died in a city shelter six months after Savasia was placed in foster care. Foster care had become a permanent situation, and Savasia wasn't happy about that.
One day Mrs. Daniels reprimanded her for disobedience, and Savasia snapped, "You can't hit me! You're not my mother!" Mrs. Daniels retorted, "That's right, I'm not your mother. Your mother is a crackhead." Says Savasia: "I felt all the rage build up inside me, and I began scheming a revenge." She waited until her foster parents went to bed, then poured gasoline in the living room and lit a match, setting the house afire. No one was seriously hurt, but by the time she made it to the group home where her sister, Stephanie, was staying, the police were waiting to arrest Savasia and place her in a juvenile hall.
Even a hardened Savasia was no match for the rigors of juvenile hall. "That place scared me to death," she admits. "They put me in a dark room and hit me while saying, `You think you're a bad ass; we'll show you.'" Savasia was referred to therapy and readily agreed to go. After several more brief foster-care placements, she went to live with the Jeffersons in Queens, where she was required to attend regular therapy sessions. But Savasia soon grew wary of the therapy provided by foster care. "I spilled my heart to the therapist, and she betrayed my trust," she says. "One day I came home and my foster mother said, `You want to go running your mouth to a therapist? You can go sit by yourself in the corner.' It was as if I wasn't a part of the family anymore. I couldn't handle it."
Savasia did eventually master the art of survival in foster care. "I got more control over my emotions," she explains. "So once I had left a foster home, it became a memory. If I had let all the trauma and abuse affect me, I'd be in an institution by now."
Not all of the families have been forgotten, however. There were the Mitchells with whom Savasia lived for five months. "There weren't fathers in most of the foster homes, but Mr. Mitchell became a father figure to me," she says. "He treated me like a person. He would ask me what I thought and praise me for being strong. I loved him to death for that." Savasia still calls him Daddy and sends him cards on Father's Day. Unfortunately, she didn't get along with Mrs. Mitchell. "I don't think she understood my relationship with her husband," Savasia muses, then shrugs. "I had a lot of personality conflicts with people in the foster homes."
The other placement Savasia recalls fondly was with Mrs. Loomis, the only White foster parent she lived with. "I called her Mommy, and I know she genuinely loved me, so it was very hard for me to leave her." But her foster mother shared a one-bedroom apartment with her sister and brother-in-law. "One night I woke up and her brother-in-law was on top of me trying to rape me, recalls Savasia. "I'd already been raped once, but now that I was older I wasn't going to let it happen again." Afterward Mrs. Loomis begged her to stay, but she says, "I couldn't live there anymore--I was afraid to go to sleep at night."
Nineteen foster homes later, Savasia can look back and admit a simple truth: "I lost my family, and none of these people could give me back what I really wanted--to be with my mother and sister again." For Savasia, foster care became a means to an end--her freedom, which she finally attained. For the past year, she has lived with her boy-friend and his family in Long Island. She met Michael while in a foster home in Riverhead. It was his idea that they live together, and Savasia says his family has been very supportive of their union.
Since her "emancipation" (current parlance for aging out of the system), Savasia says she has contacted most of her foster parents and tried to make amends. "I've apologized for any pain I may have caused them," she says seriously. "I found it very scary to live with people I didn't really know, and I think that foster parents are scared, too. They are worried about the emotional or behavioral problems that a foster child may bring into their home."
Savasia says she never became accustomed to being called a foster child: "I hated those words. They made me sound like I was somebody else's hand me-down." I ask her if she thinks being adopted would have helped her. Savasia seems repelled by the idea. "Adoption is fine for babies, but not for young children or teenagers," she states. "Why would I want to be adopted? I had a mother. Nobody was ever going to take her place." This, oddly enough, is where my experience differs from Savasia's. As a foster child, I secretly pined for two things: Either my mother would return or I would get adopted, acquiring the foster child's ultimate proof of status. After all, I reasoned, adoptive parents don't get paid to take care of you so they must be doing it for love, right?
Now that she's 18, Savasia wants to tie up loose ends. Last March she sought access to her mother's death certificate and learned that Queen Esther died of a drug overdose two years after her daughters were placed in foster care. This information infuriates Savasia. "The caseworker who told me my mother died six months after I went to foster care lied to me," she says, her eves flashing. "I don't know if it was out of carelessness or just to make placement easier." With her mother forever lost to her, Savasia wonders about her father: "I would like to find him. He could be in jail or dead--but important for me to know."
There are still so many stray threads from her past, but Savasia says, "As the questions come up, I will seek answers in therapy." These days she is intent on finishing high school. After that, she hopes to receive a scholarship to attend college in Atlanta, a few hours away from the Georgia town where Queen Esther was born. The desire to trace her mother's footsteps is apparent in some ways. Savasia's career goal is to become a paralegal, a profession her mother had been trained in. But one thing Savasia says she won't do is drugs. "I don't know what happened to my mother in her childhood," Savasia says, "but nobody helped her, and she deteriorated even further after we were taken away. I will never forget what I saw drugs do to her. Never."
The idea of starting her own family appeals to Savasia, and she announces that she'll name her first daughter Queen Esther, after her mother. "Even though my mother is gone, her spirit is with me," she says quietly. She admits the longing for her mother has been more intense lately: "I'm really missing her now because I will be out of high school next year and facing my future."
On this particular day, the very young Savasia Simmons has finished school for the summer and is due to report to her part-time job at a nearby law firm. Our meeting has proved to be a healing experience--and a sad confirmation of the legacy of pain that is randomly bestowed on too many children, in foster care or otherwise. Sometimes I still feel incredibly hurt by not having a family, and my heart breaks for the thousands of children who have known the same helpless sense of not belonging that Savasia and I have lived through. Not all of us survive--but Savasia and I did. As we embrace before we part ways, Savasia tells me we'll be keeping in touch. "I'm never letting you out of my life," she says firmly.
When I suggest that we attend a meeting of the National Association of Former Foster Children together, Savasia's intense eyes brighten. She hadn't known of the organization but is eager to participate. Her reaction brings into focus an image of myself I'd long forgotten: At Savasia's age, I was hardened, bitter and filled with rage. I rejected everything and everyone associated with foster care, no doubt cutting off a few lifelines in the process. Savasia, on the other hand, has already learned life's most liberating lesson: If you run from your past, it will catch up with you. Better to make peace with your story; better to walk bravely through darkness and into the light.
Deborah Gregory is a contributing writer for Essence magazine. She lives in New York City.
