Chapter 4
Episode 4, Chapter 3: For a Little While, We Were Home 1979--April 1980
This chapter takes you into one of the darkest and most confusing periods of my childhood. It is about trust, manipulation, fear, and the things that can happen to a child who does not yet understand the intentions of the adults around him. Some of what follows is difficult to read, but it is part of my story, and leaving it out would mean leaving out part of the truth about the boy I was and the man I eventually became. This chapter is not written for shock or sympathy. It is written because these things happened, they affected me for years afterward, and they are part of understanding how I survived long enough to be able to tell this story today.
April 27, 1979 Four Years Old
By April of 1979, I was four years old, and my life had already become something adults discussed in courtrooms and wrote about in reports. Where I would live. Who would take care of me. When I could see my mother. Whether I could ever go home. Those decisions belonged to judges, social workers, foster parents, and the Department of Public Welfare. They didn't belong to me. The State of California had already determined that my mother's home was not safe for Eric and me. The court records described what had happened to us as extreme neglect, and we had been made dependent children of the San Diego County Juvenile Court. By then, Eric and I were living in separate foster homes. The system had stepped in to protect us, but protection didn't necessarily mean stability. Being removed from one home didn't mean you were given another home that would last. Sometimes it simply meant waiting until another adult decided where you would go next.
On April 27, 1979, another report was placed before the court. My foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Monsale, had asked that I be removed from their home. It wasn't because I had done something wrong. Mrs. Monsale had decided to return to work full-time and could no longer care for foster children. Their circumstances had changed, and because their circumstances had changed, so would my life. At four years old, I was going to lose another home. Again.
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