And the stories continue...

So I knew that Lucia has had an awful childhood, there have been hints from other teachers that have worked with her. I know that she was taken away from her mother a few years ago because her mother was on drugs and put with her father here in the La Pasa. She certainly had an a hard time with me a few weeks ago. I'll tell that story first.

A letter was passed around during performing arts class in the morning that said that Lucia was the class slut and that she went out with all the boys and that (the person writing the note) wanted to kill her (Lucia.) The letter was ripped up and put in the trash, but after hearing about it, I rescued it and put it back together. Upon looking at the handwriting, I deduced the author. The students were unable to meet with Sr. Callejo about the letter until the last hour of school. However, I saw the student I thought was the culprit, Marianna hung around Lucia all day, trying to comfort her.

That afternoon, after a long conversation with Marianna in Sr. Callejo's, she finally copped to the note and was really upset when she realized she was going to have admit to Lucia that she in fact had written it. She along with another girl, Denise who had gone along with the note, received in school suspension for three days. Lucia was devastated. After the ordeal was over, I shared with her my story of losing faith in my high school "friends" my senior year and how things like this stick with you. I talked about how there comes a time in everybody's life when they feel absolutely alone and that when that time comes you learn to depend on yourself and think about what you want and what you want to be instead of what your friends want. She took this in and agreed that it might be nice to focus on what she wanted to do for a change.

Today, I learned a little more about her life before she came to Alma De La Rosa. She handed me a story she had written and asked me to read it and tell her what I thought about it. The pages in the worn notebook she handed me told how in Oklahoma they had had no place to live, so they had lived in her mother's car for a few days before finding a shelter. Living in the car made her sad. The shelter was better but there was nothing for kids to do there. Her mother was diagnosed with diabetes. There was a time in an elevator when her mother collapsed because of her diabetes. When she fell over a crack pipe rolled out of her pocket. This started the process that ended with Lucia being taken away from her mother. A bit of a happy ending; the court decided a few weeks ago that her father could have sole custody and she really enjoys spending time with her step mother and her little step sister.

And I wonder why I have problems sleeping...