It is hard to remember in full all of the special memories of my childhood but one that is blazingly memorable was my introduction to my first friends in the United States and who would later become sisters to me. True to my routine, I was inspired today on one of my walks with Tilly to remember these special people who, for a short time in my life, made an impact that sends ripples through my life today. In truth…there are really so many people if I were to focus on this time, but today I choose these. If not for their intervention and love for me, I would not be where I am today.
My family moved to the United States when I was in the second grade to a suburb of Detroit, Michigan where my mothers' sister Wendy, my Uncle Tom, and their three kids lived. I will never forget walking through the airport and seeing a t-shirt with a big yellow smily face with a bullet hole in the head and blood trickling down. The writing on the shirt said, "Welcome to Detroit." I often joke about this first impression of Detroit today and how I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It is one of those funny childhood things whose punchline didn't grasp me till years later, but freaked me out enough to have some hesitation as to where we had just moved. Little did I know I the love, the acceptance, and the warmth I would be walking into in this new life.
My first introduction to TBC was in our girls' church group of Missionettes on a Wednesday night. A Christian version of Girl Scouts, they would meet every Wednesday night and you would move through the ranks through badges, activities, volunteering, and memorization of chapters of the Bible, including reading the entire thing all the way through. Once all the hurdles were hurdled, you would receive the recognition of Honor Star, in which you were paraded in front of the church in a pretty white dress and a crown was put on your head to applaud your 4 year accomplishment. (Which I did) When I first I walked into the younger class of Prims (kind of like Brownies) I was terrified and alone. Not having started school yet and knowing nobody outside of my family in the United States, I felt I would stick out like a sore thumb, with my ugly K-Mart corduroy pants and oversized knit sweater. And I did. The MIssionettes leader Mrs. Sanchez paired me up with a young girl with an equally awful fluffy knit dragon sweater and corduroy pants named Brianne, asking her to be my friend and show me around. With a reluctant huff and roll of the eyes she ushered me to the small band of girls, wiggling impatiently for the meeting to begin. Tall, awkward, and spunky, the last thing I am sure she wanted was this mousy little shy thing clinging to her side. But she took me under her wing, nonetheless, patting the carpet next to her on the floor where she sat for me to join her. The girls started into their chorus of mottos and pledges and were each prompted to introduce themselves. When it came my turn Mrs. Sanchez introduced me and enthusiastically said, "Sarah is from EGYPT, like from the Bible. Welcome her, girls." And much to my surprise…They did. In any other group my foreign upbringing may have been a nail in the coffin to coolness, but in this group, it was my acceptance. "Wow, you're from EGYPT?!" "Oh cool." A round of gasps and smiles and "sit with me" were to follow. Being from Egypt had never been cool to me but I wasn't about to correct them. Brianne quickly grabbed me to sit next to her again, "I met her first. She was my friend first." And so a spark to ignite the beginning of my friendships with some of the most amazing girls I have been privileged to know.
From Left: Me, Christy, Sarah R. and Brianne (Her face has an arrow because I wrote an arrow to her as My Best Friend in my childhood scrapbook. Sorry B.)
I had a unique school experience in that, I went to school where I went to church and led a fairly protected life for a time. The girls in my Wednesday classes became my school classmates, my fellow Sunday school attendees, my pew partners for Sunday night church, and the members of every sports team I played in. We played kickball together at recess, went to ski classes on Monday nights, played truth or dare in our circle of sleeping bags for one of our many many sleepovers, and often regarded each others' parents as an extension of our own. It was very rare we were apart. We idolized the awkward characters of Anne of Green Gables and Calamity Jane, who were quirky tomboys that would eventually blossom into strong beautiful women. In an effort to emulate our idols we formed a girls' club called TBC…or The Tomboy Club…refusing to ever become a prissy girl who didn't love running around in the mud and could beat any man at any sport. How naive we were! We traded Baby Sitters' Club books and gawked with blushing faces as we read the inevitable future we would have in puberty after reading Judy Blume books. Not too long after, reality hit and we went through that lovely monster truck of puberty together, discovering cramps, pimples, and who would and wouldn't get their boobs for Christmas. (I didn't) Kept in a world of innocence with strong encouragement towards sports and spirituality , we were very fortunate to be able to truly enjoy being girls and to slowly grow into women. We were encouraged towards kindness and music, giving and achievement. Even more lucky…we got to come into our own together and though we DID become prissy girls who sprayed their bangs to unimaginable heights, we still kicked ass in sports.
Around late junior high, my parents had decided to end their marriage and my mom moved my sisters and I to Arizona. I quickly declined. We moved to a rough part of town and my mom had to work very hard to provide for us 3 girls. I remember being terrified my first day of school in 8th grade. There was a riot and one of my classmates had knocked one of my teachers unconscious and beaten two others into an ambulance. Gangs were feared by our neighborhood and our teachers. Bullying was extreme enough that I remember a couple classmates carrying guns in their lockers for fear of a rival gang jumping them on their way home and a couple knife fights in the hallways. I befriended two Hispanic girls at this time who were well-respected amongst some of the more powerful gangs in the school and therefore protected from being bullied, as I undoubtedly would have been. They used to giggle at my innocence and my preppy clothes. Once again, I was a foreigner in a strange land. And once again, wanting to fit in, I adapted. This is where my decline began and fast. Over the next couple years and into my teens I cringe for the terror I was to my mother and the things I did. I think she was at a loss for what to do to help me and I can't say I would have known myself what to do even now. Having experimented with all sorts of drugs and skipping school, sex and drug houses with all sorts of experimentation at my fingertips, my weight declined and I sunk into a deep depression. My one salvation through this time was my good friend back home who continued to write me and to call. Just like the first day of Missionettes, Brianne kept me close to her side and wouldn't let go.
In what seemed like the darkest hour and a time I was very close to taking my own life for what I had seen myself become, Brianne's parents called my mother early one morning and asked her if I could come to stay with them for a year. My mother was (and still is!) a great mother but had to work very hard to put food on the table and a roof over our heads, while dealing with us older two becoming completely unmanageable. Supporting my two sisters and I and our grandmother, it was probably one of the hardest things she had to agree to do. It takes a strong person to be able to let go and to ask for help and I can never thank her enough that she did. In a couple weeks' time and after many tears, I left my home to live with the Christmas family back in Detroit. I look back now at how nuts these people were, with 3 teenagers of their own, to take on a 4th. To give me my own room, to feed me, to take me to counseling weekly, to pay for me to attend the same private school I had gone to as a child, and to nourish my body and soul back to health. Many nights of me shouting and rebelling at the new rules put upon me, crying in the arms of Mrs. C in her car after church, being brought to family functions and being treated as one of their own children. Mr. C, who is the kindest and dearest man I may ever know, arm around me, treating me as one of his daughters. I lived with them for a year and they helped me to raise funds through hard work and fundraising to complete a life dream of a trip to Africa to work with missions. What a difference one year can make! I can only imagine what else I would have been doing with that summer, if not for their intervention in my life. I cannot imagine the woman I would have become if not for their love and protection of me and if not for my mother's hard decision to let go for that year. I cannot imagine my life without the friendship and sisterhood of the girls of TBC, how they held me and brought me back into the fold. I cannot be more grateful for the love Brianne had for me to take a strangers' hand at that young age and to never have let go.
I had tears in my eyes today on my walk thinking of how grateful I will always be for all I have been given. Thank you Mom, Mr. and Mrs. C, Brianne, Brandon, Colette, Heather, Sarah, and Christy…and all the names that would take up two more pages. You know who you are and I thank you for the wonderful memories that are able to take over my thoughts today because of your love for me.
From left: Brianne (pregnant), Sarah R., Me, Christy (we are missing Heather here...)
