March 2002How a Family Turns
By Misty Wilson, 19
Just a year ago, my family was working toward stability at a moment of precarious hope. I was starting my first year at Brown University. My brother and sister were both enrolled at the high school that changed my life. And my mother had finally made the decision to enter a residential drug rehabilitation center. It was a new beginning for all of us.
For much of my childhood my mother struggled with using drugs - this was her remedy for the pain of raising three children as a single parent in poverty. Although I always knew my mother loved us, at times I almost gave up on my family and accepted the idea that I would have to depend on myself. “Follow your dreams,” my mother always told me. “I never want you to be like me.”
At the age of 17, my mother had given birth to me and dropped out of high school. Her blooming years of exploration and growth were abruptly stunted, replaced with the burden of raising first one child and soon two more. She depended heavily for guidance and support on my grandmother, who helped her be a good mother and eased the harsh realities of her life.
However, a little over three years ago, my grandmother passed away. Her passing was hard on all of us, but it came down heaviest on my mother, who felt alone in the world. I remember often watching her cry. The stresses of raising three teens as she struggled to find work and pay the bills were harsher than ever. Without my grandmother there, my mother began to escape regularly to the drugs she had sporadically used before to numb her pain.
But her escape was a scary trap that hurt us all. She began to stop her normal cooking and cleaning and interacting with us. Vicious fights would break out between all of us daily, and we began behaving disrespectfully toward her and each other. Later, she would leave home for days at a time, and as the oldest I found myself taking the responsible role in the family.
My 16-year-old sister, very bitter toward my mother, became depressed and isolated. My brother, 15, would skip school and roam the streets, hanging out with older people. I was constantly worried and angry, but I was scared that if I asked for help the system would break up our family.
Soon holding back the stress became impossible, and I spoke to the adviser who had guided my education ever since I started at the Met, a small innovative high school in Providence, R.I., where each student follows an individualized program and has the chance to pursue real-world opportunities. That led to a counseling session with my adviser and our whole family, facilitated by the school’s guidance counselor.
But that was only a first step. Even though we all left the meeting with a better understanding and a little more hope, the problem still persisted. I graduated from high school and went away for a summer job. While I was gone, our house caught fire and my brother and sister had to move in with relatives. Soon after I returned, my mother disappeared, leaving us a despairing note with a friend. I moved into college without her.
But during that first week, as I began my new life as a Brown student, my mother decided to begin a new life, too. I got a call from her, saying that she wanted to meet with me and my siblings, along with some members of our church. She was going to do something about her problem.
The school year now unfolding brings a moment of victory and pride as I begin my second year of college and I watch my mother celebrate her first anniversary of sobriety. Both my sister and my brother are thriving at the Met, getting the same kind of education that got me to this point. For the first time I can remember, my whole family is moving in a positive direction.
Was it my grandmother’s spirit that changed my mother’s course? Was it the support of my advisers at the Met? Was it our church community and the amazing family that took my siblings in? Was it some strength deep inside each of us?
Somehow I know that it was all of these things together. I have learned that changing a family, just like changing the world, takes people who truly care and want change, working together, to make a difference. My family was among the fortunate ones who had that. Now I can go on and do the same for someone else.