A young girl with brain damage shares her story. She is one of 11 adopted children, all girls, in a family living in California.
Some of the words in this story have purposely been mispelled; Mary has suffered brain damage from being shaken as an infant and emotional problems.
Mary is my name, and I am 13 years old. People call me Mary Lou, which I like, but I like my whol name, that is Mary Lou Patricia. Isn't that prety? I am writting a story about me caus peopl ast about me and what I like to do and all that sort of thing. So here goes...
I am 13 years old, and I love my famly. I have a big famly, there's mommy, and there's my sisters. I have many sisters, some big, some littl, and some near my size.
I have probelms lerning becaus when I was littl babby, I was shooked real hard, and it made my brain sick. I am in lerning disabeld clas at skool, and it is hard for me to lern. I have bad dreams about my getting shook up, don't peopl know its not nice to shake up a babby?? I don't know why my real mommy or daddy shook me, but they did, and now my brain is sick, and it make me cry. I member the pain, and I member that I was in hopital for a long time after this hapen, and now I am no longer the same girl. I ast mommy why I am the way I am, and this is what she toled me. Now am retarted, and I am more like a littl child than teenaged girl.
I used to have bad drems about my being shooked, but now my real mommy and daddy are in jail, and I am with anoter fambly. I am much hapier here, specially since I gave my heart to Jesus Crist, He is my Saveior, and He saved me from sin, and now I am going to Hevin and become an angle. He lives in my heart, I know I can't see Jesus, but I know He is there, right inside me. My mommy, Kendra, is really nice, and so are my sisters. I have 1o sisters in my fambly, and I love them all very much. My sisters' names are Linda, Francie, Kelly, Kim, Sarah, Sally, Mariah, Mia, Wendy, and Keisha. We were all dopted by mommy, and she loves us girls very much, she does. She was the one who toght me about Jesus, and I am glad she did caus Jesus be my Best Friend, and He loves me always.
I like to watch tv ("Spungbob Skwarpents", "Rugratts", "Touched By An Angle", and "It's A Mircle" are my favrit shows, I also like "Dock" and the vidios), and I love to go to chruch (we go to Living Waters Church, that's its name, and I love our paster, she is a girl), and I love to go out to eat to Goldn Coral or the place where the clown lives (Ronald is his name, and he has big red hair and a red nose). McDonald's, yeh, that's its name! (Thanks, Sarah; she just toled me its name!) My favrit thing is to go to church, we sing and praze Jesus, and we pray, and we lern about the Lord and the Bibble. (I have a kid Bibble, but I can't read it good; my sisters helping me on that. Maybe one day I will read it good, but right now I can only look at pitures in book, and they--my sisters--tell me about what is going on in the pitures when I ast about them.)
I gotta go now, have to do landry. Mama is calling me, I hear her, and she is teling me to get off the putter. So I gess I have to do so befor she gets mad at me. By!
shaken baby syndrome is a real problem, and this little one has it easy--she could have died, or been in a permanent vegatative state--this little girl is blessed. :(
NO ONE SHOULD EVER SHAKE THE BABY. EVER.
keep writing your heartfelt stories--they educate, and are needed now more than ever, maybe one child's life could be saved. if so, your writing was not in vain.
These timeless quotations culled from the celebrated corpus of writings by W.E.B. Du Bois are presented with illuminating introductory essays by Aberjhani. Narration of the Audible book performed by Catherine Byers.
