Brianna Keli Walsh was born at 12:01 on January 1st of 2001, weighing 3 pounds and 2 ounces, born 4 weeks premature. There was no one to hold her, only needles and tubes, there was no anxious father hovering as doctors and nurses worked furiously to keep her alive, and no aunt’s and uncles, no grandparents, no family friends bringing gifts by, saying how precious she was.
There was just the cold sterile incubator, where she spent her first 3 months of life, and the hurried handling of nurses who had too much to do and too little time to do it in. She met her mother, Arlene Rose Walsh, the day she was released, the woman hurried in, sob stories about healing and getting clean given to the nursing staff before bundling the tiny Brianna away to the dingy apartment she called home.
Her life was, and remains a series of lessons, from the moment she entered this world, bloody and screaming, she was learning. She learned many lessons in her early years. She learned that when mommy disappeared, she had to fend for herself, or starve, and that when she was in her room with an uncle, she was to stay in her own room, out of sight. She learned that mommies don’t live forever, and death isn’t clean, it leaves you covered in vomit and urine, and it smelled..well it was a smell that you never really forget.
She was 8 when she learned that last lesson, one that haunted her dreams for years to come. Her mother OD’d and when, eventually authorities showed up, after Brianne had missed several days of school, she was place into the system.
In the system she continued learning lessons. Before she was placed, as she sat in a tiny bland room, with toys that were mostly broken and missing parts, she learned that 8 year old girls aren’t so easy to place. She learned she was too old to be adoptable as social workers discussed me, as if she wasn’t sitting a few feet away, as if she didn’t have ears to hear the words they said, the way they spoke of her mommy, the way they spoke of her.
“The girl’s bound to be trouble, with that as a mother.”
In her first foster home, she learned what a whore was, and what drugs were, and that because her mommy was a drugged up whore, she wasn’t as good as other children, especially birth children, wasn’t as deserving.
In her second home, she learned that love was for children with good parents, that children like her, they were to be grateful for any crumb they were tossed, they didn’t deserve anything. The very basics needs, a bed to sleep in, food to eat, a hot shower, were all privileges to be earned, and should forever be grateful they were given.
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