Dear Savannah,

Greetings sweet, precious girl. I know you are tired, confused, hurt and alone, but I promise, it gets better with time. Eventually, you will learn that the sins of your mother are not yours to carry. I know it pains you to hear the screams coming from a closed bedroom door as your father is barraged with curse words, or the feel of the spit coming from her lips as she spewed profanities and insults in your sweet face as you feel the sting of the vacuum cleaner cord go across your mouth, busting a tooth in the process. I see you there, standing on a stool to make your brother and yourself macaroni and cheese to prevent the pang of hunger in your stomach. I know you wait by the door for your father to come home so you can feel the only sense of stability or security in your 8-year-old existence. I know you feel like time stood still when you saw your mother with a pistol to her head to play Russian roulette, even though you were too young to know what that “game” was. I am aware of the fear and hurt that your young heart endured as you witnessed your mother sitting upright on the middle of her bed, surrounded by the drugs that she abused spread all around her. You could feel your chest tighten and your eyes well up with big tears that rolled down your face as she raised the pistol to her head, pulling the trigger for the first time. The shrill of your scream that echoed through the hall of that disheveled home still echoes in your mind. Finally, you start feel relief, once your father pushed you and your brother to the side as he leapt in the room and tackled your mother to the ground. Five days she would be away. Despite all the hurt and terror and pain she afflicted on you and your brother, you can’t help but wail yourself to sleep, wondering if she was safe and cared for in that hospital. I just want you to know, beautiful, that you DO recover, only after your own struggles almost stand in the way of your own sanity. Your fear and own insecurities brought on by the trauma you endured at a young age will lead yourself down a dark, winding road of destruction, spearheaded by drugs, fueling a fire that would destroy everything in its wake. You will grow to have two children of your own. Children that you will eventually lose to the system due to your own poor decisions. You will hear the Judges honest words as she tells you that you will “never get any better, and you will NEVER have your kids again. “Despite all of that, you will eventually find God and get sober. During this time, you will find peace, like you have never felt. You will begin therapy, and learn that those horrible, unspeakable things that happened to you as a young child, do not have to define who you are today. One day, you will be able to look in the mirror and love the person that you see staring back at you. One day, you will tell your story to others in recovery, shining a light in their darkness. One day, you will work as a peer support specialist at a rehabilitation center for expecting mothers, guiding them with your own path of recovery and be a constant reminder to them, that sobriety is possible. You are going to thrive sweet girl, breaking out of the shell that once held you captive. Did I forget to mention to you, you young warrior, that you would sit in front of that same judge, 8 years later in the same chair, as she looks you dead in your eye and congratulates you on a job well done. You will hear her announce to the courtroom that you are in fact a fit mother, and before she knocks down the gavel, she declares that you once again have full custody of your children. You will sit in that chair and feel everything come full circle. You can now be the mother, sister, friend that God intended. You will glow and begin to enjoy the little things in your life. You are a warrior, my sweet girl, now go on out there and show the world!

Love,
Your healed self