Blood, Warm And Crimson, Trickled Down Her Limp Fingers

Sure would be nice to know how these stories ended.  Or not.  From May 9, 1990. – JDW

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.  In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it. – Maya Angelou

They told me I wouldn’t understand what was going on there until I met the girls.  They were right.

Now, I’m saying it.  You can’t begin to understand what you hear about this place until you hear about it from the girls.

“Blood, warm and crimson, trickled down her limp fingers, dropping to the floor in small puddles.  Why would a beautiful teenage girls carve chunks off her forearm with a jagged plastic spoon – showing no sign of pain?

“Marsha added to her collection of scars on her day at Rosemont.  Slowly and methodically, she gouged out her flesh, as if her arms were blocks of wood.  Marsha is a strikingly attractive fifteen-year-old, with short blond hair, green eyes and a whispery voice.  She easily could pass for twenty.  She typically dresses in balck and yellow, down to her painted nails.

“Prior to Rosemont, Marsha spent time in sixteen (16) out-of-home placements.  Her mother was in and out of hospitals – mostly in – for psychotic episodes and serious drug abuse.  Her father disappeared before Marsha was born.”

I couldn’t speak more credibly than that excerpt from this winter’s Rosemont Newsletter.  So, I didn’t try.

Anna’s story comes from a fund-raising letter sent last Thanksgiving by Allen Hunt, Rosemont’s Executive Director.

“‘Help!’ Anna surely cried for help hundreds of times during her first six years of life… while she was sexually abused by three different men – all family members.  Now, her intense brown eyes and tight thin mouth say,’Don’t mess with me.’

Like so many Rosemont girls, Anna is a ‘hard case’ in both senses of the phrase.  Protected by a shell and difficult to reach in therapy.

“In middle school, Anna fled her abusive family… taking to the streets… where she encountered more abuse by older guys who promised to be ‘good’ to her if she would do ‘favors’ for them.

“Anna learned on the street to deaden her pain with drugs.  At fourteen, she entered Rosemont with serious emotional and drug problems.”

Today, along with some forty-eight other girls – there’s a two-to-three month waiting list. – Marsha and Anna are becoming who they were supposed to be.  Children with self-esteem.  Hopeful.

So are Jackie and Jill – not their real names – the special young ladies who helped me to understand.  One black, one white, best friends, they showed  me the importance of The Rosemont Residential Center for Adolescent Girls.

Jill is seventeen, in a place where the average age is fifteen and where they’re seeing more and more thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds.  She’s in Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.

“My whole family is alcoholics,” she tells me, her voice edged with amazement at her luck in the draw.  “Every last one of them.”

Why is she here?  After all, the next step is Hillcrest or the joint.  “Mostly, I just kept running away.”

After an hour together, she decides I can be trusted.  “Burglary and grand larceny,” she says, picking up the subject nonchalantly.  “I spent a couple of days in a mental hospital in Reno…  Oh, it’s so embarrassing to get arrested.”

Jill looks like my childhood babysitter.  Her mother is thirty-two.

Her bed is piled high with stuffed animals.  Her wall is decorated with photos of rock stars.

“When I was on the streets, I wanted to die,” Jackie, my other escort, tells me.  “That’s all I wanted to do.  Just die.”

Jackie’s fourteen.  She was thirteen (13) when she got here, a gang-affiliated drug abuser and a pimp-controlled prostitute.

Somebody should confiscate this kid’s life and give her a new one.  Rosemont offers such a chance.

“My father is doing life in the state pen,” Jackie states in a way that made my heart sink.  I really didn’t need to hear this.

“He’s been in there most of my life.”  A habitual offender, Daddy’s crimes include, as his daughter tells iy, “pimping, kilos of coke, armed robbery, stolen cars, anything you can think of.”

“The Cosby Show” ain’t really how it is, folks.  Jackie’s brother’s father – a different man – is also serving life as a career criminal.  The two fathers share a cell in the state capitol.

How would you have fared with a background like that?  I am the product of a loving, supportive home, and some days I can barely get by.  How do we expect these young people to survive?

Rosemont.  Rosemont can do it, and they’ve proven they can since 1902.

Right about here is where I normally launch into my The Plea That Cannot Be Denied.  I’ll spare you this time.

We should give what we can, so these good folks can continue to help these deserving children.

Rosemont is helping more than a few wayward teens – it’s helping all of us.

After all, there but for the grace of whatever, go our daughters, our sisters, our neighbors’ kids, your child’s classmates.

Our daughters.

– 30 –

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2014/08/rosemont_a_112-year-old_facili.html