Introduction
Before You Knew the Woman
Every story has a beginning.
Before there was a woman, there was a little girl.
A little girl who was too young to understand why her world was changing. She was only about three years old. She did not understand the decisions adults were making. She did not understand the system. She only knew that life was becoming different.
Somewhere in those early years, her story began. Her name was Sharonda Rose.
This is the story of a little girl who grew up inside a system that was supposed to protect her. It is a story about foster care, fear, separation, survival, and the memories that followed her into womanhood.
This is not a story told from a case file. It is told from the place where the records could never reach: the heart and memory of the child who lived it.
This is my story.
Chapter One
The Beginning
I was about three years old when the system first entered my life.
We were living on Hardy Drive. It was November, around the time of my brother’s birthday. I was still too young to understand words such as neglect, child abuse, removal, or placement. I did not know that adults somewhere had opened a case. I did not know decisions were being made that would divide my life into a before and an after.
I only knew that social services came and took me, my brother, and my sister away from our birth mother.
At that age, a child does not understand why adults arrive or why home suddenly stops being home. A child notices faces, tones of voice, movement, and fear. A child waits for someone familiar to explain what is happening. I do not remember receiving an explanation that made sense to a three-year-old girl.
What I remember is leaving. I remember that my brother and sister were with me. In a world that was becoming unfamiliar, they were the only pieces of home I still had.
We did not understand the system. We only knew that our lives were changing.
A note to readers: This memoir includes accounts of childhood abuse, threats, and neglect. Please read at a pace that feels right for you.