More Months Pass

We all stayed in touch. I had at one point signed a second contract for a much briefer duration, but we barely got out of the starting gate.

And then I got to know Bill.

Here is his background, which upon request he sent to me in an email early today …

My parents had us when they were very young (18 and 17 years old). Both of my parents came from abusive homes (both were abused emotionally, physically and sexually). They had found comfort in each other and had three kids by the time they were 19 and 20.

Neither were prepared to be parents because they were both still kids. My mom was overwhelmed and ran away from my father. He was left to raise three babies as a single man. As hard as he tried it was difficult — and we were in and out of foster care for many years (until the age of 11) — but my dad always made sure to keep the three of us together. My dad even remarried and thing were really good with our first stepmom for a few years, until things got bad again because he started using heroin again.

And our stepmom, Becky, was very upset and left him . We had to go back into foster care. My mom didn't want us. She actually got married again too and had two more kids but ended up leaving them with their father as well.

Things in foster care were touch and go. Sometimes we would get a good family and sometimes a bad family. At the age of ten we were in a bad faster home. Mrs Thompson was mentally and physically abusive. We would only get to eat what they didn’t eat. If she made fried chicken we would only get the neck or the chicken back. And when they would go out to dinner they would leave us in the car with bologna sandwiches and they would tease us about what a great meal they had. And then she boxed by ears (a two-hand slap). At the point I felt I had to get me and my brother and sister out of there, so the next morning I pretended to be going to school. Keep in mind that we were living in the country about 24 miles from the city of Ithaca, NY. It was raining that morning and I was scared as I left the house.

I started running up a steep hill to get to the highway. I started to hear dogs barking and I thought that they were looking for me. So I laid in the rain for an hour. Then I got the nerve to run up the hill and over the rail and started hitchhiking. An old man in a red truck picked me up. Long story short, I was able to get us out of the bad faster home and into a better one. We spent another year in foster care and then went to Syracuse to live again with our dad, and this time our second stepmom, Barbara, and our two-year-old sister, Barbara K.

We lived in severe poverty and my dad was drinking and using. It was really bad. There were many times I wished we were still in foster care because the last foster parent, Mrs. Jones, was really good to us and things were really normal.

Both of my parents died because of drugs. My mom died from AIDS and my dad because of heroin. My parents were damaged souls that tried to make their life better but they couldn’t get over the childhood demons and adult choices to live a fulfilled life … but they live in us and I’m very proud of how far we have come as a family.

And I continue to be an advocate for the underserved and for the dreamers

This was the Bill Herndon I had become fortunate to know. We needed to make this work. There was no choice in the matter.