Taken Away

I am the oldest of 4 children. At 12 years old, I awoke early one morning to a screaming and threats from my mother to my grandparents. She was demanding my grandmother's medication and money for beer. The sun had barely even come up. This actually wasn't anything out of the ordinary, it just didn't usually happen this early and didn't typically involve butcher knives. Yes, my mother had threatened my sleeping grandparents with a butcher knife over beer and pills. Somehow, my grandparents managed to sneak out the back door. What we didn't know was they were on their way to the police station.

After the dust settled, and I managed to get my youngest brother off to school who I believe was in kindergarten at the time, my sister began trying to clean up the small, unfit, what had become a shack, that we lived in. Myself, my sister, and my other brother didn't make it to school on this particular day, which also wasn't out of the ordinary. We missed alot of school. I sat at the kitchen table with my mother, reading each other's horoscopes, while propping my feet up on the cabinets to avoid the maggots on the kitchen floor from being able to crawl on my feet. All of a sudden, we heard a knock on our back door, and it opens. "Are you Kellie Phillips? You have the right to remain silent..." They handcuffed my mother. I'll never forget it. A detective walked around our house proclaiming to my mother that he "Wouldn't even let his dog live in this garbage."

They took my mother away. We were left with 2 detectives, one took my sister and brother who were home, while I rode with the other detective to my youngest brother's school. They had already made a call to his principal to keep him off of the bus and at the school that day. I'll never forget walking into the office of the school with my baby brother waiting there, not understanding what was going on as I led him to the detective's car. I didn't even know how to explain it.

We were taken to the police station. They offered us food which I declined. They asked if we had head lice, which I knew at our house, we all kept them despite the treatment efforts. I lied and said, "No." I was so embarrassed. They let me speak to my grandmother on the phone. I remember being so angry with her. So full of rage. If she had not gone to the police they would not have taken us away. They took us away. It began to set in. From this day forward, we would never be with our mother again.

Our social worker was contacted. Her name was Patty. She was a nice lady with long brown hair. From time to time, she would visit us at school, calling us out of class to ask us one-on-one if we were being hurt, or left hungry. My younger cousin once told her that we had giant rats living in our house. I knew we did, but I was old enough to know to deny it. I remembered all of the things I was told to say if anyone asked. She loaded all four of us into her jeep. We were going to a foster home.