The Meadows...

"Rhonda and Adelaide please quit giggling and go to sleep," said Mrs. Holcomb who was a dear House Mother for one of the Girls' Cottages (Dormitories) at the boys and girls orphanage I was staying at.

"Yes, Mrs. Holcomb, we promise!"

We often broke our promises though but dear Mrs. Holcomb was very patient and understanding. 

On the edge of the town surrounded by vast fields and trees, besides having a lovely long tree-lined drive into it was The Meadows Orphanage.  Because the kids went to the same school as myself we quickly forged deep bonds.  Not only did the older kids always look out for the younger ones but they looked out for a height challenged nine year old one too.

Often a mean group of older kids would surround me chanting, "Midget, midget, the scum of the earth, the slime of the sea, the lowest of all humanity."  And without fail the older Meadows kids would rush in taking them on even if it meant coming to blows to do it.  Even all these decades later my eyes fill with tears by how touching it was these kids always did this for me.

So The Meadows Orphanage really played an important part of my journey I am profoundly grateful for.  From the age of two to nine my parents moved twenty-seven times from city to city, state to state.  Like many of the kids, I too had just arrived to yet another place, another new school.

Yet I was blessed to spend a lot of time staying at The Meadows as a child then.  For you see one thing I have so often found on this journey of mine is how those of us who either need each other, or are living with similar tough challenges, or those of us who need loving older mentor friends, always are blessed to find one another.  The dearest people have always entered my life when needed the most.  

Now not all the kids at The Meadows were orphans though.  Some had to be sent there due to abusive home situations similar to mine.  Some because of extreme poverty or parents incapable of caring for them. 

Because we never really got to BE kids by what we had to endure we were already adults in kids bodies.  We had to be in order to survive the awful situations our adults kept us in.  As a child I constantly would have to keep my parents from killing each other.  And many times crying, begging for my drunk father not to shoot himself with the loaded gun in his hand.  Or me.  Other kids endured far worse.

So we shared very deep bonds because of this.  And because of what I also had to deal with in a body like mine, I was embraced all the more in acceptance, trust, and love.

The kids were allowed to have a school friend come stay on a Friday or Saturday each week.  Soon I was spending whole weekends there.  I found out the kids had been telling their Housemothers about me.  They in turn talked to the Director who gave special permission to have Adelaide stay full weekends.

Each cottage had numerous bedrooms with four beds in each room and four bathrooms in a cottage.  In addition each cottage had its own kitchen where the Housemothers prepared meals, but with each kid helping with chores assigned to them including me drying dishes.

The summer after I turned eleven the unthinkable descended upon us.  The state was closing The Meadows and began placing all my friends in foster homes scattered everywhere.  Tears are running down my cheeks recalling the helpless pain we all felt.  These were my friends...my fellow adults in kids bodies.

For awhile some of us kept in touch.  Then the letters ceased.  Many years ago I had a chance to drive by The Meadows Orphanage.  Other than a section of the long beautiful tree lined drive remaining it was all gone.  Replaced by a subdivision. 

The Meadows Orphanage became yet another dear sweet small chapter of my young journey within a terrible childhood that helped me survive it.  And I am forever so grateful it was there.