I went back to Ireland after my two month visit with my mom. I needed to go back to what I knew and I missed my siblings a lot. To me now that’s crazy thinking but even though my life was full of abuse at least I knew what was happening. It was the only life I knew. When I arrived home in a couple of weeks I would go back to school. I loved school it was my freedom but also I’d been in school with the same people for a long time. They were my life line. My dad shattered my life with what he had to tell me. He told me that since I was failing school. I was not going to go back instead I had to get a job and move out of their home or I could go and live with my mom in Canada. I’ve just finished grade 9 and I’m failing and I’m so shy of my own shadow and my maturity level is low because of how I’ve been brought up. Now I’m going to have to move out of the only home I know and get a job. I was devestated and shocked. How could he do that to me? How could he just throw his daughter away? I knew the only choice I had was to see if I Could go and live with my mom.
I realized at that time I did not fit into my home at all and I didn’t fit in with my mom in Canada. I had no choice I phoned my mom and asked her if I could come and live with her and Ben. She said yes of course and then everything happened so fast. I had to be enrolled in school so it was quick that I left the only family I knew. I had to leave all my friends at school. I at least was able to say goodbye to Karen but it was quick. Bless her heart my leaving devestated her. There was no proper explanation and it wasn’t until years later she came to visit me and was horrified why I told her. She was told that my mom wanted me and I moved there. In two weeks I said goodbye to the only life I had. My siblings were 2,3,7,9&10. I had no idea if I would ever see them again.
In a whirlwind I arrived to Canada with my one suitcase and I got enrolled into the nearby high school. The principal asked me questions about my schooling but no papers had arrived. School in Canada was so different to what I was used to. In Ireland your grades were based on how well you did so there was the year you were in and you were spilt into 4 classes. A for A students, B, C and D. I was in the D class and there were no expectations for you. In Canada everybody was in the same year and you took most of your classes with everyone else.
I was lost from day one no idea how to function in class let alone with all these strange students. I got picked on because I looked and acted so differently from them. The first time I spoke I asked someone to borrow their rubber which in Ireland is an eraser. The kids laughed so hard. From then on I decided I better learn the Canadian lingo and stopped speaking. The kids were horrible and cruel to me and picked on me so much. I grew to hate school. I was so alone and I got in nowhere. I was a misfit. I begged my mom to take me out of school. Not only was it a culture shock to me I had no idea what I was doing in school. I was failing everything. My mom and stepfather started to have lots of meetings at school about me. School realized something was up and the school physiologist came and gave me tests. He had his flipping chart and I could not make it past the second page. Turns out I was in Grade 10 at a Grade 4 level in English and most of my subjects.
I will continue on my next blog what happened next.
Beauty from Ashes. 