The Courage to Give. Jackie Waldman

       Breaking Free

      DONNA KLAFFKE

      PRISONS COME IN ALL SHAPES AND SIZES. Some are rooms with locked doors. Others are the prisons of ignorance created by a lack of education.

      I have lived in both of those prisons. I know what it means to be locked in a room for months at a time. And I know what it means to lack the skills you need to reach even your most basic goals. That's why I am on a mission to help as many people as possible get those skills. That's why I'm still working on them myself.___________________________________________

      I grew up in an environment that was so abusive, it's sometimes hard for people to believe my story. My parents divorced when I was a toddler, and my two older sisters and I were given to my father to raise. He remarried a woman who had two children of her own, and then they had another child together. So there were six children in the house all together.

      From the time my biological parents divorced until I was about eight years old, I spent my life locked in a room with no food and no toilet. When I was allowed out, I would have to stand for hours in a corner on my tiptoes with my chin up on the wall and my hands behind my back. My biological sisters were beaten and abused, too, although they were not locked up.

      Sometimes I would go for days without getting anything to eat. My sisters would try to sneak something in to me to eat, but if they got caught they were beaten for trying to help me. That was the worst. Hearing my sisters screaming while they were being beaten and not being able to do anything about it—that was worse than anything else that happened to me.

      Every now and then, I would be allowed to go to school for a short while. When I did go, my total concentration was on how to steal someone's lunch. No child who is abused comes to school to think about math or English. I came to school to get away from the beatings for a little while, and to get some food. Of course, I would get caught stealing, and that would get me in trouble. Then I would be forced to stay home some more.

      So I didn't really learn anything during those years. I didn't learn reading or writing or math. I didn't even learn the basics of how to interact with other people in a normal way. I didn't have the chance.

      I'm not sure how I made it through those years. But I know I had a very strong spirit. I believed in my heart that somewhere there was someone who loved me. And I knew that I had not been born just to be beaten all the time.

      I was finally removed from that house when I was about eight. I don't really remember how it happened. Maybe someone in the government finally found out what was going on. But after that, I became a ward of the state. For the next eight years or so, I went from one foster home to the next, many of them as abusive in their own way as my father's home had been.

      I did go to school for a little while during middle school and high school. But every time, just when I was starting to feel safe enough to relax and be able to learn something, I was moved to a new place. Sometimes I would just be lost in the system and wouldn't go to school at all.

      I taught myself to read during those years. I did it by picking up anything that looked like it would interest me. I remember reading love stories in magazines. I didn't really understand the words at first. But I would just keep reading and reading and after awhile, I would start to recognize some of the words. Eventually, I could read just about anything. I always wanted to learn writing and spelling. But I never did. I did teach myself how to add and subtract, though. But I never learned my times tables and never completed high school.

      At the last hearing I remember, I took my biological mother to court because she was trying to turn me into a prostitute. I refused to do that, no matter what. The judge told me that after all I had been through—after all the places I had lived and all the injustices that happened to me—that if I could prove that I could live on my own, get a job and a place to live, I could be my own guardian.

      And that's what I did. Finally, I had my freedom. Finally.

      I don't know exactly how old I was when that happened. I know I didn't have a driver's license yet. But my age during those years was always kind of a blur. I didn't live anyplace that had birthdays or Christmases or any other way to mark the years. So there was nothing for me ever to judge one year from another. I think I was about fifteen or sixteen. But I'm not sure.

      When I was about seventeen, I got into a bad marriage. The man had money, and I thought being with him was a good idea. But he became abusive, so I got right out of there. I walked away with nothing but the clothes on my back. But I didn't care. I wasn't going to stay in an abusive situation ever again.

      After that, I got jobs washing dishes, cleaning houses, anything I could do to feed myself. To someone else, it might not sound very appealing to be riding a bicycle home from work at midnight. But to me, it was freedom. I never got on welfare. I never turned to drugs. And I wasn't living with anyone who was hurting me. That was worth just about everything to me.

      When I was about twenty, I realized I needed help. That early marriage was a sign to me that I was in danger of perpetuating this pattern of abuse for my whole life. I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to get married again and abuse my own children just because I didn't know any other way to be. I knew I had to learn to love myself and believe that I was worthwhile. But I didn't know how to do that on my own.

      So one day, I just walked into the mental health services office in my hometown and asked for help. I told them about my background and told them I didn't have any money. And they directed me to Dr. Silvers. It took me a long time to open up to him. But once I could trust him, I found that he and I worked well together. And he helped me so much.

      I waited five years before I would even consider getting married again. And I did remarry when I was in my twenties. My husband is an architect, and I have two wonderful boys who are now eleven and fourteen. I own my own cleaning business, but I spend as much time with my children as I possibly can.

      I was honest with my husband from the beginning about my background and about what I could and could not do. He knew I could read. But he also knew I wanted to learn how to write and spell. I tried to get help for a while, but it never worked out.

      Then one day, my husband brought me a flier from Literacy Volunteers of America (LVA). I let the phone number sit there for about a year. Finally, I called and was given a private tutor through them. We hit it off—and I'm still studying today.

      People come to LVA for all kinds of reasons. Some can't read, and want to learn to read books to their children. Others come in because they want to get a driver's license and they need to read to take the test. Each tutor has a different student, and each student has a different goal. There are millions of Americans who need this kind of help. One out of every five adults in this country is functionally illiterate—which means they can't read and write well enough to fill out a job application or read the sports page in the newspaper.

      It didn't take me long to realize that I wanted to give something back to LVA, too. When they asked me to be a student board member, I was so flattered. I didn't know anything about what that meant. But I wanted to give it a try because they had helped me so much.

      I