Memoirs of a Teen Angel

Alanna’s first words to me, as we were crossing my tree-lined suburban street in search of a fast–food lunch, were:

“I think I’m pregnant!”

Her first words to my husband later that afternoon when he got home from work, were:

“Can I have a puppy?”

At thirteen, she was just starting to cross the bridge from childhood to adolescence and adulthood. And what a treacherous bridge it was, for this nearly homeless child who was dropped on my doorstep, with only the clothes on her back.

She was about average-sized for her age, thin but strongly built. Her eyes were a deep, sparkling blue, curious with the joy of life. Her dimpled smile was genuine and radiant. (I was never to see her cry.)

It was easy to imagine her as a precocious toddler of two, all soft baby-fat, sticky kisses and peanut-butter breath.

In fact, she was the child I’d always dreamed of, except for one thing. Her hair….
As if reading my thoughts:

“My-other-foster-mom-cut-it-all-off-and-stuck-my-head-in-a-bucket-of-bleach,” she said in one hurried breath, not realizing surface appearances mattered little to me.

She called my husband and I “dad” and “mom” right from the beginning, something almost unheard of with foster kids.

She never did get her puppy. But early one morning, a tiny black and white kitten followed me home from the store. She bathed and fed that kitten, soon named “Tabby,” as if it were her very own child. Maybe all that extra attention is why Tabby is still so well-behaved, to this very day.

Alanna’s personality slowly emerged. She was generous and caring, friendly and outgoing. She had two “best friends”: Karen, a twenty-year-old from somewhere in town, and Tanya, a ten-year-old African-American child who lived in the neighborhood. Whenever Alanna “ran away” I always knew where she was.

I tried to teach her American History for her eighth grade class—and social manners. She quickly found a boyfriend, who lived around the corner. I let him visit when I was home (which was always), and said she could only visit him when his parents were at home. I told her a proper date was dinner and a movie. She’d make a great wife and mother some day—as well as a successful career woman. Somehow, I always visualized her as a flight attendant for a big airline, traveling all over the world.

Alanna was full of surprises. As if reading my mind again, she always found presents and anything else I tried to hide from her.

At the supermarket, she could always calculate the bill in her mind, including tax, down to the penny. She was either used to living in poverty, or she was a math genius—and I opt for the later!

One day, I decided to buy a big bag of fresh, juicy, Florida oranges. After I put the other groceries away, I looked around for it—to no avail. I soon found that Alanna and Tanya had taken it to their favorite hiding place—and gobbled up the whole thing. Their stomach ache was “punishment” enough.

At Thanksgiving, our apartment complex ran a food drive to help the less fortunate. I grabbed a few cans of beans off the shelf. As we were walking to the apartment office, Alanna seemed puzzled.

“Aren’t we poor?”  She asked. I was surprised by the question. I wanted her to learn that no one is ever so poor that they can’t help someone else—somehow. But if we, a comfortable middle class family with an employed husband were “poor”—then where did she come from?

I think I was afraid to ask. And I didn’t want to upset her with questions about her past life.

We were a family, that’s what mattered.

She seemed to flit back and forth from child to someone much older. The joy on her face as she flew through the air on the swings at the playground was a wonder to behold.

One day, as I was cooking a complicated recipe for dinner, she was unusually quiet. She burst in, and led me by the hand to the back of our apartment to show me something. She’d cleaned the entire bathroom as a surprise for me,  scrubbing until it fairly gleamed!

Alanna had a deeply spiritual side—or was developing one. Although we never brought the subject up, she decided she wanted to join our church, even  though it involved a long bus ride and a mile walk every Monday night for classes. Her adult-like determination and persistence were very real. She wasn’t going just for the free donuts.

I knew she was God’s gift to me.


They came for her one snowy day, right before Christmas, without any warning.

She went with the caseworkers, obediently, if not willingly. I was almost hurt that she didn’t throw a tantrum, like a child, or resist stubbornly, like a teenager. She certainly didn’t try adult arguing.

I was devastated.

After church services on Christmas morning—she would have loved it, with the church all decorated with the manger scene and bright red poinsettias—something led us to search for Alanna.

My husband and I walked for miles through the town in the bitter cold, searching for the county children’s shelter. All we knew was that it was in an abandoned school.

We found it, with its windows all boarded up, and pounded on the door.

A sad, dumpy woman finally opened the door. Behind her was my daughter.

We ran to each other to embrace, almost knocking over the surprised attendant. My husband could only smile and stare.

After the hugs and kisses, I pulled her birthday present from my pocket. It was a pair of small, light blue (aquamarine) earrings—her birthstone.

After too short a time, we were urged to leave, more and more forcefully, by the sour attendant. We said our tearful goodbyes.


What would become of Alanna, I had no way of knowing. Our favorite song contained the line “You are the wind beneath my wings.” I guess like all angels, she just had to try those wings, come what may.

Postscript: I don’t know why I didn’t discover it sooner. My birthday was late the next month, and I found a beautiful silver dancer’s belt, with seven French coins, hidden under my mattress. On the box springs, in neat block letters, was printed: “Happy Birthday, Mom!”

* All names and identifying information embodied in this story have been changed in the interest of privacy and/or security.


Word count: 1,112