How We Saved Her Life

Time passes slowly before only four visitors are left in a single windowed room. Arms wrap around a small child. Protecting her. Reminding her nothing will come between them. The small child knows what they all are waiting for: a teenager, who was taken from her family, but given a second chance at life, to walk across that hallway at any moment with her hands concealed behind her back.

As hard as it was to see her walk past us all, it was a relief to know that my older sister had been brought to the only place that can keep her safe. With my Junie B. Jones book facing down, open on my legs, as if they had taken the place as the bookmark, my attention grew more aware of my surroundings. Pictures lined all four walls with scribbles of what seemed to be two girls, one older and one younger, holding hands standing in wildflowers. On each of these drawings appeared to be notes addressed to people who worked in this building: "I never thought I'd see my sister again, but now she's home and happy!"

Mixed emotions of sorrow and anger rushed through me. I took my seat, and tried reading once more, but it was hard to understand the text when oval shaped droplets of water had smeared at least four words in every other sentence. Unanswered questions plagued my brain. Will I ever see her again? How long will it be before she comes back to the house where she belongs? My mother's arms wrapped around her small child. Protecting me. Reminding me that nothing would come between her and I. The hallway became occupied with two women. One in a black skirt with a white blouse and black heels. The other, in a depressing grey colored sweatshirt with sweatpants the same shade. Her back concealed her handcuffed hands.

Time passed slowly before us, the only four visitors in that single windowed room. The torturing minutes of waiting had finally stopped as the two people we waited for finally showed. The older woman before us glanced over my mother and I, revealing her sympathy for us in her tear filled eyes. Handing us papers, the circled section indicated that presenting a signature was all that she expected us to show. "All we need is your signature." Unanswered questions that possessed my brain had demanded their answer, and would not accept another minute of waiting. "Will I ever see my sister again? How long will it be until she comes home where she belongs?" All six people occupying that single windowed room doubled into a total of twelve, while I shut my eyes to hide the tsunami that was destroying every memory I saved to replay over in my mind. "She will be home with you soon, I promise." It must have been true, the pictures on the wall told me so. "When she's eighteen, she'll be home." With those words said and the papers handed back with black smeared signatures, silence joined our car ride home. Five years of waiting. Five years of sorrow. Five years of being alone.

The day my parents received that phone call from Upper Allen Police, I knew that a life had been saved. That day I saw the barbed-wire spiraling the guarded fence around the Juvenile Correction Facility, I knew that she could no longer harm herself with these. The day I watched my sister, wearing that depressing grey uniform, enter her room locked from the outside, I knew that she could no longer leave us. I went home and I waited. It was the only thing I could do. Every letter she had sent me had been perfectly placed in a box for safe keeping. At least four words in every other sentence had been smeared by everlasting oval droplets. Gathering everyone's "It will be okay" was harder than I could have ever imagined. No one, not even myself, could ever understand my pain I was forced to handle. But I have, and I could not be more proud of myself. Hope and faith were my sister's temporary replacement. More than anything I wanted to give up and convince myself she was gone for good, but allowing hope and faith to become a part of me, I pushed through everything; waiting, sorrow, depression.