You said your mom just told you,
I bought These Greyhound bus tickets,
I'm going to Texas and you didn't go with her.
How does, how does that happen
that she left you in an apartment,
did she leave you by yourself in this apartment?
Yeah, she had, we were on welfare and stuff like that,
so she paid that month's rent,
which was only $47 I want to say.
But, she bought, with the rest of the welfare money,
she bought her a Greyhound ticket
and she had bought me a movie ticket
to go see The Pursuit of Happyness.
And it was like--
Wow.
She didn't buy you a ticket, a bus ticket?
Well, because I told her I didn't wanna go.
So, Mom buys herself a ticket, right?
She buys a bus ticket, she gives you a ticket
to go to the movie.
You go to the movie, she gets on the bus and that's it?
Yeah.
So, you come home from the movies, Mom is gone
and you're just in this empty apartment by yourself?
Yeah.
How long did you stay in the apartment by yourself?
I was there for two weeks
and then, finally family members kind of realized
that she wasn't there.
Oh my goodness, Marshayla what were you doing
and thinking in those two weeks by yourself?
Well she was supposed to reach back out to me,
but she never did.
Were you scared?
I was terrified, but it was just like,
when we hugged each other right before she got on the bus
it was kind of like we both knew
we were never gonna see each other again.
I don't know how to explain it.
13 years old, though.
I mean.
So, you stayed by yourself two weeks
then family members started coming over.
Yeah.
Did you eventually leave that apartment
and go live with a relative?
No, well my uncle moved into my apartment,
the apartment that my mom had left me in,
but you know, he had found out
that I was smoking and drinking at the time,
so he ended up-- At 13 you were smoking
and drinking? Yeah.
And your mom gave you alcohol, right?
Yeah, she was the person that,
I can't say it was a friend or anything,
my mom introduced me to smoking and drinking.
How old were you when she gave you
your first smoke and your first alcoholic drink?
Eleven. Wow.
Can I ask you when your mother was pregnant
with your little sister did you see her drinking
and things of this nature
that when she went to have the child that that's
why they were working? I didn't believe my mom
was pregnant until she gave birth.
Wow. Oh.
Until the day my little sister came out of her womb
I didn't think my mom, I did not believe her.
She wasn't showing or anything?
She was always overweight,
so I didn't believe her.
She never got prenatal care or anything like that.
How old was your sister now,
when your mom took off on the bus with her?
Three months.
Three months, so you had your baby sister
knew her for three months.
Everybody though it was my child, nobody thought,
'cause I was, once my mom gave birth
I always had my little sister, that was my baby.
You know, like, that was my,
that was my heart. Responsibility.
Did she ever explain to you,
especially now that she's contacted you again,
why she did what she did?
We had an open CPS case in Sacramento, California
at the time and she just felt like she was gonna,
you know my little sister was three months old
at that time.
So, she just felt like she was gonna lose both of us,
so she wanted to leave California
to move to Texas.
With a three month old baby.
Yeah, but I just didn't want to
and so I was in foster care from 13 to 18.
How was foster care for you?
What was that experience like?
It was just, it was really hard,
like people don't love you
like they love their--
How many different homes did you live in?
I was living in kinship,
technically it wasn't really foster care,
it was kinship. Kinship care, right.
But, three month before graduation
I was actually homeless.
Wow. Oh my gosh.
Well Marshayla, your mother is here today.
I'm so nervous.
I'm so nervous. What do you
wanna say to her?
Like, I'm really proud of my mom.
I know that the world is gonna judge her,
but I'm frustrated and proud of her all in the same breath.
'Cause she did raise a 12 year old
this entire time you know?
But, obviously you got your life together,
you know what I mean?
And unfortunately it wasn't with me
and unfortunately you felt like
you couldn't reach out to me.
But, I'm so happy, like I'm just so, I'm so happy.
I'm so happy for her, like just I'm so proud of her.
Marshayla, I'm so sorry, but it just strikes me
that you are so well spoken, so insightful,
and even despite all of this,
all the hardship you went through,
you have such positive feelings for you mom.
She loves her mommy.
I know.
It's beautiful.
It's really beautiful.