Ameri is Born and Reborn
I have two daughters. One daughter came into the world within a marriage and she had the benefit of two loving parents. She was the first born grandchild of two combined whole families in which there were five aunts, four grandparents and five living great grandparents.
My second daughter, let's call her America or Ameri for short, was the second born child of a woman, we will call her Avril, who had not known the security of a stable home or loving parents for most of her life. That woman had been born to a woman who had grown up under conditions that were equally barren of love and stability. My daughter, Ameri, was the only living child of that unfortunate mother, Avril. Her first child was dead at birth. Ameri is then an only child. Ameri has no father of record. Ameri and her mother were released from the hospital and sent home. Her first home was a shared room with another man and woman who were in Ameri's mother's drug and alcohol crowd. That situation broke down early on and the trail from there leads from one shared accomodation to another that included various hotels and flop houses. At the end of about three months of that existence, Ameri was returned to the hospital where she was born. Avril disappears.
Ameri's physical condition when she was brought back to the hospital was not good. She was underweight for her age, 90 days. She was covered in scabs and her genitals were swollen and traumatized by either severe diaper rash or frictional abuse. She was dehydrated near to the point of dry. Her brain activity was more of a scratchy impression of seizure than any other way to describe it. She was near death. From that point, until Ameri was released from the hospital three weeks later, a seeming miracle has occurred. Tiny Ameri was brought back from near death to being instead of a functioning three month old infant, she was for all practical purposes a new born. She weighed just over ten pounds. Her stretched out body length was just over fourteen inches. That she recovered at all was seen as a major event by the hospital staff and that she seemed to respond with the
minimun capabilities of a new born was seen as a further remarkable event by the hospital staff. Since Avril, Ameri's mom, has disappeared, it is now necessary for Avril's mother, Ameri's grandmother, to take custody when Ameri is released from the hospital after a three week stay. We shall call Ameri's grandmother, Lilya. Lilya takes Ameri home to an appartment she shares with her current boyfriend. The boy friend's name does not matter because he is one of many.
This part of the story ends. Ameri is alive. She starts life again with Grandmother, Lilya.
