One Sunday Morning

One Sunday Morning It was a beautiful Sunday morning ten years ago in Ukraine. The sun was just begging to come out from behind the clouds, warming up the crisp morning of late October. The dew sheltered the yellow and orange leaves layering the ground, naked trees stood still, and the birds were in performance of their morning song. The long awaited morning finally came for three little girls, Vera who was 10, Natalya 8, and Deanna 5. They were going to go to church with their parents for the first time ever as a family.
The day before my parents took us to the super market to purchase each girl a new outfit. This kind of thing did not happen very often for our family because my parents did not have much money for food, let alone for clothes. It was special for us to get new, soft, colorful things to wear. I remember my socks were orange and very soft. The joy we experienced that day was almost overwhelming we felt like we were queens. Saturday night my mom gave us a bath in preparation for a perfect Sunday. The bath was a metal tub that we all shared in the middle of the room with water warmed up on our wood stove. We went to bed very happy with all the attention we got that day from our parents.
Our parents were alcoholics, so that is why we were so excited with all the things they did for us on Saturday. My mom worked some times, when she was not too drunk at a local farm and made a little bit of money for bread. My dad did not have a job that provided a guaranteed income. He did some day labor jobs for the neighbors once in a while in exchange for food and sometimes even alcohol. Most of the time our parents spent the little cash they had on alcohol and cigarettes to satisfy their addictions. I was the oldest of the three girls, so I took on the mother role for the sake of my sisters; I cooked and cleaned from a very young age. My sisters also learned to depend on themselves for a lot of things.
Finally Sunday morning came, and we got dressed in our new clothes. My mom fixed our hair and fed us breakfast. We were about to leave for church when the knock on the door shook the house. We were not expecting anyone, so no one knew who it could possibly be, so my mom went to answer the door. A look of confusion came over my mom’s face I ran over to her to see who it was. I was as confused as she was to see a police office and a man in a black suit on our doorstep. Why were they here? What do they want? Has something bad happened?
“Were here to take your children to the orphanage.” That one sentence was the most terrifying thing I had ever heard in my life. “We have told you many times to stop drinking and take care of your children this is it now they are coming with us this time.” At first my mom did not want to let us go she hugged us and said that she would change if they just let us stay home, but the police officer took us by the hand and led us out of the house to a waiting car outside. The man in the black suit told our parents that they could come with us if they wanted to see where we were going to be living so that they can visit us if they wanted.
We all got in the car and left for an unknown place called an orphanage. My sisters and I were so scared we cried all the way there. My mom was also crying, begging the man in the black suit to take us back home. The man in the black suit explained that he was the social worker in charge of our case, and that my parents had three months to change or their parental rights would be terminated forever. When we got to the orphanage we immediately had to say goodbye to our parents. They promised that they would visit us often and change, so that we could come back home soon. We believed them when they made those promises to us.
Sadly, they did not visit us very often and they definitely did not stop drinking. They cut back on how much they drank, but that was not enough to prove to the authorities that they had changed and could take care of us better. The orphanage was a cold, emotionless place to be. We did not get love or any kind of attention. We wanted to go back home. But we could not, we had to stay there and fend for ourselves. Such a perfect and promising day when it started took a drastic turn and turned out to be the worst day of my life.