I believe there is a spark inside each one of us that raises us up. I remember many years ago when my daughters were young a voice spoke to me and said, “When your children are grown, the time will come for you to take care of you.”

I have always believed that in my heart.

So here is my story about how the spark never died and how Training Futures helped me raise myself up.

I was born into a middle class, drug-addicted family. My father was a pharmacist and my mother worked for the phone company. Both parents were addicted to sleeping pills. Most of the time my parents were passed out, so my two sisters and I had to raise ourselves. For two years all three of us kids were in foster care. When we were given back to our parents nothing much had changed, except alcohol was added to the mix.

By age 10, I was grocery shopping by myself. At 15, I intentionally got pregnant so I could get out of the house. Two years later, I was pregnant again and just before I gave birth to my second child, my husband abandoned me. I remember how depressed I was. I couldn’t function at all. So it didn’t take much for my brother-in-law to convince me to give my new baby boy up for adoption. When I left my baby, something inside me changed forever.

My husband returned when my baby son was gone. My self-esteem was too low to stop him. We had another child – a girl. It was four years before I finally left him. I packed up my clothes, my children and we went to live with my mother. I became a bartender and a waitress.

I reached the age of 49. It was a turning point for me. You see 49 is the age when my father died. So when I was 49 – my girls were grown and married and I was alone and still stuck in the restaurant business working at the Pilot House Restaurant at the end of a country road in Woodbridge.

I remember feeling I was at a dead end in my life.

One day, my older sister called and told me about a program she had heard about called Training Futures.  As she described the program, I knew that this was the break I had been looking for. That spark I talked about at the beginning, deep in my heart, well, it lit up. I can go to classes until three in the afternoon and then wait tables until I get trained for a new job. That’s what I thought.

I knew it was time for a change and I was ready!  I went to classes for four months and graduated from Training Futures.

Since then, my life has changed completely.

I don’t ever work weekends and I have health insurance for the first time in my life.  But Training Futures has given me more than that.

Training Futures gave me something I was missing: hope and self-esteem. Training Futures has inspired me to believe in myself.

They told me things my parents should have told me and they taught me things my parents should have taught me.

During the training I started to feel as if I could make a change in my life.

Before I knew it, I started to believe in myself. It’s been five years since I graduated and my salary has gone from $13,000 to $50,000. I have a job that I enjoy and I work for people I like. I don’t worry about bills anymore and for the first time I feel as if I am in control of my life.

I thank Training Futures for helping me remember the spark inside my heart, for seeing the spark and believing in it and encouraging me to know I can really raise myself up.

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Story developed by Julie Portman/Ki Theatre. Used with the permission of the author.