Tattiana DeParko

I was born in Washington, DC on the 8th of November 1990. I can remember a big yard with lots of room to run, but gated off from the outside world as if my parents were trying to protect me from something. I loved my parents. My mother, Claudia, and her Italian and Native American roots, and my father Joshua with his Greek and English heritage. They were both teachers at a local university where my mother taught Philosophy and my father coached football and taught English Literature. For eight years we had a happy life where I felt save, guarded, and loved. Then it was all taken away from me.

 

I remember the night it all happened. The night I was supposed to be in bed asleep as told to by the babysitter when my parents were out. They were going to a banquet at the college to honor a retiring friend. I heard a knock downstairs from my bedroom where I laid wide awake, waiting for my parents to get home to properly tuck me in. Why I thought they would knock, I didn't know. Lost house keys, perhaps? I snuck downstairs and watched from the top of the banister as my babysitter Stephany opened the door to two police officers in blue and black. They muttered something before all three of them looked up the stairs and saw me. A robbery at a gas station had taken them from me..a robbery.. they never even made it to the banquet. They never made it home. 

Into the system I went.. and transfered to New York where I had no memories, no friends, and a broken soul.