That’s my sister. No one could ever tell me otherwise. We’ve been through the trenches together.

Spoiler alert: I met MJ—or rather, she saved me. I had been in my first foster home for a month, located way out in Antioch. It was an area I was unfamiliar with and isolated for a teen without a car. The nearest BART station, my main mode of transportation, was in Pittsburg, two hours away by bus with all the stops from Antioch. I was far from my comfort zone, which had become Alameda by that point in my life.

Alameda changed me; it polished me. But that kind of polishing wasn’t fit for surviving foster care. It created vulnerability and weakness.

I was getting my ass beat. No way to sugarcoat it. I was being beaten with studded belts, brooms, and double Dutch ropes—not by the single foster mom, but by the other kids in the house. She was just as worthless as my mother. She was in it for the check, not the betterment of a child, which should be the primary reason to become a foster parent. But the system is so desperate for parents due to so many parentless kids like myself. That’s my opinion after living through more than 12 different foster homes in just two years. They let anyone become a foster parent, it seems like literally anyone!

Anyway, this foster mom was just as negligent as my mother and a gambling addict. She was worse because she took in all these kids and left us alone while she went gambling. This is where I became a target. Because I’m petite, I’ve always been a target for bullies, ever since elementary school.

People see me and they see weakness—or at least they think they do. They can’t see the power God has bestowed upon me; very few people can. MJ saw this light in me, or maybe God told her He was sending someone her way to protect. Since I met her, she’s been a force of fearlessness. She used to try and create space for me even before I met Elizabeth Phillips, but it was Phillips who truly pulled it out.

Back to MJ: I had been in this house for about 30 days, being tormented, beaten, and locked out by the other teens. It was bad—they were busting my nose all the time, slapping the fire out of my face like my mother used to. But this was my first home, so I thought this was normal, low-key, due to Lifetime movies that depicted foster homes and group homes as the kind of experience I was enduring. I told the fake-ass foster mom, and she told me if I ever told my social worker, the next home would be worse. So I stayed and endured this torture.

But one thing I’ve learned about God is that He doesn’t isolate you for long. He doesn’t allow you to suffer alone for long. My pastor, Sarah, spoke that over my life, and it is so true. Anyway, I was getting my ass beat by one of the teenage boys in the home when my rainbow appeared. Quite literally, a rainbow of pure sunshine and beauty. It was MJ. She came in swinging. I’m crying just typing this because she didn’t even know me. I was a stranger to her, but she came in swinging for that stranger.

MJ reinstills the humanity that’s missing in this generation. A lot of people would watch a stranger beat up another stranger and do nothing, or maybe they might call the police or yell for help, but they ain’t gonna do shit to defend you. MJ is not like that. She’s gonna ride hard until the wheels fall off. That’s what God showed me right away with her. She’s a real one; she will protect you. You can trust her. You’re safe now. At least, that’s how I felt the moment she defended me all those years ago. It’s been up ever since. I said once in our first foster home together, “It gets sick over her!” But I was sitting down when I said it. MJ said, “It’s funny how it gets sick, but you’re sitting down.” Because what God has called me to do in your life, MJ, I finally understand that I don’t have to stand. I can do it sitting. I can do it with my eyes closed, really. It’s my time, which means it’s your time. I’m about to break this thing off for everything we went through—all the pain, all the tears.

Our foster mom saw our bond and immediately hated it. She even tried to separate us, like in the movie “The Color Purple.” She told us we couldn’t hang out, putting one of us in a room upstairs and the other downstairs. It’s real weird when I look back on how a foster parent could treat kids like that.

Anyway, MJ and I started writing letters to each other to keep our bond, like we were in jail or something. We hid them under the upstairs bathroom. The bathroom was the only place with any privacy in that full house. MJ, I kept every letter. Even after all the destruction the devil tried to do, God preserved what was important to me. Those letters meant a lot to me and still do. I’m going to publish them in my first book if you approve.

MJ, this is a forever thing. So when people ask me why I still fuck with you, why we seem so different, I don’t care. They say, “You two fall out, but you always go back.” It’s like that with real friends. Being a trauma specialist has equipped me with a special level of understanding for people with your upbringing. I’ve told you way before this third degree that you have the saddest story I’ve ever heard, yet you ain’t no sad story!

So when I tell people they don’t have to get our bond, our love, it’s not for them to get. This is a me-and-her thing. That’s my muthafuckin’ sister! Ten toes down for her. All the bail money. Cause what’s up, for real?

It meant so much that unlike my bitch-ass birth giver, I isolated you during my pregnancy, shunned you, even called you a hater. I see now how wrong I was. That relationship was shit to hate on! That’s on Liz! Even still, I called just two months after my baby was born. I said, “Yo, I gotta go back to work cause he can’t find a job, and I don’t trust anybody with my baby except you, Nene, and my granny.” Nene came but couldn’t stay; she had her own stuff going on. Granny ain’t getting on no plane. And we see which side she chose at the end of the day. But you, what did you say? “Bitch, I’m on the way for my muthafuckin’ niece!”

And you stayed with me until you couldn’t anymore. I begged you to stay. I needed you. That postpartum depression had a grip on me and him. You saw it before my therapist and midwife did. You got me through. You wouldn’t let me give up on myself or Liz.

But then you had to go. I understood. I hated it because that’s when he really did me in. At first, I was mad. Like all last year, I felt like, “Damn, MJ, you abandoned me.” But then, through psychology, God, and Pastor Sarah, I realized that you were there when I needed you most. God told me I needed you to help me get Elizabeth to that 9-month mark. I wouldn’t have gotten that far in her life without you. He would’ve tried that shit sooner. So I thank you for all the times you were there and forgive you for all the times you couldn’t be.

I’ll be your sister for life. I love you. It gets sick over MJ!