Growing Up in Adversity
As part of Speaker Slam®'s Amplifying Voices: Women's Empowerment showcase, held online in Sep 2021, Taryn Hawley shared a story.
Transcript
when I think of adversity I think of things like love happiness gratitude most of all I think of an apple and I'm gonna explain why my mom suffered with addictions my entire life unfortunately this came with us off to being homeless we slept in hotels we were evicted more times that I could count but my most clearest memory was often being sent to school without having anything to eat I'll never forget this one afternoon I was in grade 3 sitting across from my classmates and I was enraged I was filled with so much anger they had chocolate and chips and granola bars I had absolutely
nothing I just had to sit down pretend I wasn't hungry after class the bell rang I raised my hand and asked if I could go to the bathroom I remember hearing the classroom door closed behind me and I went running as fast as I could down the hall into the basement where they kept the garbage that everybody had on their lunch Odinn I'm sifting through the garbage I'm looking for anything to eat at this point I haven't eaten peanut butter sandwich some chips I literally would have eaten anything in that moment I remember finding an intact red full delicious Apple to be honest I think
this is the first time I truly experienced gratitude all the anger and the animosity that I had about my friends having all these fancy lunches it was just gone I was grateful for that Apple and that's all that mattered I think I learned that day how'd it be grateful for what I had rather than what I didn't as my mom's addiction got worse I began to rebel I got pregnant in grade eight a year later I gave birth to the center of the universe my son and now 14 years old but I'm a mom I'm terrified I feel completely alone I've no idea what I'm
gonna do I remember looking down at my son and thinking I don't barely have enough food for myself and if we get evicted again I've no idea where I'm gonna take you I was completely terrified I know that my mom wanted to help but she was consumed by her own addiction that's when I began to work really closely with the social worker and a public health nurse to your program called team it stands for teen education and motherhood it's a program that helps teen moms pursue their high school education these women tried to support me as much as they could but however I still began
to withdraw I dropped out of high school I ended up homeless and I ended up in a domestic abuse relationship there resulted in my head getting split complete open I remember sitting there as the doctor was stapling my head closed staple after staple thinking what the hell am i doing I know I want something more for myself but I definitely know I want something more for my son and that's again when I'd concentrated on that Apple I wanted to concentrate on the things that I did have I wanted to be grateful and figure out how to move forward if you flash forward ten years later
I graduated Humber College with honors I'm a couple months away from completing my bachelor's degree my son's about to graduate high school and as for myself sorry as for myself I now work at social services as a caseworker I am now the worker for that same teen education and motherhood program that same social worker who supported me along as a mom at 14 she's actually in the audience tonight and we now work together to empower and inspire other teen moms and homeless youth to be able to go on and move forward with their life my name is Taryn Holly and I just want to say
that regardless of how difficult things are and what adversity you're facing if we all dig down deep enough we all have the strength we all have the positivity we all have our own Apple I just encourage you when you find it please don't forget to be grateful for every single bite thank you
Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.