I Cried to Dream Again by Sara Kruzan

Author:Sara Kruzan [Kruzan, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2022-05-10T00:00:00+00:00

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As I had earlier in my life, I was able to immerse myself in my studies, hoping for knowledge or wisdom that might lead me to feel good about myself—and afford me glimpses of a possible bright future.

The dayroom was on the same floor as my cell. When I arrived, I was given the option of taking classes there in the mornings, which I enthusiastically signed up for. I grew to love my teacher, Miss Eckess. She had graying hair cut very short, and she always wore plaid button-up shirts tucked into jeans cinched with a cowboy-style buckle belt. When I was in her class, I never felt that I was in juvenile hall waiting to be tried for murder. She treated me as the sixteen-year-old girl I was. She told me that I could graduate high school and eventually go to college. She pushed me and gave me extra homework so that I could catch up.

Miss Eckess said, “If you really want to, you have the potential to graduate early, Sara. You can do it.” That became my goal.

I loved going to the dayroom and picking out a volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica to take back to my cell to read, in addition to my schoolbooks. I worked hard and earned my high school equivalency diploma in the year I spent at juvenile hall awaiting trial. Reaching that milestone felt to me the way I imagine arriving at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro must feel to climbers. It was a huge step forward and validation that I was not what those judges and lawyers in the courtroom thought of me. It was proof that I was capable of achieving something. Not long after my 707 hearing, I wrote an essay titled “When I Get Out of Juvenile Hall, What My Plans Are”:

First off, when I get out of juvenile hall, I will definitely be thankful. I plan to go to college so I would first have to get settled, find a job, and then look into what is available for schooling. If I go to YA (Youth Authority) then my time in there would be devoted to a college degree. Depending on how long I stay. I really wouldn’t mind if I had to spend a couple of years in YA because the schooling is free. It beats paying for your junior college, which I would have to attend before registering for Spelman University. So that I take advantage, once I do have my junior college completed and accepted to Spelman, I would major in social science, or take on the medical so I can get my doctrine [sic]. I want to be capable of taking care of myself, to get a man who is highly educated and prepared for life with its advantages and disadvantages. I feel that I need to be financially stable, so that when I start my family, life will be comfortable. I plan to marry before I start my family, and I want to marry a sophisticated man, so there wouldn’t be a rush to tie the knot of my past.

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