Annie's Choice: The Story Of A Five-Year Old Boy Abandoned In Mexico

By Jeffrey Glenn and Glenn

At four years of age, Jeffrey was holding to his mother's coat tails while she roamed the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Annie was attempting to escape the expectations of society and the responsibilities of motherhood.

Jeffrey only wanted the love of his mother and followed her everywhere in the streets. He had to forage for food and shelter while Annie was searching for the means to purchase her next "fix." Jeffrey would witness the stark reality of substance dependency without understanding the effects until his teen years.

Annie was traveling south of the border into Mexico, when on a whim, she abandoned her five year old boy with some strangers on a busy freeway near the city of Guadalajara, Mexico. Annie's choices would forever alter the lives of her children and all those who loved her. Her favorite child would suffer the abandonment of a mother.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Nov 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9780998400402

Book preview

Finally,

Acknowledgments

I wish to dedicate this book to the many who have devoted time out of their lives to help another human being in need, and to all of the human beings who are suffering throughout the world; also it is dedicated to those who are still suffering from the callousness of people without scruples and morals. This book has been written for all of the children in our world who carry the scars on their bodies and in their minds. I hope this story will allow me the opportunity to become a voice for their defense.



Six out of ten Nigerian children suffer violence; say UNICEF, EU ⎯ The Guardian Nigeria ⎯ By Julius Osahon, Yenagoa

I want to thank all of the Game-Changers who have helped me in my time of need. There are numerous names to list and many I honestly do not remember.

I wish to thank my parents: Jean and Julie Marie and all my relatives in France, my wife Cynthia, my sister Laurel, my brother Larry, my children; Jacqueline, Jeffrey, and Joanna, my grandchildren; Marley, Leonardo, and Sofia, my son in law Andrew. Cate Hogan for her honest review and suggestions.

Introduction

This is a story of a boy who was abandoned by his mother in a foreign country in 1967 when he was five years old. He is now a grown man, a husband, a father, and a brother. In fact, he is my precious brother. Although we spent very few years together, 'growing up' as normal siblings would have, we share a few things besides genetics.

We share the memories of a mother who could be obsessively consumed with 'having us' with her, by her side and then, conversely, on a whim, leave us for days at a time while she pursued drugs, adventure and her version of freedom in many different forms in 1960s America.

We share an adulthood that has often been fraught with doubt, confusion and a pervasive feeling of disconnectedness.

We share a history of fractured relationships, unmet needs and lost opportunities.

We share a feeling of 'otherness' - - - a nagging sense that no matter what we do, or accomplish, where we are, or whom we're with, somehow, there is something not quite right with us; we will never measure up; we will never be as happy as we could be.

We share a propensity for depression, anxiety and the glass half full mindset.

These tendencies, these trajectories, are a direct result of the crazy, nonsensical, irresponsible, selfish decisions our parents made that have reverberated for many years in their children's lives. Jeffrey's story was the most egregious. He is brave to re-tell it here. Yes, brave because, as sister and brother, we don't believe re-living the past is cathartic or healing.

It is painful to re-live the past. Jeffrey's goal is to inspire you, pure and simple.

Fortunately, we have not allowed these feelings to determine our Respective Paths. We have built sturdy lives, surrounded by loving children, friends and spouses. Our shared history is now a strong foundation for living the best healthy lives we can manage, imagine and create for ourselves.

Yet, this story is important because it shines light on several really important things in life.

First, humans can overcome amazing things. We can survive heartache, abuse, and abandonment, among many other things, and come out on top. We might be damaged, but at heart, we are survivors. However, not everyone comes out on top. This story celebrates a boy who became a man who did. Through his journey, perhaps we can learn a few things about what makes the difference between those who survive horrible, damaging experiences in childhood and those who don't: because many children, all over the world, don't make it to the other side….to successful, happy, productive lives.

Secondly, I was reminded, when I read Jeff's story, how a few special people in a child or adolescent's life can be GAME-CHANGERS. When a family abandons a child, there are so many opportunities for others to step in and make a difference, give some love, give advice, CARE, COMMIT and BE THERE. The most important people in my life, the GAME-CHANGERS, were never family. They were just regular people. These people saw a need and simply made a choice to meet it, selflessly, in a timely manner and with compassion again and again.

The third gem I hope Jeff's story will give you is a prevailing sense of hope: hope that when you encounter or experience injustice, abuse, or degradation, you take a courageous stand to do something, anything, to stop it. Right now.

Laurel Glenn

1

How we begin our journey into this life is not determined by us individually. We do not even have the choice of wanting to be a part of this life on earth. Our parents make that choice for us, either by mistake, or as planned during the courtship. Annie made that choice for me. My journey drastically changed when she went on a trek in a foreign land and I was just five years old.

I was placed in the back seat of a white Volkswagen beetle, commonly referred to as a Bug. Two men were sitting in the front seats and I was now staring at my mother through the rear window behind the driver. I had every expectation my mother would join me in the car at any moment. Suddenly, the man in the driver seat begins to drive the car away without her. I immediately panicked! I watched her standing in the median of a freeway, waving at me. As the car moved farther and farther away, I stared at her from the rear window and began to frantically beat the glass with my hands. Tears streamed down my face as I cried and screamed, Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! I was confused and scared.

I thought I was being stolen from my mother. I continued to scream and slip on the vinyl seat as my whole body began to sweat from fear and anxiety. For a moment, I lost sight of my mother as I fell on my wet knees and desperately dug my nails into the backrest to pull myself up again. I could see my mother continue to wave at me as the car continued to move away from her, which only added confusion to my agitation. I wondered why she did not run after the car to save me, to rescue me, to get me back. If I was being kidnapped, every fiber in my being told me she should be chasing after the car and trying to retrieve me. Instead, she just stood on the median of the road, watching and waving.

Aside from the emotional angst imprinted on my psyche from that day, it was a physical experience as well. I remember feeling as if something, or someone, was crushing my upper body with overwhelming force. There was an accompanying, incomprehensible throbbing inside my chest. My heart felt like it was being crushed. God, how it still hurts to this day!

My mother had been hitchhiking on a freeway somewhere near the outskirts of Guadalajara, Mexico. A random car had pulled over and inquired about her destination. Where do you want to go? Asked a stranger as he probably wondered what a pretty American Gringa was doing so far south of the border. I want to visit your ancient ruins, she replied. Far into the country, she added. It is dangerous for lone travelers like you, he warned her. Somehow, my mother convinced him she could make the journey. I tell you what I can do, he replied. How about I look after your child while you continue your tour and when you are done, you can pick him up? Some mysterious deal was made and now the strange man behind the wheel and his companion were taking me away. I was the youngest of her five children; her favorite. The one she always referred to as her baby. She just stood there, watching, as the Mexican man drove further and further away. His name was Mr. Reyes. My name is Jeffrey Glenn, although through this defining moment, my identity would be lost for many years.

She abandoned me during the month of September in 1967, the end of the Summer of Love in San Francisco. My mother, Ann Glenn, had been a rebellious adolescent who, in her mid-20s, began to strongly identify with this younger generation of rebels. She liked to call herself Annie. She was not a hippie in the very classic sense of what the Counterculture Movement represented. Yet she did identify with the abdication of traditional 1950s family values. Free love and liberal drug use were what she craved. She was one of hundreds of hippies who claimed Golden Gate Park and the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood as their communal playgrounds to celebrate new lives as free spirits, strung out on music and drugs. They felt unbound now by the cultural chains they believed had shackled them.

Annie lived on the streets, slept in parks, and did whatever she had to do to survive. Even though she had five children and married two times, she decided to abandon all vestiges of traditional family life, including her children and everyone who cared about her.

On a whim, during this crazy and unstable period in my mother's life, in 1966, she left San Francisco and took me with her on the road, which meant living in the streets of inner cities. As a result of this one choice, my early childhood became one long trail of abandonment, abuse, and despair. I lost my innocence. I lost my identity.

I was not the only victim of my mother’s radical lifestyle change. All my siblings, as well as our maternal grandmother, Melba Phillips, suffered years of confusion, sadness and heartache resulting from the choices Annie made at this pivotal time in her life. Traumatic memories never fade. (See Figure 1)



Fig. 1 – Grandma Melba’s Journal Entry Made on July 22 1976.



Fig 2 – Letter From the Department Of State to Bud Stating My Whereabouts and Information Needed to Retrieve Me



Fig. 3 - Letter From the Department Of State to Bud Stating My Whereabouts and Information Needed to Retrieve Me

2

Scotia is still a small town nestled in a valley carved by the Eel River in northern California. It used to be a logging town that was owned by a large Redwood lumber company. Mill workers from Brunswick and Nova Scotia in Canada came to fill the company houses and start families. These were strapping men full of life, strong personalities, and thirsty gullets. My Grandma Melba was courted by such a man, Stanley Phillips and married him in what was probably a beautiful hillside setting. One can picture cheerful couples uninhibited by the consumption of alcohol. Yet Melba was a strict Christian Scientist follower. She was a devoted member of the local church, and would eventually divorce my Grandfather due to his excessive drinking and abuse. From this ill fated union was born a little girl and Melba would raise her as a single mother. Her name was Ann Isabel Phillips and she came to this world on February 22, 1936.

As a child and young adolescent girl, Annie was described as constantly being in a state of rebellion; always testing the bounds of authority and generally behaving outside the realm of what was considered 'appropriate' in 1940s and 1950s America. Other family members described her as being a classic wild child. Her mother, my Grandma Melba, struggled to make sense of the woman Annie evolved into, given the traditional, conservative, and religious upbringing she tried to give her. Melba kept detailed diaries and journals, which are filled with prayers asking for forgiveness from God for any lapses in parenting that even she could not identify. She asked God to help Annie, her out of control child find peace, stability and wisdom to make better choices. These prayers would go unanswered. By the time Annie was 26 years old, she had five children, had been married twice, and was clearly headed on a trajectory of a vagabond’s lifestyle. She was free from the encumbrances of traditional family life, such as maintaining a home, earning a living, or in any way fulfilling the traditional role of a mother.

My mother's first son was born when she was 16 years old. We know he was either legally given up for adoption or the birth father's family took custody of him. We don't