KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / MONDAY, MAY 9, 2011 / NEWS
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Contributed Illustration
thought her grandmother would give her and her siblings back to their mom.
Edgar Jerins, Sarah's second cousin, used charcoal to draw this family portrait of (from left) Sarah, Brittany and Barry with their aunt and uncle in their dining room.
But that was before her grandmother lost her half of the guardianship two years later as the result of another court hearing. The court transferred full guardianship to her aunt and uncle, Daina and Doyle Rhodes. Although Barry remained largely apathetic about the decision, Sarah adamantly supported it. She hated living with her grandmother, a first-generation Latvian immigrant with a stern presence. She especially hated what her brother described as her grandmother's old-world habits.
"Our grandmother thought the belt was the best way to punish," he said.
After the court transferred guardianship, Sarah, Barry and Brittany moved in with their aunt and uncle on their five-acre farm just south of Lindsborg. Once again, Sarah tried to stay optimistic.
BARRY WAS standing in the doorway to the kitchen when his aunt and uncle walked in holding Sarah. She was obviously drunk. She slurred her words and fell to the floor.
Sarah knew she wasn't supposed to drink alcohol while on Lamictal, but she didn't care. After all, she wouldn't have been on medication at all if her aunt and uncle hadn't committed her to Prairie View at the beginning of the school year. They thought she had become suicidal. Now they worried Sarah had alcohol poisoning. Barry stayed home to watch Brittany while their uncle drove Sarah to the emergency room. Sarah returned home later that night after spending several hours in the emergency room.
In the following weeks, when Sarah's aunt and uncle took away her cellphone and wouldn't let her go out with friends, she started sneaking out. Barry kept his distance from Sarah for weeks after the incident. He worried about her growing drug habit. That same year she started smoking marijuana on a weekly basis and experimenting with harder drugs,
including cocaine.
"That was my escape," she said.
"It's really how I tried to forget."
It was Sarah's junior year of high school. She had been living with her aunt and uncle for more than four years. She was convinced they lied to her about her mom, that she wasn't as bad as they said she was, and she hated them for it. Sarah said she knew her mom was trying. Anita had recently bought a house in Lindsborg and continued seeing a therapist. She worked a series of jobs, but unpaid legal fees forced her into bankruptcy last year after she spent thousands fighting the guardianship in court.
ON THE night before Thanksgiving, when Sarah was 17, she stayed up late with two friends. Sarah wanted to talk to them away from her aunt and uncle. But because she wasn't allowed to leave their property, they sat outside in her friend's dark-blue Oldsmobile, parked in Sarah's driveway. They were still there when her uncle woke up around 6 a.m. He was furious and soon began yelling at Sarah.
"Whether or not I thought she could be a good parent, I knew she was a good person," Sarah said. "She deserved a chance."
uncle could have forced her to come back, but they apparently never did.
THE NEXT seven months proved difficult for Sarah. She worked 12-hour shifts at the Bethany Home, a local retirement community, to help support herself and her mom. She didn't regret her decision to move in with her.
But that summer Anita became increasingly manic. She screamed for hours during the day and at night. Sarah tried to calm her, but nothing seemed to work.
The breaking point came when her mom reported her to police for being out past curfew. The next day Sarah moved in with her boyfriend's mother and stayed with her for the remainder of the school year. It was her third home in less than a year, but by then she was used to it.
"It was easy in the sense that I knew my mom actually cared about me," she said.
"I had to be," she said. "I was always hoping that the next situation would be better."
When Sarah's guidance counselor told her about the Hixson scholarship, she knew it was an opportunity she couldn't afford to pass up. She immediately started
inflicted guilt.
"My entire life I have lived to try to attain a better understanding of why," Sarah wrote. "Why my life has not been society's standard of normal."
The letter from KU Financial Aid and Scholarships arrived in early April, a month before Sarah's high school graduation. Sarah had won the Hixson. Four months later, she moved into Ellsworth Hall.
SARAH TALKS openly about her past. She may rub her nose with the palm of her hand when she appears uncomfortable, a nervous habit, but most of the time she remains calm. She's more likely to be upset because of a bad grade or a difficult assignment than because of anything that happened to her before college.
"I deal with life crises better than with what a college student should be doing," she said. "It's really hard getting used to having a normal life."
"I wanted to try to stick it out, but two more years felt like a lifetime."
It wasn't the first fight Sarah had with her uncle. She had grown accustomed to such spats during the five years she lived with him. She usually shrugged them off, but this one proved to be too much.
work on her application and spent three months writing her two-page essay. It proved difficult for her to write, especially when it came to writing about her mom. Sarah said she didn't want to convey her as "this horrible person."
"I didn't want to leave," Sarah said. "I wanted to try to stick it out, but two more years felt like a lifetime."
Sarah's life has remained far from easy since she arrived in Lawrence two years ago. Last spring her younger sister committed suicide. She was 11 years old and still living with Sarah's aunt and uncle when she hung herself in her bedroom. Her mom still experiences manic episodes and talks about killing herself while Sarah continues to struggle with depression. Sometimes she sees a therapist, but she refuses to take medication.
But writing her essay also became a form of catharsis for Sarah. It caused her to re-examine everything she had experienced and in the process ask herself, "Why her?" She wrote candidly about being raped, about her mom's mental illness and about her own frustrations and self-
And so she left. She ran away to her mom's house. Legally she wasn't allowed to live with her mom. The court had granted Anita two two-hour visits with Sarah every week. Her aunt and
Last fall Sarah married her longtime boyfriend, Danny Bregman, whom she once described as the only constant in her life. They now live in a cluttered one-bedroom apartment west of campus. She quit using drugs and rarely drinks. School has become her primary focus. It's her newest escape from her troubled past. It's what gives her a chance at her once elusive dream of a normal life, if only she wanted one.
"Normal is such a weird way to put things," Sarah said. "Normal doesn't exist."
- Edited by Ashley Montgomery
Contributed Photo
From left, Taylor Leibbrandt, Sarah Bregman, Kimberly Moore and Douglas Speight, four Hixson scholars, in a sunflower field outside of Lawrence in 2008
What is the Hixson Opportunity Award?
Christina Hixson never attended college, but each year the Hixson Opportunity Award, a $5,000 renewable scholarship given in her name, provides 10 to 11 high school seniors the opportunity to attend the University of Kansas.
The Hixson Award stands out from other KU scholarships. Applicants need something more intangible to ACT scores, good grades and volunteer hours to
Hixson
qualify. They need a story of personal hardships and financial difficulties that make it unlikely they could ever attend college.
"For many of the great successes of the world, the background they came from was their great challenge," Hisxion told the Department Financial Aid and Scholarship. "I'm trying to find those people. Those who may
not have the highest grade point or a perfect family background, but who can be successful. These are the ones who will lend the helping hands in the future."
As the sole trustee of the Lied Foundation Trust, Hixson has donated more than $24 million the University, much of which built the Lied Center. Most recently, she gave $2.5 million to help fund the Lied Center lobby expansion that opened in March.
The first class of KU Hixson scholars will graduate this spring. Seven of the original 10 students are still enrolled at the University.
Hixson established the Hixson Award at the University in 2007, though a similar program has existed at Iowa State University since 1995. Hixson scholars graduated at a rate 10 percent higher than the all-university average at Iowa State between 1995 and 2006.
Of the 80 to 100 high school seniors who apply for the Hixson Award every year, almost all experience financial difficulties and many don't come from a traditional two-parent household, said Sara Vancil, KU assistant director of financial aid and scholarships.
"Some of the applicants have even dealt with extremely serious situations within their families, such
"For many of the greatest successes of the world, the background they came from was their greatest challenge."
CHRISTINA HIXSON
as abuse, neglect, drug issues and issues with the law" she added.
The Hixson Award allows recipients to turn something bad into something good. It can be their ticket out of unhealthy and unstable lives. Their ability to survive and prosper despite those difficulties is what qualifies them for the Hixson Award.
"We want students who have demonstrated they are capable of overcoming adversity," Vancil said. "We look for resilient students who, despite obstacles, remain passionate about graduating from college and specifically about succeeding at KU."
Check out Kansan.com to read Sarah Bregman's essay for the Hixson Opportunity Award.
Sarah and her mom with Barry at his high school graduation party in Lindsborg
May 2008
Summer 2008
Sarah smoking a cigarette on the roof of her mom's house in Lindsborg.
Oct. 8, 2010 Sarah with her husband, Danny, at their wedding in Colorado.
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