EPILOGUE

Sage wrote the final entry in her journal almost seventeen years ago.

About two weeks after meeting Major Powers, Sage and I were on the last training session before the century we were to ride. As we crossed Peachtree Street, with our new friend Jackson to our right side, an SUV ran the red traffic light. I could smell blood as we lay on the pavement waiting for the ambulances. Sage was semiconscious. As the medics carried her away, I heard her whisper, "I've a present for you." We were all taken to Grady Hospital, where I later learned Jackson was killed upon impact, and Sage had suffered head injuries. I was treated for just a broken arm and leg.

During the afternoon of my third day in Grady, while Mrs. Adkins was with me, my social worker Miss Dee visited again. Miss Dee explained that Sage had been in a coma since shortly after the wreck, something I wasn't told earlier. Also, Miss Dee told me Sage had something called a living will. Her living will directed any hospital she was in to take her off all life support after seventy-two hours of unconsciousness. About two hours earlier, Sage's life-support had been removed. Sage couldn't breathe on her own, so she didn't last twenty seconds.

Once I realized that Sage was dead, I cried more than when I began foster care and more than when I finally realized that I was never going to be adopted. In the days that followed, I was as sad and lonely as when my mother was killed. The next week, Mrs. Adkins took me home from the hospital where I spent the next month on my bed.

In early October, during her weekly visit, Miss Dee brought a stranger with her. Mr. Craig said he was a lawyer and a friend of Sage's. He then went on to tell me that Sage had another will, and that he was the executor and I was the beneficiary. He spoke for a long time, slowly and carefully, but I didn't understand what he was saying. Soon Miss Dee asked him if she could talk for a moment, that's when she explained that Sage left instructions that her house and all of her stuff was to be sold and that the money was to be used to buy me an eye transplant.

That was the present Sage spoke of the day of the wreck-my eyesight. I lost the one person I so treasured in exchange for the sight I so desired. Why the exchange? Why did I have to lose one to gain the other? Not only had Sage taught me to figuratively see my way through life, now she'd made it possible for me to physically see again. I then remembered Sage's journal, and begged Mr. Craig to find and bring it to me. Mrs. Adkins found it, together with a backpack full of older journals, in Sage's pickup, which was still parked at my house.

In late February of the next year, after the incisions healed, I was scheduled for the cornea transplant that Mr. Craig arranged. That surgery took much longer than setting the broken bones caused by that damned SUV driver. About a week passed before the doctors removed the bandages from around my head. At first everything was hazy, but by the next day I could see perfectly through hazel colored eyes. In the following month I relearned to read and started riding my own bicycle. Except for school work, the only books I read for the next couple of years were those given to me the summer of 1988, and Sage's journals. Her last journal, especially, was my constant companion for many years.

Mostly good things have happened to me as I made my Malchemy Transformation. I graduated high school and I found a way to spend the next year traveling the United States on my bicycle. When I returned to Georgia, I attended Georgia State University with some high school friends. While in college, I often rode the same streets I used to ride with Sage. Sometimes I'd imagine I was the helmsman on our old tandem, and Sage was the stroker. Occasionally I'd hear her voice yelling signals to me, followed by a cold shiver down my neck, back, and legs.

After college, I opened a bicycle shop in Little Five Points and I've been dating Suzanne for a couple of years now. All these achievements would not have happened so quickly without Sage's guidance. Yes, I am very happy with my life, so I am successful, and the unpleasant memories of my childhood are mostly resolved or forgotten.

I'm still in contact with Simon, Professor DeLuz, Rabbi, and the Major (now Colonel). We often speak of Sage. Though we each see her from a different perspective, we all agree she knew how to help others beyond their apparent hopelessness, and help them realize their dreams. It's impossible to repay priceless gifts, but I've tried by sharing Sage's journal with you. One day I hope Sage discovers she was a successful mentor to not just me, but to many foster kids who overcame their harsh beginnings.

The wisdom provided in Sage's journals, together with the books my other mentors gave me, proved to be accurate sources of guidance. As I matured, I learned and built upon what Sage provided, so truthfully I don't read her journal much these days. But I think that's OK. Sage's goal for me, and I imagine it'd be the same for you, was to develop into someone who's confident enough to think and act for themselves. I think Sage only intended her journal to be a ship to carry me through troubled waters; once I crossed those waters, I was to disembark and travel under my own power.

I can't help but think it would have been easier if Sage were physically there with me, just as it would have been easier if my parents had been with me, but Sage was there in spirit every time I opened one of her journals. With Sage's guidance, I made a mostly smooth transition from a scared and lonely foster child to the successful adult I envisioned, so I have to say her experiment was a success. As Sage told me in the beginning, "I'd call guiding the first person through an experiment. If it works, then we can call it a path to success."

I think we have found that path. If you're a willing participant, I'm confident that what Sage and my other mentors taught me will also provide you the guidance you need to make your own Malchemy Transformation. In fact, I think their teachings could provide any at-risk teenager with the guidance they need to make a similar transition to adulthood. And, although they never mentioned it, I think Sage's friends' teachings provide mentors excellent guidance as well.

Read and refer to The Original Foster Care Survival Guide as often as it takes you to cross your troubled waters. If you need more guidance I will try to be of help. You're welcome to contact me here. Meanwhile, I trust you'll have a good ride, Hammerhead, and when you're ready you'll be a sage to a foster kid looking for guidance from a successful former foster kid, like you.

Socratic Method questions for Epilogue

Understanding the Guide