By Ronald Evans

Senior Eyerusalem Coleman-Kitch is an amazing, phenomenal woman whose story conveys her strength.

Eyerusalem was born and raised in Ethiopia. Her parents died when she was young. A woman named Zaway raised her until she went to live in an orphanage at the age of eight. She spent two years living in the orphanage until she was adopted and moved to Chicago.

Eyerusalem suffered great losses in the death of her mother and the separation from her caregiver.

After her adoption by Jenny Kitch, a Chicago minister, she did not magically live happily ever after. She had a lot of anger, she said, caused by the lack of connection she had with others.

“The orphanage was not bad, but it lacked the emotional connection people usually have with their parents and later other people,” Eyerusalem said. “Because of my inability to connect with others emotionally, I didn’t care about anything. I didn’t know how to care.”

Eyerusalem said she shut down and felt like an outcast.

“I did not want to get close to people because I feared that they would leave,” she said. “Because I feared connection, I had none and I became unhappy.”

Once in Chicago, Eyerusalem had to learn to speak English and how to fit in – with a new family, a new school and a new country. Out of frustration and fear, she fought many students at her first school, Ray Elementary in Hyde Park.

Story to be continued.