Dwayne Ackley Stories

I wrote this three and a half years ago the night before February 13th when it suddenly hit me that it was 30 years since my Mom was committed to a mental hospital. This story came out quickly and I decided to publish on social media (which is not something I would normally do). The response from people that knew me was overwhelming, much like the response of the kids in that classroom. It made me realize that sometimes loneliness is really just a feeling, and it runs scared very easily.

February 13, 1984

It was 30 years ago today when my life changed completely. I arrived in Miss Ash’s 2nd Grade Class at Valley View Elementary School in Elizabethtown, Ky and immediately started making a box to collect Valentine’s Day cards that would hang off my desk just like the rest of my friends. Just as I had finished, I was called to the front of the room by my teacher and was privately told that my Mom who I had literally just watched from the bus stop an hour before, had been committed to a hospital and would no longer be able to take care of me, at least for a while. She also told me that they had called my grandmother in Harlan Ky and that Geraldine had told them that my father would come to pick me up as quickly as possible. I packed up everything that I had just come to school with and walked by myself to the Principal’s office where a social worker was waiting to take me back to the apartment that my mother and I had been living in.

As I went through the apartment I was told to take my time and figure out what I needed to take with me, that my mom’s relatives would likely take care of everything else. I packed up a small suitcase and turned my back on the rest which included a lot of terrible memories.

My Dad and Grandfather made it to Elizabethtown at 5pm and promptly turned right around to take the trip back to Harlan which would take another six hours. As I stared at the dashboard lights reflecting off of the side back seat window of my Grandfather’s Caprice Classic station wagon (which had the hauling capacity of an F-250 Ford pickup) I suddenly realized that the box back at my desk was probably full of cards that I would never get to see which made me realize that there were also a lot of friends that I might not see again.

We made it to my grandparents building at midnight and I looked for the garland candy canes on the light posts in downtown Harlan that had been there when I had visited for Christmas. I was told to go to bed because I would be going to school the next day.

The next morning I started my first day at Harlan Elementary School. I was walked by the principal to Mrs Ledford’s second grade class where I was quickly given a seat and introduced to the class.

When I sat down at my desk all I could do was put my head down and cry. I realized that even though everything was suddenly better, everything that was completely familiar to me was gone.

When I stopped, that room full of complete strangers started the first steps toward becoming my close friends by handing me a Valentine’s Day card -each addressed to me by name.

I’ve lived quite a few places since Harlan and have been very fortunate to make extremely close friends at each stop. But on February 14th 1984 that entire classroom at Harlan Elementary School showed me what it meant to be cared about and embraced at the one moment in my life where it was desperately needed.