Serving up hope, dignity, and a new start

The Women's Lunch Place on Newbury Street offers meals, friendship, and support to women in need. (File/The Boston Globe)

Linda Burston, a support coordinator at the Women's Lunch Place shelter in Boston, recently delivered the following remarks at a fund-raiser for the shelter.

I REMEMBER learning to hide my feelings at an early age. My father was a very abusive alcoholic who used to beat my mother and shot her twice. My mother never put her arms around me or told me she loved me or comforted me. What I got were very bad beatings with anything she could get her hands on. I learned to duck and hide.

At the age of 14 I started using drugs, but I always drank. My parents would give us liquor to put us to sleep and I would also be the clean-up girl after all-night parties.

At the age of 15 I had my first daughter, and I quit school in the seventh grade. I had my first mental breakdown and was hospitalized twice. I was told I was crazy and I thought I was. I had another daughter. At that time I was an IV drug user, strung out on heroin and cocaine with two children, no father. I was in and out of jail and detox so many times I lost count. I used to sleep in abandoned buildings and abandoned cars. I can remember eating out of dumpsters.

There were times I thought about killing myself. Can you imagine being in so much pain that you felt your children would be better off without a mother?

I had two more children and finally DSS took my children. I went back to jail. But this time I got my GED and learned to type.

When I was strung out I went to the Women's Lunch Place in Back Bay several times to get off the streets and to eat, change clothing, take a shower, and sometimes to sleep. At the WLP I felt human again. I was treated like somebody - not the hopeless and useless dope fiend I had become and constantly was told I was by my mother.

There was more bad news. My first husband died from an overdose. Then shortly after, my mother and father died and my world really caved in.

In July 1993, during one of my strung-out periods, I started crying and couldn't stop. I looked at my oldest daughter and told her I would never get high with her again - and, yes, I used to get high with her. I went to a rehab program and this time my life changed. I learned how to talk about my feelings and I also found I wasn't alone. I learned how to stand up for me.

I never had a job so I volunteered at AIDS Action, where I took courses that helped me take care of my brother John, who later died from AIDS complications. One day I looked in the paper and applied for the job I have now at the Women's Lunch Place. I've learned so much about being responsible. Now I give our beautiful ladies what Women's Lunch Place gave me.

Life hasn't been perfect. There have been more family deaths. My nephew committed suicide at 21 and my sister, who was my close friend, died. Two years later, my husband died in my arms from lung cancer. My world came crashing down. I didn't want to live and didn't know how I would make it.

But now I have the support from my family and my co-workers, the volunteers, and the many others who give so much. There were times when I felt like giving up on life, yet I could pour my heart out to my co-workers and they reminded me of the person I have become today: a role model to the guests.

Every day I am encouraged to reach beyond the stars.