The First Call Was Mine is a powerful memoir about a girl who grew up in chaos, instability, and the foster system, and the woman she became in spite of it.
Kayla spent her childhood protecting her younger brother, navigating violent homes, and learning to be small enough to survive. As an adult, she became a firefighter and paramedic, running toward emergencies with the same instinct she once used to shield herself.
But healing didn’t come with a uniform. It came with truth, reckoning, and the courage to end the generational cycles that shaped her. Told with raw honesty and quiet hope, this memoir traces Kayla’s journey through trauma, resilience, and the long, often painful work of rebuilding a life not defined by the past.
A story of survival and reclamation, The First Call Was Mine reveals that the first life she learned to save was her own.
The First Call Was Mine is a powerful memoir about a girl who grew up in chaos, instability, and the foster system, and the woman she became in spite of it.
Kayla spent her childhood protecting her younger brother, navigating violent homes, and learning to be small enough to survive. As an adult, she became a firefighter and paramedic, running toward emergencies with the same instinct she once used to shield herself.
But healing didn’t come with a uniform. It came with truth, reckoning, and the courage to end the generational cycles that shaped her. Told with raw honesty and quiet hope, this memoir traces Kayla’s journey through trauma, resilience, and the long, often painful work of rebuilding a life not defined by the past.
A story of survival and reclamation, The First Call Was Mine reveals that the first life she learned to save was her own.
When we're young, they teach us how to escape danger, run from the fire, call for help, get to safety. But what if the danger isn’t a moment, it’s your whole life? What if the emergency is the air you breathe, the walls you live in? Because the very first call I ever responded to… was mine."
From as early as I can remember, I knew I wanted something different. Better. Not in a fairytale, dream-big kind of way, but in a deep, quiet sense that the life I was living wasn’t the life I was meant to stay in. I remember thinking, “This can’t be it.” And I held onto that. Through every move, every chaotic night, every slammed door, I clung to that vision of something more stable, more peaceful. I didn’t have the words for it then, but I knew I wanted safety. I wanted calm.
Nothing stayed still for long when I was growing up. Not the houses we lived in, not the people in them, not even the routines that most kids find comfort in. By the time I was ten, I had lived in more places than I could count and mastered the art of packing up my life in minutes. Who needs proper boxes when you’ve got trash bags and survival skills?
The chaos was loud. It came in waves; sometimes subtle, sometimes screaming. But even in the thick of it, I could hear my own voice, small but stubborn: Not this. Not forever.
My younger brother didn’t always understand what was going on, and honestly, that was probably a blessing. I took it upon myself to be his buffer, his translator for the madness. I learned how to distract, to comfort, to lie with love, telling him everything would be okay, even when I wasn’t sure myself. If I couldn’t protect him from the environment, I could at least protect how he felt in it.
That instinct to help, to respond, to fix, it started there. Before the uniform, before the training, before the real 911 calls. The very first emergency I ever handled was ours.
And I survived it with humor. Not the kind that gets you a comedy special, but the kind that keeps you from breaking. If I could laugh, really laugh, then I still had a grip on something. I learned how to spot the absurd in the awful. I could find comedy in chaos. That became my secret weapon. Not everything has to be funny to survive it, but it sure helps.
There are chapters of my life I’d rather not revisit. Some I’ve locked away so tightly it takes effort just to touch them with words. But I’ve decided to open them, not all, not every brutal detail; but the ones that shaped me. The ones that built the woman who finally did get out, who answered that first call, and didn’t stop running until she found something better.
I’m not telling this story just to look back; I’m telling it in case someone else is still living in the emergency. If even one person reads this and realises, “Wait, it’s not just me,” then it’s worth it. Cycles only continue if no one calls them out. I broke mine by first recognising it was there. Maybe, by sharing what I’ve seen, felt, and fought through, someone else will find the courage to break theirs too. You don’t have to stay where you started. You don’t have to carry what was never yours to begin with.
I’m not sure how old I was when this memory first took root; maybe even before I was born. I’ve often wondered how anyone could remember that far back. It feels less like a memory and more like a dream, a moment stitched from something beyond time.
There was a light, a soft, glowing light, that seemed to wrap around me like a blanket. Warm, comforting, alive. And inside that light, I saw her. A close-up of a woman’s face, her hair was bright blonde, flowing around her like it was caught in a gentle breeze, fanning out in waves. Her eyes were piercing blue, the bluest I’ve ever seen, clear and sharp, like they could see everything and nothing all at once. Her face was almost too white to look at, glowing from the brightness of the light itself.
She didn’t say a word. She just looked at me; steady, calm, watching. It wasn’t scary, but powerful. Like the moment held everything I needed without needing to explain it. I’ve always believed she was my guardian angel, if such a thing exists. Maybe she was there, watching over me, right before I took my first breath.
I don’t know where I was, exactly. I don’t know what sounds or faces were around me. But I remember how safe I felt. How the light held me steady when everything else was unknown. Why this memory has stayed with me all my life, I’ll never know. Was it real? Was it a dream? Or maybe something in between. All I know is that it’s the earliest thing I can remember; and it’s vivid enough to remind me, even now, that there was a light waiting for me before I ever had to find my own way.
Little did I know, it would be the calmest and safest my life would ever feel. I was born in Peoria, Illinois, smack dab in the middle of the state, like someone threw a dart at a map and said, “Yep, that’ll do.” It’s not exactly a booming metropolis; more like a medium-sized town surrounded by cornfields that go on forever and probably have more personality than some of the locals. Around here, the trucks are comically oversized, the egos often match, and you can track the seasons by the scent of manure, or the sudden appearance of roadside sweet corn stands. It’s the kind of place where everyone claims to know your business, even if they just made it up for sport.
Peoria is also known for a phrase that’s been tossed around for decades: “Will it play in Peoria?” It’s a question that apparently dates back to the vaudeville era and sometimes gets wrongly credited to Groucho Marx; but it’s stuck. It’s a kind of litmus test, a way of asking whether something will appeal to mainstream America, to the “everyday” people who live there.
But Peoria is diverse. Every year, the city comes alive with festivals celebrating its rich mix of cultures; one example being the Irish Festival held every August. These gatherings bring the community together to honor traditions, music, food, and stories from all over, reminding everyone that there’s more to this place than cornfields and trucks.
Despite everything, Peoria felt like home. I knew every street and all the famous spots, like Emo’s Ice Cream, where the sweet, creamy cones were a small taste of happiness. I could tell you what buildings used to stand where, and I remember the excitement when the “New Mall,” aka Grand Prairie, opened up, the hype around it was real, like the whole city was holding its breath for something new.
I loved Peoria and its people. But even then, beneath all that familiarity and affection, the need to flee, to escape, was always there quiet but persistent, like a shadow you can’t quite shake. I arrived quietly in August; the dog days of summer, when the air hangs heavy and the world feels slow and sticky. My mom always told me that when I came into this world, I was a tough one to wake up. The doctors had to pinch my tiny hands and feet over and over to get me to take that very first breath.
I was a tired baby, what can I say? And honestly, that sleepy streak has stuck with me throughout my life; maybe it’s just my way of telling the world I like to take things slow... or at least hit the snooze button a few extra times. My parents were young when I was born; my dad was just 17, my mom only 19. The day I came into the world is a patchwork of stories, told from both sides of the family, so I never really know which version to believe.
The families didn’t get along, like a small-town version of the Montagues and Capulets, minus the poetry and with way more passive aggressive holiday visits. From the start, I was caught in the crossfire of a cold war I didn’t start and couldn’t win. I’ve heard that the day I was born wasn’t just eventful, it was borderline cinematic. Apparently, there were fights breaking out in the hospital and my mom had already banned my dad from being anywhere near the delivery room. It was less of a serene welcome into the world and more of a chaotic prequel to the life I was about to live. So really, no one should’ve been surprised when I turned out to be a sensitive kid with a flair for the dramatics. By the time I hit my preteens, I was yelling things like, “She’s bleeding to death!” over what turned out to be a barely-there scratch on one of my foster sisters.
It was a hot summer day and we’d been tubing on the lake with my foster parents and their friends. My foster mom loved nothing more than trying to fling us off the tube, apparently, a little tubing childhood trauma is an American rite of passage.
By the time I hit my preteens, I had perfected the art of dramatics. So when my foster mom whipped the boat too close to the bank and sent us straight through a thick patch of reeds, I knew I had my moment. “Ow! I’m dying!” I screamed, clutching my arm where the reeds had left a faint line. One of my foster sisters shrieked, “It’s stinging! I think I’m cut!” I gasped, throwing myself toward her like I was going emergently tournique her “She’s bleeding to death!” I wailed, pointing to her barely-there scratch. From the boat, my foster mom glanced back and rolled her eyes. “Paper cuts, you drama queens,” she shouted over the engine. “You’ll live.” Another sister chimed in, holding up her hand with all the seriousness of a war wound. “Look! Blood!”
I clutched her hand like we were in some kind of ER episode. “Don’t move! Blink twice if you can hear me!” The boat slowed, my foster mom laughing so hard she could barely keep it straight. “You’re not dying, Kayla. It’s a reed, not a shark attack.” I slumped back, sighing heavily. “Well, it feels fatal.”
My emotions always seemed a few sizes too big, bursting out of me whether the situation called for it or not. It would take me years to stop shrinking that part of myself and even longer to realize that being dramatic wasn’t the problem, being told I was, was. From the very beginning, tension was part of the backdrop of my life, an undercurrent that would shape everything that came after. My parents were never married, never stable, and not exactly role models for communication.
My mom grew up in chaos. Her father, my grandfather, was raised in a brutal home himself, one of twelve children, abused by his own stepfather. I met my great-grandmother, his mother, a few times. She terrified me, stern, sharp, and cold. I remember she had all these dolls, porcelain ones with perfect faces, lined up around her house like museum pieces. I wanted to play with them so badly, as any little girl would. But we weren’t even allowed inside her house. Just the covered porch. That was as far as we were allowed to go. She was too worried we’d break something. Too worried we’d ruin the dolls. It’s funny, really. Those dolls were treated like they were more fragile, more valuable, than the actual children standing just outside the door.
The cycle continued with my grandfather. He was mean, controlling, and violent. My grandmother and grandfather were childhood sweethearts who turned into lifelong survivors of each other. That was the example of “love” my mom grew up watching.
He beat his wife and his kids. My mom spent some time in foster care, but I never learned the full story. There was always something unspoken, like a family secret hanging in the background. I think, at some point, I overheard that one of my aunts, the one who always kept her distance, had told someone about his abuse. Maybe it was her way of trying to escape, too. Of warning someone. Like so many things in our family, it was spoken in hushed tones and then quickly buried under years of silence and pretending.
Now I understand why that Aunt kept her distance from everyone. She was surviving in the only way she knew how, by staying away. I later found out my grandfather had also cheated on my grandma and fathered a secret daughter in Florida which had caused years of tension between my grandmother and grandfather.
My mom came from a family of six; one brother and two sisters. Her brother ended up caught in a life of crime, a career criminal whose choices cast a long shadow over the family. One sister moved out of state and struggled with addiction, fighting battles that felt endless. The other sister kept her distance, the quiet anchor of the family, raising two kids and holding things together as best she could. My mother, scarred by the wounds of her own childhood, carried those bruises into our home, wounds that shaped the way she loved, the way she fought, and the way we lived.
I’ve always felt a deep compassion for my mom. She didn’t choose this life, and she certainly didn’t choose to be abused. She was just caught in a cycle; a pattern she believed was normal because it was all she’d ever known. In many ways, she was doing her best to hold the pieces together, even when the pieces were already broken.
My dad’s side of the family was quieter, calmer, and wrapped in mystery. I know he was born in Missouri and has a sister; that’s about all I ever really learned. He was rarely around, but I do remember his parents. They were kind and steady, married for years. My grandma loved gardening and ran a daycare out of their home. That house smelled like dirt and baby lotion, a rare place of softness in a world that often felt hard.
My dad was hardly ever around. He had court-ordered visitations; every other weekend, but most of the time, he didn’t show up. And every other weekend, I sat with my little bag packed, waiting by the door, excited to see him. I did this for years, always hoping this time would be different. But more often than not, the minutes turned into hours, and he never came. Eventually, I stopped packing. I stopped waiting. I stopped hoping. Somewhere in those weekends, I realized he wasn’t coming back; not really.
That was my first heartbreak. My first disappointment in a man. And even though I didn’t have the words for it back then, I carried that disappointment quietly with me, like a weight I didn’t know how to put down.
When I was born, my older half-brother had already been adopted by my grandparents; my mom was just eighteen when she had him. Two years after I came along, my little brother Jonathan was born, and from that moment, we shared a bond that became my anchor. I wasn’t just his sister; I was his protector. I potty-trained him, taught him to ride a bike, and made sure he was okay when everything else wasn’t. I feared losing him every day, and even now, I carry the weight of guilt for not being able to shield him from everything that came our way.
Early memories of “home” were mixed. I remember jumping on my bed with my little brother, singing Creed songs, just two ‘90s kids, voices bouncing off the walls. I used to dress him in my clothes, and he’d play Barbies with me, though I always had to play cars with him in return. We loved watching Disney movies together, sharing the kind of childhood that felt like an escape. I remember my mom telling me that I was always a friendly, well-mannered little girl, the kind who would strike up a conversation with just about anyone. She loved to tell the story of how, one day on the bus, I turned to a complete stranger and proudly declared, “My name is Kayla, and this is my baby brother Jonathan. We take the bus every day!” My mom quickly leaned down and gently reminded me that we shouldn’t talk to strangers. But at that age, I didn’t know what a stranger was. To me, everyone was just a friend I hadn’t met yet.
We lived with our mom, who loved us in her own complicated way but always seemed to love men and money more like she was looking for the love she never received from her father in other men. It was always one boyfriend or another, and we moved constantly, house to house to house, like we were looking for something we never quite found.
One of the places we lived in was a house borrowed from a local church. They let us stay there when we had nowhere else to go. The house wasn’t perfect. It was in rough shape with broken things here and there, thin walls that barely kept out the cold, but it was still in decent condition, it was simply a place to sleep.
My mom didn’t have money to buy us Christmas gifts, but every year, charities would bring presents to the house. As a kid, I thought that was just how Christmas worked; those charities showed up at everyone’s door with gifts to give. I didn’t know it was something special or unusual. Christmas arrived in black trash bags dropped off at the door, and I loved those gifts with all my heart.
One year, when my little brother and I were about six years old and four years old, young enough to believe in Santa, we shared a bed in a tiny room. We went to sleep excited, whispering about what we’d get the next morning. But in the middle of the night, we both woke up terrified.
A low, rumbling snore filled the room. My eyes went wide. I leaned toward my brother and whispered as quietly as I could, “Do you hear that?” He nodded, frozen stiff. “It’s Santa,” he whispered back, barely moving his lips. “He’s right next to us.” I held my breath, too scared to move a muscle. “Don’t look at him,” I hissed. “If we see him, we won’t get any presents.” So we lay there, eyes squeezed shut, hardly daring to breathe, as the snoring went on and on.
The next morning, we realized it wasn’t Santa at all, it was just our stepdad in the next room, snoring like a freight train. We laughed about it for days, retelling the story like we’d survived some great Christmas adventure.
That stepdad was a whole other story. He and my mom fought constantly. One night it got so bad I tried to step in and protect her, kid instincts overriding fear. He shoved me, and I tumbled down the stairs. I remember the fear, the way everything slowed down for a second, and then nothing. Just knowing that I’d tried.
And yet, the same man’s parents treated us like royalty. They’d bring back extravagant gifts from their travels, souvenirs from places I didn’t even know existed. His mom would put on Shirley Temple movies for me, or Snow White, and she even bought me all seven dwarfs as dolls. I can still see them lined up in a neat little row, smiling plastic faces staring back at me, offering a comfort their son never did. Her kindness was a strange contradiction, like a warm blanket laid over a bed of broken glass.
It was impossible for my young mind to make sense of it. One moment, I was tumbling down the stairs in fear, the next I was cuddled up watching movies with gifts in my lap. The whiplash between harm and tenderness taught me early that adults could wear two faces, cruel and kind, sometimes in the same breath.
My mom stayed with him far longer than she should have, but then again, that’s what she thought love looked like. The screaming, the yelling, the hitting. That was her normal. But even as a small child, I knew, deep in my gut, that it didn’t feel like love. It didn’t look like love either.
Another time, in the dead of winter, he locked us out of the house during a fight. The cold cut through my clothes as we stood shivering on the porch. My mom muttered through clenched teeth, “We’re getting inside, no matter what.” She shoved at the window, her breath rising in little white clouds. With one push, the glass gave way, shattering under her hand. “Mom!” I cried, as she stumbled back, clutching her palm. Blood poured down her wrist, dripping fast onto the snow. She gasped, voice trembling. “I’m bleeding!”
I was panicking. My baby brother whimpered beside me, his wide eyes fixed on her hand. “Give me your shirt!” I shouted at him, yanking the little cotton tee over his head and buttoning back up his coat before he even had the chance to argue. I pressed it hard against her palm. “Hold still, Mom!” She winced when I tied the tee tight around her hand.
The blood soaked through fast, warm against my freezing fingers. My heart pounded. “Go get the neighbors,” she said, voice shaky. I bolted barefoot down the icy steps, the snow biting into my skin with every step. I banged loudly on the neighbors door. When the neighbor opened the door, I gasped, “Please, she’s hurt! Call 911!” They pulled us inside, the warmth hitting me all at once. My brother clung to my arm as the sirens wailed in the distance.
Years later, as a paramedic, I found myself kneeling beside a woman who had fallen through glass. Her hand was shredded, blood dripping just like my mom’s that winter night. Only this time, I wasn’t a barefoot child in a panic. I was steady, calm, and trained. I looked her in the eyes and said the words I wished someone had said to me back then: “I’m here to help.”
I wrapped her hand tight, just as I had done with my mom’s, and in that moment, the parallel hit me like a wave. Helping wasn’t something I learned in school, it had been stitched into me years before, in the snow, with my little brother shivering beside me and my mother bleeding through cotton. She did eventually divorce this step-dad, but chaos didn’t take a break. My mom cycled through men like most people cycle through TV channels. Sometimes she’d even get back with an ex, and it was like stepping back into the same nightmare.
School was my favorite kind of escape. It had structure, routines, rules. It made sense. But it wasn’t easy. I loved going, but I hated the embarrassment of being behind. My mom never worked with us on learning at home. I didn’t know how to read or write. I couldn’t even count to 100. I remember the sting of sitting in class, trying to disappear into the desk when it was my turn to read aloud or solve a math problem.
Of course, even school wasn’t completely safe from home bleeding into it. One day, my mom got arrested outside school for fighting another kid’s mom in the parking lot. The argument? Orange juice. I had spilled some in a car during a carpool ride. The other mom asked if we could help with the cleanup. My mom responded with fists. From the school office window, I pressed my nose to the glass. Outside, my mom was screaming, her voice rising above the crowd.
“Don’t talk about my kid like that!” she shouted, lunging forward. The other mom shot back, “It was just juice! You’re insane!” Teachers rushed in, trying to pull them apart, but fists were already flying. My brother tugged at my sleeve, his voice small. “Why’s Mom yelling like that?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered, though my stomach already knew. I always knew not to push Mom. Not to test her. She didn’t control her emotions well. Then came the flashing lights. The officers moved fast, stepping between the women. “Ma’am, that’s enough!” one barked. My mom yanked her arm, still thrashing. The officer twisted her hands behind her back. The metallic click of handcuffs echoed across the lot. My brother’s eyes went wide. “… they’re taking her. Why are they taking her?” His voice shook, on the edge of tears.
I tried to sound steady, though I felt just as lost. “I think… I think they’re just stopping the fight.” We both froze as they walked her to the squad car. She kept yelling, “I didn’t do anything wrong!” before the door slammed shut behind her.
My brother pressed his forehead to the glass, tears spilling down his cheeks. “She’s not bad. Where are they taking her?” he whispered, as if saying it out loud would change the scene. I wanted to believe him, but I couldn’t stop staring at the image seared into me: my mom, cuffed and shoved into the back of a police car, while everyone watched.
That was the kind of life it was. Any small thing could erupt. No place was immune to chaos. Life with my mom was like that, unpredictable, combustible. I remember once at Walmart, a woman glanced in our direction, and my mom swore she’d muttered something under her breath. Before I even knew what was happening, my mom had charged at her, shouting, fists flying, while carts clattered and people backed away to stare. The woman hadn’t said a word, but that didn’t matter. Any small thing could ignite into an explosion. But through it all, I kept showing up, quietly, awkwardly, and with more resilience than anyone could see.
Sometimes, when my mom couldn’t find someone to watch us, she’d take us to work with her. First at the gas station, then later at Burger King. We weren’t allowed out where customers could see us, so she’d tuck us away in the employee bathroom or office, out of sight. She even brought a little TV for us to watch. On school nights, if she had the overnight shift, that’s where we’d sleep, curled up on the cold tile with our blanket of a Burger King or gas station, the hum of the fluorescent lights buzzing above us.
But there were moments that made it all feel okay. Like my second grade “boyfriend.” That term was generous; we mostly just sat next to each other at lunch and blushed when people teased us. His friends liked to poke fun, but he never stopped being kind to me.
One winter day, I showed up to school without a coat. I was freezing and pretending not to be. He didn’t say a word; just handed me his coat. It was a simple gesture, but I remember it more vividly than most things from that time. His coat smelled like laundry detergent and safety. That act of kindness stayed folded up in my memory like a note tucked into a backpack.
And then, just like that, I disappeared. When I was pulled from school and placed in foster care, I didn’t get to say goodbye. No final lunch together, no explanation. Just gone.
Years passed. Then one day, sophomore year of high school, there he was. We were in the same class, both sitting a few rows apart. I didn’t recognize him until the teacher started roll-call and his name was said, my head snapped up before I could stop myself. He looked up too, like the sound of my name had tugged a memory loose.
After roll-call was finished, he leaned over his desk toward mine.
“Kayla?” His voice was cautious, like he wasn’t sure. I nodded, a small smile breaking through. “Yeah. It’s me.” His eyes lit up. “I knew it. You just… vanished.” “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I had to leave. Foster care.” The room buzzed with students whispering, shuffling papers, but in that moment it felt like it was just the two of us. “I always wondered what happened to you,” he said. I hesitated, then admitted, “I never forgot you. You were kind to me. More than you probably even realized.” He gave a little smile. “The coat?” I nodded. “The coat.”
It struck me then how different we looked sitting across the room now, him with broad shoulders, clean-cut, the kind of guy who probably fit in anywhere. Me, with black eyeliner and chipped nail polish, trying to blend into the shadows. But none of that seemed to matter. What mattered was that he remembered, and that he still looked at me the same way he had back then, without judgment. Just understanding. And in that moment, we both got a little closure. No second-grade romance rekindled, but a connection rediscovered and somehow, that was enough.
Looking back now, it’s strange how many of those memories come with a split-screen effect, pain on one side, something tender or funny on the other. The chaos was real, but so was the courage it built in me, moment by moment.
I didn’t have words for it then, but I was learning what it meant to survive. To problem-solve. To take care of someone else before you even knew how to take care of yourself. I was learning how to stay soft when the world around me was hard.
This wasn’t the kind of childhood you’d choose. But it made me into someone who could show up in the hardest moments, first for others, eventually for myself. And that, I would come to realize, was no small thing.
Kay Blake's memoir has everything that I like about a real life recount. It has the confrontation of the past and the troubles that the person has faced; it has candour in its examination of the experiences and the resolutions reached, if that applies; it has humour, recognition, a humbleness to it and an appreciation of where that person is now and a true acknowledgement of the things that shaped them.
Kay Blake's life starts off with a lack of parental support and soon, being shifted from place to place and having to deal with being separated from her brother, her life seemingly takes a further turn into darker territory when she is given a placement in foster care. But for Kay, she actually finds herself in the first place that has given her stability and which provides her with a foundation on which to build a life all of her own.
There are ups and downs and Kay has a greater struggle than most with a severe lack of confidence and the influence of early role models whose bare input set the tone for her analysis of self i.e. to view things negatively, to think herself worthless, etc.
But what is resounding about Kay's memoir is not the pain that has been inflicted on her but the way that she has taken what she has learnt and been defiant in the face of those who would crush her. Sure, she's had battles but this is a book about rising above it, even though it may take all of your effort to do it and it may feel like the push-back has more strength than you could ever muster.
This book has dark moments but Kay doesn't want you to feel pity - she wants you to feel empowered. She wants to share her life with you so that if you are in the same place as she is or have been where she has been, then you can see a way through. She does this with an honest voice and a likability that makes you feel like you're in the company of a friend, and that she is reflecting what she has learnt from the best supporters in her life and passing on that nurture and advice to pay it forward.
An uplifting read of redemption and strength in the face of relentless obstacles.