Looking for the light

The odds were stacked against Kaitlin Jarman from day one.

Born to a mother addicted to drugs, she was immediately put into the foster care system. She was adopted as an infant but grew up in an abusive household, darkness lurking in the corners, threatening to overwhelm the young girl.

But her spirit was strong, and her faith was unyielding. Fueled by raw emotion and boundless energy, Jarman always focused on the positive as she set out to build her own life, graduating from Texas A&M University in 2022 and the dental hygiene program at Texas A&M School of Dentistry in 2024.

“There’s this saying, if you look for the light, you’ll often find it, and if you look for the dark, you’ll never see the light. I’m just always looking at what’s going to be positive,” she said. “I’m searching for the good in any situation.”

Jarman, who grew up in Oklahoma, entered the Texas foster care system at birth and was adopted by her foster mother when she was 3 months old. The family, which then included an older and younger brother, both of whom were adopted, moved to Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, when Jarman was 3 years old.

Jarman was adopted and grew up in a single-parent household. Her mother died when Jarman was just 17, and as the teenager cleaned out her mother’s house, she found three huge envelopes, one each for herself and her two brothers, both of whom were also adopted.

Through the years, her mother repeatedly told Jarman she knew nothing of her birth parents, but as Jarman tore into the envelope, she discovered it was a lie. Inside were 22 photos of herself and her birth parents and paperwork related to her court cases and previous foster homes.

“It was everything I had ever asked about,” Jarman said. “I was shocked.”

She discovered that she was born two months premature, and her mother was incarcerated at the time of her birth. There were six drugs in her system when she was born, and she spent several weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit as the medical team managed her withdrawals. Through information in the paperwork, Jarman eventually connected with her grandmother and learned that her birth mother was also adopted and sadly, she passed away in 2006.

Jarman said her adoptive mother “tried her best to be a great mom,” but she struggled raising three kids on her own. When Jarman was in sixth grade, her mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

“She became an abusive mom – emotionally, physically and mentally,” Jarman said. “It was something she couldn’t really control. She had a mental illness, but I didn’t understand that as a young child. It was just really confusing, and my home life was not great at all.”

Just two years after the bipolar diagnosis, her mother was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer, which required chemotherapy and radiation every week. By this time, Jarman and her two brothers were working to pay the household bills and keep the family afloat.

“It was just a lot,” Jarman said. “Looking back now, I think ‘I really did so much when I was younger.’ I didn’t realize the depth of it. I didn’t realize what I was going through. It was just really hard because my mom was mean to us, but she was so sick, too, so I wanted to take care of her and help her. But she was so mean to me, it was a really hard dynamic that we had to end up working through.”

When Jarman was 16, the situation with her mother reached a breaking point. Jarman had been away for a week at camp, and when she returned, she said her mother was in “one of her manic, depressive moods and she freaked out on me.”

Jarman said she never fought back when her mother attacked her, but that night she pushed her mother off of her and told her she could no longer live this way. Her mother took her phone and kicked her out of the house, which Jarman said was not uncommon.

Jarman had three jobs at the time and missed a few days of work before finally being able to use her brother’s phone and reach out to one of her employers, a local attorney.

“I was a nanny to her kids and also assisted in her law office,” Jarman said. “She picked me up but instead of going to work, we went to the courthouse where she sat me down and said she was taking guardianship of me.”

Jarman was stunned at first but warmed to the idea, as she was encouraged to take this step for herself, enabling her to build her own life.

“In that moment, all I could think was that I had been praying the same prayer for seven years: Lord, protect me and take me away from this hurtful place, and it was getting answered right then through a random lady that I had known for a month,” Jarman said. “We went to my house and started packing up my room with everything on my comforter, like Santa Claus.”

Jarman tried to convince her younger brother to come with her, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave. One month after moving in with her new family, Jarman’s adoptive mother called and said her doctors told her she had less than 12 months to live. Although it did not lure Jarman back home, as her mother hoped, it did lead to them reconnecting.

“I told her I couldn’t move back home because I wasn’t safe there. I knew I couldn’t do that,” Jarman said. “But the winter of my senior year, she asked me to come over, and we just sat on the couch for three hours, and my mom apologized for everything she’d ever done to me. It was three hours of us forgiving each other because I was also in the wrong. I did things that weren’t glorifying to the Lord; I was rude and mean because I’m a teenager and I’m not perfect.”

Jarman said that was the start of the relationship she’d longed for with her mom. She started going to her mother’s house almost every day after school and hanging out. Her mother was in a much better place mentally, Jarman said, allowing them to genuinely get to know each other.

By this time, her mother’s cancer had metastasized, and she had decided to discontinue chemotherapy. She attended Jarman’s high school graduation in May 2018 and passed away in June.

Two days later Jarman left for her New Student Conference at Texas A&M University.

“It was so sad,” Jarman said. “Kristen, my [new guardian] mom now, and I didn’t say a word to each other in the car. We literally just sat in silence because she didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t know what to say. I mean, my mom was not the ideal best mom, but it was still so sad and just really hard.”

There was a time when Jarman did not think she’d attend college. With no financial or personal support, it seemed out of reach, but after joining her new family, she discovered she was eligible for a state college tuition waiver through the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. The waiver is a state law that exempts or waives payment of tuition and fees at state supported colleges or universities for foster youth currently or formerly in the conservatorship of DFPS and for those adopted from DFPS.

Jarman’s freshman year at Texas A&M was difficult. In addition to adjusting to the rigor of college classes, she was a bundle of raw emotion in the wake of her mother’s death and the preceding tumultuous years.

“I wasn’t sure if I could go to dental hygiene school because I failed chemistry my freshman year,” Jarman said, “and I didn’t think I was cut out for it. But I retook chemistry and got an A in it. I did great.”

Still unsure of her career path, Jarman changed her major a few times before graduating Texas A&M with a Bachelor of Science in Architecture. She decided to go ahead and pursue dental hygiene school, but at this point, she didn’t have the numerous science prerequisites to apply, so she knocked them all out in one summer.

“I took 25 hours one summer,” she said. “It was during COVID, and all the classes were online … I just studied constantly.”

Even after being accepted, Jarman wasn’t sure if she’d like dental hygiene school, but after the first week, she thought “this is where I’m supposed to be.” Jarman said what appeals to her most is working one-on-one with people and building relationships with patients as a care provider.

“People walk in with so many things – different stories, different culture backgrounds, different things that they’re struggling with and dealing with – and sometimes they just want to talk,” she said. “I just really love the relational aspect of it … instead of sitting in an office cubicle and doing the same thing every day.”

Leigh Ann Nurick, executive director of the hygiene program, said Jarman “seemed set apart for something greater” from the first time she met her.

“This girl is otherworldly. She is unshakable and is not moved – no matter the circumstance,” Nurick said. “It’s almost like she was on a path that could have destroyed her, but somehow it was used for good.”

Jarman acknowledges there were many things in her life that could have gone the opposite way, and no one would have blamed her for making different choices.

“My faith has a lot to do with it because I could not do this on my own,” she said. “My strength and joy comes from the Lord; it does not come from these earthly circumstances. If it did, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today.”

After graduation, Jarman is getting married in June and plans to work in private practice in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. She continues to look for the positive in every situation, and although life can still be overwhelming, she said the good days far outweigh the bad. Jarman looks forward to having a family of her own one day and providing her children the life she never had growing up.

“Honestly, I just wanted to break the cycle,” she said. “Praise the Lord for protecting me and guiding me. I’m thankful the Lord gave me the will to move forward and a brain to keep pushing on. There’s a reason I walked through all these things and someday, somehow, I’m going to be able to help someone else.”