SECTION ONE
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Train up a child in the way he should go:and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
(Proverbs 22:6)

INTRODUCTION

In the beginning of my process of change, it came and did not care if I welcomed it or not. This section is the story of my upbringing and how important a role it played in my life. I would be remiss if I did not start from the beginning, although the memoirs came first. As I changed into adulthood, I thought I knew what I wanted. I thought I had what all young adults think they have—the right insight and perspective, and in the right order, mind you. This section demonstrates a youthful awareness of how life changes and how my life changed and how this affected everything. Change was happening, and I was simply reacting to the change, but with absolutely no direction. The purpose of the change was slowly being revealed, but my carnal eyes could not see.

Chapter 1: In the Beginning

You could say that I had a pretty good upbringing. Back then, I did not think about it at all. My world revolved around my mom, my sisters, my brothers, and our small suburban housing development. My mom told me what to be, and that is what I dreamed of becoming. She said things like, “There’s not a person on this earth better than you, and you, young lady, are no better than anyone else”; “Work hard and do what is right”; “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” She taught us to stand up for ourselves and what we believed in. She taught us not to be afraid of anything and the value of getting an education. For the most part, she showed us how not to give up, how to get back up again and again when you fall, and to keep going no matter what. She taught us that quitters never win, and winners never quit. She led by example. My mom never gave up, no matter how much she hurt, no matter how much she endured. She never gave up on us or on life. Of course, I did not realize this until I started going through my own life experiences. I just thought my mom was immovable, invincible, unstoppable, and tough as nails. Little did I know that even when you are all those things, life still hurts! I was and still am inspired today to have a mother like mine and so thankful for that upbringing.

My mother made me learn and recite the “Serenity Prayer” over and over again. This included before meals, at bedtime, and any other time it seemed appropriate. I recited it probably a million times in my young life. But back then, it just seemed like something that I knew and something that I said to get praise at dinner or to impress my mother’s friends and to make her proud of me. Little did I know that it would play such an integral role in everything I did in my life. Little did I know that it would take me down and over the paths that were set before me. What is instilled in you as a child carries with you throughout your lifetime. It is what shapes our personalities, our drive, our character, and even our goals in life—everything.

My mother was a strong woman and did not tolerate much ignorance. She was a firm believer in discipline and appropriate behavior. I knew she loved us back then, and as I reflect back to those times, I know for a fact she did her very best to guide us in the right direction. Now, whether we always followed that direction or not is an entirely different story. My mother was very stern and authoritative (as am I), and when she spoke, we listened. She spent most of her time with us, working for us, feeding us, teaching us, talking to us, or playing games with us. I have fond memories of playing board games, jack rocks, baseball, kickball, volleyball, and watching television game shows with Mother. We loved Ponderosa, Eight Is Enough, Good Times, and, of course, our all-time favorites Jeopardy and The Price Is Right. These are just a few things we did together when Mom was not working.

Mom didn’t date much, but a lot of times we ended up in the back seat at drive-in movies with her and her date. I remember once at the drive-in I won a huge jar of popcorn with candy hot balls (as we called them). The jar was about as big as I was. We were so happy. With five of us, it did not last very long, though. For a little girl, winning that was an awesome feat, and it is still one of my favorite memories. I cherish the fond memories, and still today we play Scrabble, Trouble, and watch Jeopardy together every chance we get.

Life as I knew it was good. Of course, we had our share of problems like most families, but we held it together and loved each other in spite of everything. We knew Mom would be there no matter what, and it felt wonderful growing up with such an awesome, supportive mother. There were times in my teenage years I certainly didn’t appreciate her being there and setting curfews, but now that I look back, I am glad she did. I am glad she laid down the law and demanded that we follow it.

I have been told and reminded many times of things that I do not remember or things that I choose not to remember, as someone put it. I guess these things are on the dark side of our upbringing. Maybe I have subconsciously blocked out the things I choose not to remember, but I am not sure. It seems so pointless in my life to ponder over things that I consider a normal part of one’s upbringing, and even more pointless to ponder over things that supposedly happened that I absolutely cannot remember. Of course we were spanked, we got scolded, we had a lot of responsibility (cooking, cleaning, etc.), and no, my mother was not the sweet, permissive mother I would have liked to have had back then; but what matters most is that we were fed, clothed, and taken care of immaculately, and that is no lie. We were taught everything in this world on how to survive and make it. We had the best example, and that example still shines brightly in my mind today. This is what I know, and those are my thoughts and memories. I have pondered over my upbringing for years. Nothing bad happened, and my mother was the reason for that. She was on the case. That is why I think to this day I have been able to be the mother I have been to my children. Now, that is not to say that my mother has been perfect and certainly not to say that I have been perfect. I mean, I can remember sometimes when my mother yelled, fussed, and tore our behinds up. I can remember sometimes when I yelled too much, fussed entirely too much, and tore up some behinds myself. I guess back then it came with the territory. Although, I must admit I would certainly do things so much differently if I had to do it all over again, and I believe my mother would do it differently also. At this point, she probably would not admit that.

Discipline was not negotiable back then—not in my world, anyway—and bad behavior was definitely not tolerated. I did not appreciate it back then, and as I got older I really grew to resent it all. However, as an adult with children of my own, I know that discipline is very much lacking in this generation, and it is very obvious. I would say it contributes to over sixty-five percent of the issues we have with young people today. But some will say the way my mother and I disciplined was too harsh and that we stripped away so much from our young people. Now, for the most part, our children are saying, “I will never be such a harsh disciplinary as my parents.” They are sparing the rod and definitely spoiling the child. Two generations, two extremes. Lord, have mercy.

I guess the only thing negative that I can say as far as my upbringing is concerned is that we grew up without a father. When I think about most of my friends and the other families in my world, the majority of us were fatherless. Therefore, I did not feel burdened down with thoughts of where the father figure was or where my own father was. He was a mystery man that came around occasionally and gave us a dollar or two and then disappeared until the next time we saw him. I do not remember calling anyone “Daddy,” not even him. It is mind-boggling even now to think that as important as fathers are in children’s lives, I had no thoughts of or longings for my father, or a father, or so I thought. Today, as a mature woman, I know that there had to be some kind of void there, but at the time it seemed so unimportant. Little did I know back then that just as things we are taught shape us, unfortunately the very things we have no control of also play an important role in shaping our very being. Imagine having genes and DNA from someone that you do not even know and possibly picking up traits and characteristics from this elusive “father.” Imagine trying to understand who you are and why you exist and why you act and laugh and feel the way you do. Even though it didn’t really seem to matter growing up, it did.

As I grew older, I knew there was something in me that motivated me—something that made me confront my issues and keep going. When I was a teenager, my mom always encouraged me and always told me how beautiful I was. I smile when I think about that, because I was horribly skinny and I also had a lazy eye. I had gone through two eye surgeries as a child, but neither completely corrected the problem. The funny thing is that it did not really bother me or stop me from enjoying my childhood, nor did it make me feel different from anyone else. I had my share of friends and grew up very outspoken. Sometimes I was too outspoken, and that brought my mother to school on several occasions to rescue me from myself. I really did not have too much of a complex about my eyes except when I was teased. That’s when I would actually remember that my eyes were a little different from everyone else’s. I cannot remember ever crying about my eyes, but I do remember getting my feelings hurt. But no matter what, my mother told me I was beautiful, and that is what I believed. The older I got, the less I cared about the name-calling, although it did catch me off guard most of the time when someone tried to insult me. But life went on. I had my share of puppy-love crushes and friends, and was always complimented and told I was pretty. When I looked in the mirror, I did not see what the others saw, I guess, and certainly did not see any type of handicap or anything that would keep me from being as confident and self-assured as anyone else.

As a junior in high school, I was nominated to be a debutante and attended some of the elite training classes that led up to the main event. But I dropped out because I thought all the other girls were snotty and all that etiquette training was for the birds. I think that was the first time I disappointed my mother. I loved tennis, volleyball, gymnastics, track, and basketball. I was an athlete and very competitive in sports. I still love sports after all these years. I was not thinking about the opportunities and exposure at that time.

I graduated from high school at age eighteen, and life went on. I really did not know what I was going to do with my life. I had a three-month-old that I adored. I brought a child into the world, only to realize afterward that the father and I were not going to stay together. The relationship with him seemed pointless to me, so I moved on. I got a job and started raising my daughter. Times were hard, but Mom was there all the time. She adored my daughter too. It was her second grandchild and first granddaughter. I really wanted to go to school and become a nurse, but that vision was slowly slipping away because I was a young mother working and taking care of an infant. The father was in college at the time and provided little financial support. He was my first actual boyfriend and my first sexual partner. I dated him for three years. When my daughter turned one year old, I officially broke up with him and started dating someone else. He was devastated, but I knew that as I had gotten older, he was not the one I really wanted to be with. Life as I knew it changed.

Things that didn’t really seem to matter began to haunt me. For the first time in my life, I really began to worry about how I was going to raise my daughter. I worried that she would grow up fatherless like me and what that really meant. I began to wonder if not having a father myself had anything to do with me being so nonchalant about getting pregnant so young and about breaking up with my daughter’s father. I also started to wonder about my father. I heard my mother talk about him and of course I saw him occasionally throughout my childhood, but I didn’t know him or anything about him. My mother would often say that I looked and acted just like him. I did not know if that was good or bad or if it was okay or not. I actually did not know how to be most of the time, because I really felt uncomfortable when she said that. I did not know much about my mother and father, but I know that they were never married and he had other children. Sadly, I do not know my sisters or brothers on my father’s side. My mother raised her children up as a tight–knit, close family, and we were all brothers and sisters, no questions asked. However, I knew that my father was also my youngest brother’s father, and as for my other siblings, well, I really did not know who their fathers were.

Growing up, that never entered my mind, nor did I entertain any thoughts of that nature. But now, I began to question what I was doing and where I was going. It seemed I was going nowhere fast, and that I was going to end up with a dead-end job in a dead-end town. How could this happen? After all, I had so many hopes and dreams, but having so much responsibility at nineteen made my dreams seem unobtainable. All the changes in my life over the past year, graduating high school, having a child, and having to support and take care of a child made me afraid and anxious, and I began to worry. A lot.

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