From a Note to a Novel

By Sinnaj

I choose . . . to live by choice, not by chance. To make changes, not excuses. To be motivated, not manipulated. To be useful, not used. To excel, not compete. I choose self-esteem, not self-pity. I choose to listen to my inner voice. Not the random opinion of others (author unknown).

I believe that this quote exemplifies who I am. I am a God-fearing woman that has faced many challenges in my life, yet I am encouraged to push forward. I firmly believe in faith, family, and pursing my dreams. I am always hopeful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Feb 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781466990968

Sinnaj

Author was born in Manning, South Carolina, on December 18, 1964. She was one of six children to her parents, Floyd and Bertie Briggs. She has one sister and four brothers. She was educated in the public schools in Columbia, South Carolina. She is a visionary and passionate in her pursuit of happiness. She married Marcus, the love of her life, in 1998 and is now widowed and raising their three children on her own in northern Georgia.

Book preview

Falling into Place

My children are fruit of my labor. Everything I do, they see. Everything I say, they hear. And anything they become is a direct result of the teachings they receive.

Ordinary people do extraordinary things every day. But usually, there is no media attention to those people, and the things they do go unnoticed.

My life is an adventure, and I treat it as such. No day is the same, and I like it that way. I need spontaneity. I like figuring out what to do, whom to see, and where to go next. To some, it might sound frustrating and complicated, but to me, it spells ADVENTURE!

When Nicholas passed away, time stopped. All the plans we made stopped. All the places we would go stopped. All the things we would do stopped. IT WASN’T FAIR! Nobody asked me anything about anything concerning Nicholas never coming home again! I was just left with the result of a decision. God, didn’t you know how much I needed this man? Didn’t you know how much my children needed their father? How were we to survive? Who was going to take care of us? Why! Why! Why!

Immediately following the news of Nicholas’s demise, family and friends made their way over. My house was flooded with mourners, well-wishers, deceptive personalities, information seekers, and people just wanting to know or see how the kids and I would handle and manage the loss of our loved one. It wasn’t at all a good day. In fact, it was quite disheartening to finally see how much certain family members loathed me. This was the time I needed them the most to stand with me and hold my hand. Some of my in-laws began removing items from my house without a thought or care for how I would feel about it. There was a time I thought I would have to get totally out of character to be understood.

The coroner brought over Nicholas’s personal effects in a big manila envelope. It seemed cruel that the bounty of his beautiful presence was reduced to a few almost insignificant items in the bottom of a manila envelope. I instructed my sister to put those items in the drawer of my nightstand for safekeeping. Inside the envelope was his Citadel ring, his wallet housing his checkbook and credit cards, and his belt. Nicholas was a buyer at a manufacturing plant, and the limit on his work credit card was in the millions. It was all I had left, and I wasn’t in the frame of mind to concentrate on what little the items seemed to be in that moment.

Amid all the chaos of people rummaging through all the drawers in the house, looking for God knows what, I began to remember the things Nicholas shared with me concerning a certain someone feeling like I was trying to trap him into marriage, how he shouldn’t marry a woman who already had a child, how he could do so much better with the girl they loved who attended their church years before. By the way they were acting, it was as if they had opened Pandora’s box, and every spiteful situation I was ever the butt of came rushing to the forefront. In fact, two weeks before his death, Mattie masterminded a plan to have an old girlfriend call our house looking to speak with him. I felt totally disrespected. She gave no thought to what she might be doing to hurt me. From the start of our relationship, she remained disrespectful.

I wouldn’t have minded Nicholas catching up on the phone with his old loves—HE WAS MY HUSBAND, and I was secure in my ability to please my man. It was just the way she went about it. She was notorious about calling Nicholas, asking for money and hoping it would be a transaction made without my knowledge. Hello! Mattie handled the money in her household. Nobody was ever going to pull anything from their finances without her knowledge and consent. I required the same respect from her. She always tried to use That’s my brother, and I can ask him for anything! My response was always You can ask, but we’ll both give you an answer. She always thought her position in his life was far greater than mine as his wife. I wondered how women with husbands can feel that way. My resolve was everyone will get a turn at the wheel. We were experiencing my time and I was determined to go through the turbulence of that time as a good soldier. That part would have been fine by itself, but my time was fused with having to look over my shoulders for every move I made because, friend, I had an enemy in the camp. And that enemy was trying very hard to take me out.

He died early Palm Sunday morning. By Tuesday, friends and family were being received at the grandmother’s house where he grew up, as if that was now my husband’s home. Here I was, experiencing the biggest heartache of my life, needing so much support from these people, when all I got was a turned head and blatant disrespect. Mattie even brought an old girlfriend of his to my house and gave her a tour of the house to show her how we were living—how crazy was that? It gets better…

On the afternoon of his death, at the beginning of making funeral arrangements, I asked the funeral director if I could see him one more time before they did anything to him, and he granted my request. After I made my request known, everyone else wanted to do the same thing. I wanted to look into the face of my loved one once more and try, if I could, to imagine by the looks of him what he had gone through in his final moments. As you might guess, it was a sorrowful event.

On the ride back to the house, I climbed in the truck with his two sisters and their husbands. I was seated in the middle row on the left passenger window, and there was a legal pad resting on the hump between the seats. When Jim turned the curb, the legal pad fell to the side, and there, underneath, was my husband’s checkbook and credit cards, both his work and personal. Someone had carefully removed those items from my nightstand drawer. Why? What need would anyone outside our household have for these items? And if Nicholas’s work credit card had gone missing and charges would have been made, I’d have been thought to be responsible. It wasn’t a good look.

When I asked who had taken those items, his sister Mattie gave me a lame excuse about looking for his social security number. Again, why? I hope by now you can see how the wall had been built. Oh, but wait, on the night of his wake, people began entering the funeral home, and a lot of them graciously brought envelopes for us that Mattie was collecting. When I reached out to her for the envelopes, she put them behind her back and said, These are for Mommy! and quickly ran away with the treasure in those envelopes.

It was another jab I had to take, another slap in the face from which I had to turn the other cheek, another episode of You’re not worthy of this good thing. So I let them have it. I thought if it’s money they’re after, let them have it. If what were in those envelopes help them cope with the loss of a loved one, let them have it. I was sure the children and I would be just fine. As a little girl, I knew that whatever I would go through in life, as long as I could endure it, I’d be all right. And that is still the confidence I stand on today.

Beauty, thistle and thorn

In August of 2004 my brother Samuel became ready to take on life with a wife, her name is Melody and she’s a soulful, loving, talented, and dutiful songbird. He was ready for marriage so he asked if they could have their wedding at my house. I agreed and put plans in motion to make things happen for their beautiful day. Since my people were so good at planning and catering I decided to ask them to help me pull it all together and they said yes. I was surprised that they were so eager to assist. Everything was beautiful and the food was equally exquisite. Everybody was happy, especially the bride and groom. But I did not know what was to follow the happiness.

A few days later I began to see trails of ants seeming to come from everywhere in my kitchen. And then there was this foul odor in the air that I couldn’t quite figure out. Days later I found a brown paper bag lying beside the dryer in the laundry room. It had raw chicken parts in it, and boy did it stink! This made me very nervous