Her Unseen Life

By Shannon Richards

Ever felt all alone or abandoned? Were you bullied or picked on in school? Have you always desired a better relationship with your parents? Or have you been in an abusive relationship and didn't know if it was worth saving? Shannon Richards has...

Because her parents were in jail for the majority of her childhood, Shannon's great aunt raised her. As a result, Shannon grew up learning the ropes of adolescence the hard way, and as an adult, she struggled with abusive relationships and even doubted her ability to raise a child. But through perseverance, Shannon navigated the pitfalls of life and found a way to come out shining.

Her Unseen Life is the new release from author Shannon Richards. In this memoir share all of Shannon's personal ups and downs while she encounters life from every angle. Journey with her to find out how she makes it through the good, the bad, and the ugly as she sails through life's most difficult storms.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781365927683

Book preview

Her Unseen Life

HER UNSEEN LIFE

SHANNON N. RICHARDS

Copyright

Copyright © 2017 by Shannon Richards

Cover design by Amy Herman

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

First printing: 2017

ISBN: 978-1-365-92768-3

Shannon Richards

Edited by Your Editing Pro (YEP): www.youreditingpro.net

Some names have been changed in the writing of this memoir.

Dedication

For my dear daughter Lauryn, Mommy's ace...

Acknowledgments

This book is to my ace Lauryn to let her know that Mommy has never been perfect, but she's always done what she had to do to get things accomplished. This also goes out to any teens in a situation that they don't know how to get out of, or to those who have or had parents in prison and didn't know how to cope with the challenges that come with it.

I thank God for being foremost in my life. Lord, I thank you for family, friends, and all my mistakes. And I even thank you for the messed up relationships I had in the past. Without them, I would not have been able to develop into the woman I became today.

To my loving family, I want to say thank you for always being supportive of me and for being my rock. To my Aunt Renee, brother Courtney, sisters Sherri, Bren, and Robin, and cousin Lashunda, I want you to know that I truly love you all.

Thanks to the roots of my family, Louise and Peggy Anne, for taking a huge part in raising me to be the woman I am. May you forever rest in beautiful paradise.

Thanks to my Great Aunt Nelt for always believing in me and raising me to be the great person I am. May you also forever rest in paradise.

Thanks to my parents, Robert Williams and Denise Richards, for being an example of strength and for being my platform to help others in similar situations. I love you both dearly.

Thanks to my loving friends who played a part in my book and the others too for their support and for pushing my dreams into fruition. Specifically, I want to say thanks to my girl Angela for pushing me until I birthed my dream of putting my life struggles into a book.

Chapter 1

This is not your ordinary book. Things are all over the place, but in the end it comes together. That's how my life has been, in crumbles, but it all came together at the end...

My story isn't one of sexual abuse, drug or alcohol addiction. And my story isn't about me turning to a life of crime as the result of my parents being incarcerated for the majority of my childhood. My story is, however, one of triumph because of a strong black family foundation that came in the form of inspiring relatives and supportive true friends.

You've probably heard the stories before:

A child is born into a family of drug abusers or drug dealers or both.

The parents constantly get high off of drugs or always get drunk in front of the watchful eyes of their innocent children.

The parents mess up and sell drugs to an undercover cop. The parents go to jail, leaving the young kids to grow up bouncing around in the foster care system and to eventually follow down the same dark path the parents went down. A life of hard drugs and being in and out of the prison system befalls on the children. They are now statistics.

They might be statistics, and my story might appear to be similar, but I am not a statistic. And my daughter will never be one.

I want people to understand that just because I smile and laugh on the outside doesn't mean that my life has always been peaches and cream. It's not always the happy Shannon that you'll come across.

I've just been through so much before I was able to smile, but through it all, I realize that I had to go through in order to one day get through. My life happened the way it did for a reason. These situations and unfortunate events happened to me so I could go forth and be able to tell my testimony.

This is it...

***

One of my earliest memories is from when I was six years old. I was with my great aunt and great grandmother, and I recall a white man went off around a corner walking with my mom.

That day, I clearly recall Grandma saying, Come on. We gotta take your mama somewhere.

It had to be in Greenville, South Carolina. I'm not sure.

But I do remember us arriving there at the facility. We walked with my mama to a certain point, and then the man took her off. At my young age of six, I didn't know if it was a probation officer or what.

And at that age, you surely don't think about prison as being the place where your parent is heading off to.

I believe I asked, Where's my mama going?

I'll never forget my great aunt Nelt's response, Oh, you'll get to see her again. She's coming back.

But I didn't see my mama again for six months.

Every other week my great grandma and Aunt Nelt took my brother and me to the prison to see our mom. Things about the environment didn't hit me until we got older and were going to see her and she was dressed in an orange jumpsuit. Now that's when it started to sink in that we were inside of a prison.

My mama was locked up...

I'll never forget the day a strange white woman told me that she was in prison for putting her child in a microwave. How could a child forget something like that? And why in the world would she even tell me about it? I was no juvenile delinquent who was visiting the prison as a wake-up call for having uncontrollable behavior. I was simply there to see my mother.

Those consistent collect calls from Nicey will never be forgotten. There were plenty of times when she was crying before she even hung up the phone.

The first time I talked to my mom while she was in prison was quite interesting and conflicting for not only me as a six-year-old but also for her as well. I just remember the phone ringing and my great grandma saying, Your mama's on the phone.

Mama sounded down but happy to hear from us at the same time. It was as if she was thinking, Yay, I hear my babies, but I'm still disappointed that I'm in here and am not with them.

My mom asked, What y'all been doing? How y'all doing? Then she kept saying, I'll be back soon. I'll be home soon...

My brother and I didn't know how soon or late that actually meant. In reality soon, meaning in the near future, changed into soon, meaning years later. Soon went from seven years old, to eleven years old, and finally my mama was released from prison in 1997 when I was around seventeen years old.

Dad, on the other hand, didn't call very often while he was in prison. It was only every now and then. And we never went to visit him when he was incarcerated because he didn't want us to see him in there like that. He served between thirteen and fourteen years in prison for selling drugs.

Drugs...just like mama.

Before they got caught, my parents lived together raising my brother and me, although they were not married. Growing up, I never saw either of them doing anything with drugs. In fact, looking back, I only remember how when people would come over to our house, my parents would lock us in the room so we couldn't see what was going on or see the different people who were coming and going.

Whether they were doing or were exchanging drugs, I don't know.

Although my parents protected us from seeing that kind of thing, I didn't feel as comfortable there at their house as my little brother did.

Chapter 2

Having imprisoned parents was very noticeable and sometimes embarrassing when I was in school. When I was in elementary school I always noticed how other kids' parents came in for PTA day.

I can recall looking around thinking, Wow, my parents aren't here like the other kids' parents.

I didn't understand it.

Great Aunt Nelt and my great grandma had to be there for me. Anytime I had papers sent home asking for the legal guardian or for parental permission to go on