Your Journey of Life Is to Get You to Wake Up but It's Never Easy

By Lizabeth Caceres

Verbal abuse, emotional abuse by both parents, sexual abuse by older men. I endured it all through my childhood. Loud music, drugs, prostitution, murder, death, deception, witnessing my father’s sexual interactions with relatives—that was the life I knew. But I longed for something different. I wanted out. Somewhere deep inside, I kn

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing Group
• Release date: Aug 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781641115070

Lizabeth Caceres

Born into a large Puerto Rican family, Lizabeth Caceres grew up in a small town outside of Phildadelphia. She was reared in a strict Pentecostal church and still possesses a very strong faith to this day. She works as an advocate for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. She currently resides in Pennsylvania with her husband of 20 years, two teenage children and her pet Shih Tzu.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

I

sit up and look around. I see wooden bars in front of me. People who look like me are playing on the floor with their toys. I hear music, people singing—I don’t know where its coming from, but it’s loud. A lady with dark black hair, fragile and petite, approaches. I’m startled and scared. I don’t know who she is. She hands me a juice cup and then puts her hands under my armpits and puts me on the floor. The room has large cages; I remember being pulled from the top. As I’m taken to the floor next to my twin sister, who looks just like me, the loud music and people speaking get louder and louder. I stand up on my two feet, too small to look through the glass in the room. I look over at the lady clapping her hands, waving them up, and saying, as I recall, Amen! But wait, where is Mama? Where is Papi?—as we say Mom and Dad in the Spanish language. Mama never allowed me to stop attending church until I left for college. What was it?

There was systematic chaos in my household that rocked the core fear in my being that has never been resolved or attended to: verbal abuse, emotional abuse by both parents, the suffering of my mother, sexual abuse by older men. Loud music, drugs, prostitution, suspicion of murder, death, deception within the family, witnessing sexual interactions of relatives with my father. This is the life I have known, though I longed to witness something different. I wanted out. I knew from a young child that I was different. I didn’t know how different other than speaking the same language, I knew somewhere within I was different. I didn’t belong, and because of this, I suffered hard, I suffered deep within my soul, I was broken down. The beautiful little girl within was broken into pieces and felt alone. Until the light shone, and shone brighter than the moment I was born into this human life.

CHAPTER 1

Safe Haven

T

his is where it all begins; the church family was my safe haven, so I thought at the time. My young life was full of turmoil, cries, pain, and misunderstandings, different from the lives of many around me on a daily basis. My appearance and characteristics were very different from others within my environment—my hair, the color of my skin, my tone, the way I spoke, how I talked. Many did not understand me. I could understand those around me at school, but I could also understand how my parents spoke to me in the home. Our language was different; I could only speak it in my home or with the people who looked relatively like me. I was timid, and why? What happened to me was not supposed to happen. I was a good girl; things like this do not happen to a little girl like me. This was the beginning of my known upbringing.

I hated weekends at home; the screaming and fighting between Mama and Papi were loud and scary. On many family road trips, Papi would someway, somehow end up drunk. Most often he would drive drunk, and in my early years I would lie in the back seat of the car and end up on the floor, hitting the back of the passenger seat where Mama was sitting. Papi would drive drunk, and on our journeys home I remember hearing both him and Mama screaming; he would often hit parked cars or hit the brakes to stop very hard. I often landed on the side of my head, hitting my left ear, and with extreme fear I would jump up and sit back on the seat and cry.

Many times, I would hear a loud thump or bang, as if the floors were shaking. I would run and hide in the closet until I could no longer hear anyone screaming. I wanted to be in a dark room with no noise. I felt safe in the dark room. I knew this was where I could speak with my angel. I would cry out and ask for the screaming to stop, to go away. I would slightly open the closet door and look out, listen, run to push the light switch on. OK, it’s clear. Should I go out and see what’s going on?

OK, I would whisper to my sister, Leila.

She would say, Lizabeth, don’t go out, stay in the room.

As I opened the door, there was Papi. I could smell his breath; it smelled funny, like alcohol. The odor of his shirt smelled like gasoline. He certainly did not smell the same from earlier in the day. He did not speak the same, his eyes were red and scary, and as I watched him walk past my room to his room, he stumbled, gliding against the wall. I thought to myself, Why is he that way? I ran downstairs to see my mama crying; her face was red, hair sticking up, shirt bloody. I was frightened. I cried to see Mama like that, her nose bloody, her eyes red.

Mama, why did Papi do that to you?

It’s OK, go to your room.

I would then hear a knock on the door. It was a man in a dark uniform; the police would be called several times a month. Mama would say every time, Everything is OK, Officer. My children’s father came home drunk.

The officers would always ask the same question: Are you OK, ma’am?

Yes, Officer, my mother would reply in her scared tone of voice.

This was a common ordeal to go through; I just never knew what would happen on the weekends. Papi was never around during the weekdays because of his work schedule. Friday and Saturday he would spend at Titi Isabel’s husband’s garage. His name was Kiko, and I considered him my uncle. Isabel was Papi’s sister who lived here in the States: Papi had another sister, Rosi, in Puerto Rico. Isabel’s husband, Kiko, rented a space where he worked on cars, fixing them up for friends and family to make a living. Papi would go there to help out; he mainly did all the paint jobs, while Kiko would do the major mechanical work.

I can remember one evening about ten or ten thirty at night. Mama was wondering where Papi was because we all had eaten dinner, and Papi was a no-show after work on a Friday night. Mama asked my sister and me to put on pajamas, and we gathered Carlos in his stroller and left the house.

I was extremely tired; it was a hot summer night. I asked Mama, Where are we going?

She said, We are going to the garage to take some food to your dad.

I remember walking into the garage and not seeing Papi anywhere. Immediately I looked down and saw Papi with his pants down and Deborah with him. She ran away with no shirt on; I immediately ran off screaming and crying and hearing my mom scream at Papi. He was drunk and started yelling at Mama as if she were the one who had done something really bad. I just did not understand at the time why my aunt Deborah was there in the garage with my dad.

Over the years, the infidelity continued, not only with Deborah but also with another of Mama’s sisters. Natalia, who was known as the fast lady around the small town I grew up in, also had sexual relations with Papi. I did not like the rumored gossip; I simply knew her as Mama’s sister who deeply needed help. I could always see and feel the good in people. I never understood why an insult was used to identify certain members of the family. Natalia was so known by so many people. She was someone I knew, even as a child, wore a lot of makeup and was always superhyper with a can of beer in hand. The relationship she had with Mama was very toxic, as were her relationships with many others in the area. She would get into fights and was always in and out of prison. There were rumors around town from friends of Mama that Natalia had something to do with the murder of a prominent doctor. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she knew something or was involved with the people who knew what actually happened. To this day, the murder of this prominent doctor is still a mystery.

Mama did not drive when I was a young child, and we walked everywhere until my sister and I were about thirteen years of age. Then Mama went and bought herself a blue small Chevy Nova. She got the courage and faith to trust and believe in herself that she could do things on her own. Even during the times when I thought things were getting better at home, I just knew it would not last long. Mama, as I remember, did the best she could. She always had a will and a determination to keep moving forward no matter what people said. She was such a hard worker. She always made us all breakfast before we headed off to school, even when she was so tired with dark circles under her eyes and breath that smelled like cigarette. She prepared a overnight bag for my older brother, Robert, when she knew he would take the school bus home to Grandma’s after school, never really knowing the type of attitude Papi would have when he got home from work.

I longed for the stillness, the quietness, the laughter, the good ole happy times when Mama and Papi would hug and kiss. I always wanted to have some normalcy for as long as I can remember. At the age of four walking to preschool, I could sense that I did not belong. Still, my inner being, my inner knowing, was always to keep moving forward. Just to live daily, so that I could wake up tomorrow. I only felt safe in my home; as soon as I walked outside, I just knew that we as human beings were all different. That not everyone had the same thoughts or feelings or knowing that I did. I was timid; I was afraid to speak to others. The verbal abuse in my home is what kept me from moving forward in expressing myself as a child to want to learn and aspire to be. I was not shown to follow my dreams. There was no time for extracurricular activities, no time to run around with friends. What I witnessed were adults in a bedroom leaning over a dresser putting their faces over a powdery white substance that looked like baby powder. A lot of loud music and people, family, friends of family, and people unknown to me. Go downstairs! Papi would yell, and I would run to my room so fast, as if there were an evil, dark entity surrounding him. As if the dark entity were going to come after me and turn me into something or someone like him. I wondered, Why is he acting this way? What did I do? All I wanted was love from both Papi and Mama. Neither one of them had any time for me, Leila, Carlito, or Robert. At this age I never really understood why Robert was not with us as a family. He was my older brother; he should live with us. Robert was from Mama’s previous marriage. He lived with Grandmom Justina on the weekends; she was Grandmom to me. I felt safe when Robert was with us; he protected us, his siblings. Late-night evenings that went by, and I cried myself to sleep and waited for the next morning to see Robert. It never made any sense for Robert to spend the night at Grandmom’s house because four of her adult children and their children lived there. Mama’s oldest sister who was rumored to have a daughter by the pastor of the church. Honestly no one knew for sure, and no one would ever know. Robert and this daughter always seemed to be together, playing sports.

Papi’s brother Eugene from Puerto Rico came to live with us for some time. The talk in the family was that the week he came from Puerto Rico, he got involved in a relationship with a woman, and she became pregnant with his child, a little girl just a few years younger than Leila and me. She was a lady that Mama did not speak highly of. She was a single mom already to a little girl. She was also known to do drugs and someone who partied and would leave her kids with different babysitters. Tio Eugene had many different ladies in his life. I never saw him living in his own home’ he slept in one of the empty