Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

By Sarah Elizabeth Alvarez

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made is a biographical account of a young girl who grew up with her parents and siblings in a modest home in Upstate New York in the late 60s and early 70s. Sarah was emotionally and physically abused by her mother and sexually abused by her father.

Throughout her childhood, she sought comfort and refuge in her intimate relationship with God. In her midtwenties, she becomes a mother of a darling little boy and was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Her life seems complete when Sarah meets her future husband, Nehemiah, while vacationing in the Caribbean. They happily raise their vivacious baby boy. Then Nehemiah is incarcerated for selling prescription drugs to an undercover detective. She is left alone to raise her children. Her faith is tested, but she proves to be unshakable.

Sarah eventually reconciles with her mother and fully embraces her past.

This true story was written with the deep desire of shedding light on the serious effects of child abuse and to inspire others to never give up hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Nov 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781490779065

Sarah Elizabeth Alvarez

The author, Sarah Elizabeth Alvarez, lives in New York, New York, with her husband and two children. Her interests include bowling, camping, and long strolls on the beach. Her other hobbies include playing online word games, writing poetry, and singing karaoke. She has worked with special-needs students for the past twenty years. She is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in community and human services. She hopes to one day work with individuals facing mental-health issues.

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FEARFULLY

AND

Wonderfully

MADE

SARAH ELIZABETH ALVAREZ

©

Copyright 2016 Sarah Elizabeth Alvarez.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-7905-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-7907-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-7906-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016919750

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Trafford rev.    11/29/2016

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Contents

Prologue – Am I Crazy?

Chapter 1 – Mayo Jar

Chapter 2 – Winston

Chapter 3 – Barbie Mall

Chapter 4 – Slap Me

Chapter 5 – Noah’s Ark

Chapter 6 – Old Man Williams

Chapter 7 – Loose Change

Chapter 8 – All Alone

Chapter 9 – Stay a While

Chapter 10 – The BG’s Club

Chapter 11 – Aaah Dolores

Chapter 12 – Stop in the Name of Love

Chapter 13 – Smurfs

Chapter 14 – Heart for Sale

Chapter 15 – Bottoms Up

Chapter 16 – Sixteen Candles

Chapter 17 – Now Why Did Go and Tell Mama For

Chapter 18 – Budweiser

Chapter 19 – Dumb Turtle

Chapter 20 – Napalm

Chapter 21 – Hush Little Baby

Chapter 22 – No Turning Back

Chapter 23 – Nehemiah

Chapter 24 – Bendiciones

Chapter 25 – Party Animal

Chapter 26 – Incarcerated

Chapter 27 – Welcome Home Mama Part 1

Chapter 28 – Welcome Home Mama Part 2

Chapter 29 – Family Reunion

Chapter 30 – Eyes Were Like Mine

Chapter 31 – Beautifully Flawed

Epilogue – Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Prologue

Am I Crazy?

Lynn-Brook Hospital—Nyack, New York, June 1999

There he stood, a mere two to three feet away from me. Tall as a kapok tree, or so it seemed, he made his way toward me. I quickly noticed his crinkly brown eyes and timid smile. His complexion was smooth, worry-free, and the color of a warm butterscotch candy. My instincts beckoned me to trust him.

Am I crazy? I asked without hesitation. Seems I had no patience for foolish small talk and fancy introductions—yeah, no time for, Hi there, I’m doctor so and so. By then, I knew exactly where I was. It was not my first time there. I became acutely aware of my surroundings. A shaft of sunlight beamed steadily on a corner of the thermoplastic enclosure. Slowly, I shifted my eyes directly above me and drank in the sky. Its color reminded me of fairy dust. The doctor’s voice jarred my attention back to him. I detected an African accent. It was low, compassionate, yet authoritative. No, you are not crazy. You are in immense pain. His words spoke truth, and in such harsh reality, it left me shivering.

As I sat on my hands on the concrete block, head lowered, flashbacks of beatings, heart-thumping silence, and screams replayed in my head. I heard him say very faintly that I had arrived by ambulance three days ago. I had been sobbing the whole time. The doctor’s assurance about my fragile mental state was very much like embracing an old friend. I knew it to be true, but I desperately needed at that precise moment another person to help me rediscover that truth. Sitting there in my cotton candy blue gown, I realized that it was my first real breakthrough.

Mayo Jar

Bend forward, Mama said as she poured a few delicate droplets of coconut oil mixed with pungent herbs from the local botanica on my hair. Mama was massaging it in hopes to get it to grow again. I hungered for these moments with my mom. It was only then that I felt loved and assured around her. The coconut oil was kept in a mayo jar and was placed in the left hand side of the refrigerator door. Its sight pulled me in like a silly suction cup.

Thinking back on it today, I can honestly say that it was not the most appealing mayo jar of our whole collection. It has yellowed from within, and it bore a crack from competing for space in the crammed refrigerator. The faded label was so familiar and comforting to me at that time. The s in the word Hellman’s was gone from my caressing it lovingly every time I opened the fridge.

Mama began the hair treatments because I was pulling my hair out in chunks. While Mama hummed Canta y no llores and parted my hair in a nonsensical fashion, I formed a habit of counting the number of times that she made actual contact with my head and assured myself that that is how much she loved me. Occasionally, as I sat crouched on the floor between her legs, she would provide glimpses of her own childhood.

Mama was born in a small barrio in the Caribbean. She was the second one born in a family of ten children. Her father was a pastor of a Pentecostal church, and everyone called him Abuelito. He was short, stocky, and always wore a black hat with tiny feathers on the side. I laughed the first time I saw him without a hat. He was bald from the top, and he kept rubbing at it as if he were ashamed of his own head. Mama always said that he was a fair person, and he did not play favorites with his large family. Mama would say that if he had just one orange, he would cut up that orange in ten equal wedges for his children. Aida, my maternal grandmother, was petite with milky skin and jet-black hair. In church, she always wore it in a bun, but at home, she will let it cascade past her shoulders.

They arrived in New York in the mid-1950s and quickly settled into a life of immigrants. Long hours working as a store security guard during the week for Abuelito and pastoral duties on Sundays. Aida settled into a life of housework and child care. Aida was significantly younger than her