A Cry for Help: Who’S Listening?

By Desiree

My name is Desiree. Yes, I was married and divorced three times. And each divorce, I asked for my maiden name back. I am a mother of two daughters and have eight adult grandchildren and three great-granddaughters. Im taking this time out in my life to write my story because there are so many children and adults crying out for help. They cannot afford Dr. Phil or Oprah or trust anyone enough to talk to them. At one point of time, I tried to reach out to both of them and hit a dead end each time. I always wondered how people get in touch with them.

Twenty-five or more years ago, I started writing Oprah a letter when she had Ms. Erica Kane and all of the All My Children husbands on her show with her. The letter turned into a book! So I never tried to send it. I called it Will the Real Erica Kane Please Stand Up. (All the Men I Loved.) Not who loved me because I really cant tell who loved me. My journey took me to hell and back.

Through all of my trials and tribulations, I had to come back to Jesus. When he said, I will never leave nor forsake you, he meant just that. It gets hard sometimes to believe it, but when you keep hitting a brick wall and facing death in the face so many times, you start wondering, why am I still here? Its not as though we can stand in a line and pick our race or our mother and father. Wow! Would life be any different? Believe meits only by the grace of God that any of us are still here. We all have a purpose for being on this earth. My belief is my purpose is to encourage others to believe in yourself and trust that God really does have your back no matter what the devil throw your way. As the song says, He paid it all. Meaning, Jesus paid for all of our sins, and I thank him for allowing me to be alive long enough to acknowledge that.

So heres my story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499072631

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Copyright © 2014 by Desiree.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014916308

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4990-7261-7

                 Softcover       978-1-4990-7262-4

                eBook             978-1-4990-7263-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 09/10/2014

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

F irst, I would like to thank my two daughters, Angela Herbert and Levoia Thompson, for being born into my life, because even though I made a lot of mistakes, you continued to be there when I needed you most.

I would like to thank my eight grandchildren—Dyneshia, Samantha, Bernard, Gerald, Paul, Steve, Carletha, and Oswald—who really kept their grandmother laughing and worried, for understanding that sometimes I treated you as if I were your mother. It was all for the sake of love.

I would like to thank my son-in-law, Darryl, for loving my daughter and for accepting my five grandchildren as your own. When I asked you the day of your wedding to please always love my daughter and not hurt her, you told me you will always be there for her and her children. You are still here fifteen years later. You both are very blessed to have each other. And I thank you for never telling me no. Thank you for caring for me.

I would love to thank my sisters Elouise Williams and Louise Williams for having patience with a big sister that was always worried about you both and trying to protect you. I would like to thank Elouise for helping me with this book and for taking good care of me when I was so sick. Your love and kindness will never be forgotten. We suffered a great loss, and that was your twin, Louise Williams. She lost her battle to breast cancer five years ago, 2009.

I would like to thank my sister Laura Morgan for all the phone calls to check on me and for keeping me encouraged. When I see you, I see strength and courage. Thanks for your love and support.

I would love to thank my second mom, Ms. Betty Joe Hill, for always being there for me. Thank you for your support, for being a loyal customer, and for all your phone calls. Love you very much. Thank you for helping me remain calm and reminding me to always pray.

I would like to thank Mr. Woodbury for all your moral support, thank you for the fruits and keeping me focus on what God can do. You always listen to my heartaches and complaints and never judge me. You always say "you’re on a winning team!! God Bless you and your family. You are truly a friend to the very end.

I would like to thank Mrs. Mary Evans for always believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself, for pushing me to dream the impossible. Thank you for all your financial and moral support. You never gave up on me. You have always been someone I looked up to, and I was always amazed at watching your courage and your strength.

I would like to thank Ms. Rebecca Mapp for always being a true friend and customer. You opened your door for me when I needed you most. Thanks for the visits from you and your father and for the flowers. You have never said no to me no matter how busy your schedule was for you. I commend you. Love you always.

I would like to thank Pearlie Hill, Betty Joe Hill, Rebecca Mapp, Cynthia Stewart, Pamela Moreland, Carolyn Mack, and Mary Evans for always trusting me to take care of your hair for more than twenty years. Sorry I’m no longer able to, and I miss you all very much. Thanks for all your support and advice throughout the years. Love to you all.

INTRODUCTION

M y name is Desiree. Yes, married and divorced three times. And each divorce, I asked for my maiden name back. I am a mother of two daughters and eight adult grandchildren and three great-granddaughters. I’m taking this time out in my life to write my story because there are so many children and adults crying out for help. They cannot afford a Dr. Phil or Oprah or trust anyone enough to talk to them.

At one point in time, I tried to reach out to both of them and hit a dead end each time. I always wondered how people get in touch with them. Twenty-five or more years ago, I started writing Oprah a letter when she had Ms. Erica Kane and all the All My Children husbands on her show with her. The letter turned into a book! So I never tried to send it. I called it Will the Real Erica Kane Please Stand Up? (All the Men I Loved). Not Who Loved Me because I really can’t tell who loved me.

My journey took me to hell and back. Through all my trials and tribulations, I had to come back to Jesus. When he said I will never leave nor forsake you, he meant just that. It gets hard sometimes to believe it, but when you keep hitting a brick wall and facing death in the face so many times, you start wondering, Why am I still here? It’s not as though we can stand in a line and pick our race or our mother and father. Wow! Would life be any different? Believe me, it’s only by the grace of God that any of us are still here.

We all have a purpose for being on this earth. My belief is, my purpose is to encourage others to believe in themselves and trust that God really does have their backs no matter what the devil throws their way. As the song says, He paid it all. Meaning, Jesus paid for all our sins, and I thank him for allowing me to be alive long enough to acknowledge that.

So here’s my story.

I was born in Belle Glade, Florida. My mother was a very strong woman. I could remember her working in the celery fields there. I had four brothers and one sister from my mom. I remember when I was five, my dad came and stole me and my younger brother and took us to Fort Pierce, Florida, to his home. My mother was working that day; she had no clue he was coming. I always wondered about the look on her face or her reaction when she found us gone.

The home that my father took us to was him, his new wife, and her five daughters. They were all total strangers, including him. All I knew is that he said he was our daddy. There was so much abuse in that home. My father was abusing their mother, and the oldest daughter was abusing me physically and mentally. She would always wait until late at night when we were supposed to be sleep. My dad made me call their mother mom, and they had to call him daddy. The oldest daughter would fight and scratch my face and say, That is not your momma! And I would try to fight back and say, That is not your daddy.

My dad used to accuse their mom of cheating, and he would hit her in front of us.

I remember all that good ole welfare cheese and canned meat. We used to eat out of pot lids and drink out of peanut butter and mayonnaise jars. I used to cry for my mom all the time when night came. I didn’t understand why I never saw my mom anymore. I remember my dad would always beat me and my brother with a palmetto stick. Sometimes we had to go pick it off the tree for our own beatings. According to his mood, he would either leave the stickers on it or slice them off. When they would say I want to see blood! then they would leave them on. Sometimes my brother’s punishment was my dad putting him in the trunk of his car. The very first time, as I remember, he was in there almost all night. We would cry for him, and I would beg my dad to let him out.

There was one sister that I tried to protect because she got the most beatings out of all the siblings. Sometimes her punishment was to be put in a dark closet or get tied to a chair in sitting position and get a beating. I promised her that I would always come back and rescue her, no matter what. I got used to the beatings. It’s just that no matter what you did or didn’t do, you got a beating from someone in that house.

I remember my dad telling me that he was a preacher—ha-ha. Not in a church but in the backyard, with a loud bullhorn. I was so upset with him—he had me going door-to-door selling family bibles. He taught me what to say and how to say it. He tried to teach me how not to get turned away. If I got turned away, that was a beating. I hated it! It was totally embarrassing going to those people’s houses. Sometimes when people tried to tell me Not today, I would beg them to please listen to me. My dad would sit out in the car and wait on me to come out. Oh yes, he was the one taking me to different areas to go door-to-door.

After that died out, he was a root man. He started having snakes and frogs, etc., in the house. He and his best friend used to pretend they were healers and removing spells off people. I remember, early one morning, I could hear him and my stepmom whispering, saying I hope she don’t move. So just in case it was me, I didn’t move. One of his deadly coral snakes had gotten out of the jar (I wonder how, if they were in a jar). The snake was in the bed, crawling—yes, it was me.

Things got so bad with them fighting that they decided to get a divorce. By that time, she had birthed two sons from my father. I do remember my dad cheating with other women when he was married to her. He would always take me to their house and dare me to say anything. We moved out, and my dad got a two-bedroom apartment for me, him, and my brother. It hurt so badly because now I was leaving a sister that I promised I would protect. But I also promised her that I would return when I got old enough to get her. I cried for me and her.

My dad had an aunt that lived in Utica, New York. She wanted me to come stay with her. One of my stepsisters that I didn’t want to go went also to New York to live with my aunt. That’s when I was introduced to church and knowing God; I was around nine or ten. My aunt was a very Christian woman. She lived two steps down from the church. After about two months of me fighting and verbally abusing her, my stepsister wanted to go back home. Why not? That’s what I learned at home. My aunt sent her to her mother, and I remained in New York. I loved when she left because she was the main reason my favorite sister was being abused. To me, she is and always has been her mom’s favorite child. But with me being so young, I forgot that when she returned home, all the beatings would start again for my favorite sister. We were so close because we got the most beatings, and we never understood why. I would sneak up to her and hold her and cry with her most of the time when I was living with them.

I thank God for sending me to New York with my aunt because that was where I learned how to sing and, most of all, pray. Never knowing my whole life I would need to pray. My aunt used to make me get up and sing Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior. Every time it was time for me to sing, that was the only song I sang. Never knew why until my adult life. Still, at times I didn’t realize the magnitude of the song until now.

I was so happy there with her until she would send me to her son’s house to play with his daughter, and my aunt’s son used to rub his hands on me. I would look at him and run to his daughter and sit beside her. One day I was going upstairs to use the bathroom, and when I looked up, he was standing up there, naked, pulling on himself. I did not know what it was used for, but I knew it didn’t feel right. He was beckoning me to come upstairs, but I wouldn’t go.

Later that night, I was in the bed, and he woke me up, touching my leg under the cover. He was down on his knees, and I started crying. His wife came and caught him and said to him, Leave that little girl alone. If you want some p—sy, come and get some grown-lady p—y. Then he got up and left with her. Later that day, I asked his wife to please take me home to my aunt’s house.

After that, every time my aunt asked me if I wanted to go play with his daughter, I would say, No, ma’am. She never made me go. She just always thought I was lonely. I never told anyone what happened, because his wife already knew and she stopped him that time, but I don’t know what would have happened the next time, and I wasn’t going to find out. I started eating a lot and gained a lot of weight because I thought it was something that I did. She was talking about sending me to learn how to ice-skate and have those spots on my leg removed.

For the summer, she sent me to a convent full of nuns. I had a ball there! I even learned how to swim, and they taught me adequately. They even created a Hawaiian play, and I was one of the hula dancers. That was happy time for me.

After about a year, she came and sat me down and said, Your dad wants you to come home.

I screamed and cried, "No!

She said there was nothing she could do but send me home. I prayed, but God wasn’t listening to me anymore. She said my father was crying and said he missed his daughter. He told her he kept playing the song I’m Waiting for My Child to Come Home. So I came home to Fort Pierce, Florida.

I came home to a man that had several women in his life. The first woman I met had a daughter the same age I was. She was a schoolteacher. Everything was fine for a while until, early one morning, my dad dropped me off to her house around two. I remember her coming to the door to make sure I got in the house safe. Her daughter was in her bed. She said her daughter was sick. My dad left me there.

This lady took me in her daughter’s room and sat me on her bed, then she sat beside me. She asked, was I okay? I shook my head yes. Then she got up, and I thought she was going to turn on the light because the only light was coming from her bathroom. But instead, she closed the door then sat back on the bed beside me. I started sobbing. She said It’s okay in a soft voice. I couldn’t see her; it was so dark.

She started rubbing my thighs and asked me if I had on any panties. By then, I was crying like a baby.

I said to her, I got to go to the bathroom!

She opened the door and was asking me to be quiet. By then, I was losing my mind, crying. I was sitting on the toilet and heard her daughter calling for me. She went inside where her daughter was to calm her down. I ran to the back door of her house, trying to escape, but she had to have at least ten locks on that door. I ran to the front door, and it was the same. I heard dogs barking outside. It sounded as if it was about fifty dogs out there. I would rather have gotten eaten up by the dogs than to have this adult schoolteacher/mother sexually molest me. At that age, I didn’t know the words for it. I just knew it didn’t feel right. When she heard me trying to get out of the front door, she came to me and tried to stop me from unlocking the locks.

Her daughter started yelling, Desiree! What’s wrong?

For whatever reason, my dad came back, knocking while I was trying to get out. When she opened the door, I ran into my dad’s arms, and I begged him to take me home. He asked her what was wrong with me, then she said, She is crying because my daughter is sick.

My dad put me in the car, and when we almost reached home, I told him what really happened. He slammed on breaks and said, What? I will go back there and kill that bitch! I begged him to keep driving, and I never wanted to see her again.

Well, that didn’t last long. He never left me alone with her again, but he didn’t stop dating her. I guess he didn’t believe me. She used to chase me around the yard as if she was playing with me. Every time she would catch me, she would rub on my chest or butt. I would be running for my life with fear written all over my face, and she couldn’t care less. My dad would be in her house watching television. I was happy when that relationship ended, and I heard she moved out of town.

Next thing I knew, my brother was back and my dad had us picking tomatoes, cucumbers, oranges, grapefruits, lemons, limes—whatever work there was. Believe me, that was his money, and he didn’t play about his money. It started we were only going on weekends. That was fun because a lot of kids went to the tomato fields. Then it started being on school days and any work that was going that day. Sometimes the work bus would be loading up the same time as the school bus, and the kids would make fun of us. I remember one day, my brother and I went to pick some oranges, and the trees were what we would call naked, so my brother and I decided to walk home because we thought he would understand that the trees were practically bare. Sad mistake—my dad beat the both of us. He beat my brother with his fist and beat me with an extension cord. He would throw me in the air and, on my way down, see how quickly he could hit me. After our beating, he took us back to the field and told us to pick what they had! We made eight dollars all day, and he took that!

Times got so bad for my brother and me because now my dad only had us to beat on. When we did get a chance to go to school, my brother had so much anger locked inside him that he would take it out on the teachers. One day I came home from school, and my brother’s lips were so big they could cover the room. Soon as I walked in the house, my dad told me what he did in school. My brother would look at me with those sad puppy eyes and shake his head without my dad looking at him. When my dad left the house, I grabbed my brother and held him, and we cried together. Another