Can a Storm Be Weathered?: Memoirs of a Broken Past

By Ta’Ressa

Can A Storm Be Weathered focuses on A-typical behavior in an African American home setting. It touches sensitive issues such as molestation and rape and living in the aftermath, physical and emotional abuse and containing ones self-image, depression, which causes suicidal tendencies to arise, and Spiritual Enlightenment which delegates Hope. This is not a self-help book, but it is a Testimony. My Testimony, that even a sinner like me has a purpose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483665481

Ta’Ressa

Mrs. Johnson a native of Detroit, Michigan is a very talented writer with a no holds barred attitude. She is the founder of her own her own non-profit organization NOTHIN’ BUT BLESSINS’ and a motivational speaker for her online Facebook group WOMEN EMPOWERING WOMEN, which has inspired women all over the globe to break away from the chains which limit their abilities and to find their true beauty and self-worth. If you loved her book CAN A STORM BE WEATHERED, then I know you can’t wait to read her upcoming books, RATCHET and FLOWERS IN THE GARDEN.

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Copyright © 2013 by Ta’Ressa.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4836-6547-4

                Ebook          978-1-4836-6548-1

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.

Rev. date: 09/23/2013

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CONTENTS

SECRETS

CHAPTER ONE

(LOST AND NOT FOUND)

CHAPTER TWO

(GOING, GOING, GONE)

CHAPTER THREE

(THE RIGHT MOVE???)

CHAPTER FOUR

(MY HERO)

CHAPTER FIVE

(WHAT HAVE I DONE)

CHAPTER SIX

(NOT MY DADDY)

CHAPTER SEVEN

(GOOD DOES EXIST)

CHAPTER EIGHT

(BREATHE AGAIN)

CHAPTER NINE

(BEST THING I NEVER HAD)

CHAPTER TEN

(STARTING OVER)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

(NOT THE AUTHOR OF CONFUSION)

This book is dedicated to

CHANGE

No Weapon formed against me shall prosper

Some tend to think that when you ask the question, "CAN A STORM BE WEATHERED?" you are referring to the obstacles in one’s life; at least that’s what I use to think, but sometimes I believe that I am the Storm!

Life’s a Bitch and then . . . .

Do you ever wonder why life is what it is?

Why it turns out to be the way it is?

Your path divides into two roads, there are no signs posted, so it’s up to you to decide which road to take.

But right after you start down that road that you have chosen is when the signs start to appear.

Why does LOVE always show up before any of the WARNING SIGNS, and sometimes

When we get to them, we’ve already passed BLIND-SIDED.

How did I become the sweet, mean, spoiled kid; to the shy, promiscuous teen; to this strong, black, confused, depressed woman? What’s up with that?

SECRETS

It all starts with one secret, and what makes it even worse is when your secret becomes, everyone else’s secret. You know the kind of secret I’m talking about! You know the one! It came out, but it went back in; the kind in everyone’s family. When you finally gather the strength to tell; no one knows what to say or do, so they never bring it up again.

You see how easy everything ends, but that’s just how quickly everything else begins. Then that one secret turns into a whopper of a secret, which turns into a storm… and that storm, would then turn out to be me!

Who would have known!

CHAPTER ONE

(LOST AND NOT FOUND)

A lot of things are not clear, but some things are so vivid that they never disappear. Little Man was something else. Looking back it seems as though I was much older than my baby brother, but actually I only had him by 2 years. I remember him waking me up in the mornings. I couldn’t have been older than three or four… , UP, UP, Corn Pops.

He loved his Corn pops; so actually, how old could I have been when I felt the devastation from the abuse of my uncle as he covered my mouth asking me to remain silent, that it would all be over soon? I still get chills when I think about it. I felt like, I use to love this man and now I’m afraid of him. Shortly after that, at the young age of 17, my uncle passed away.

I even remember that day, not his actual death, but the moments that lead up to his death. My Aunt Lynn gave him a glass of milk and after he drank it, he went into some sort of seizure; hell, I always thought that my aunt had poisoned him with the milk. I recall the EMS workers running into the house and my sister and I being rushed up the stairs. Being young, I really didn’t know what was going on at that time. It wasn’t until I had gotten older that I found out that he and a friend of his had got hold of some sort of new drug that was said to look like a chocolate wafer. I guess that’s why it never got popular, because it killed everyone who tried it. That was in the early 70’s. That drug went as fast as it came and so did my secret.

As time passed, I started to believe that GOD took my uncle away from here because of what he did to me. I was a baby, for God’s sake. I mean looking back on everything now, I had to have been terrified; therefore, however heart wrenching it was for everyone else, to me, my uncles’ death was my victory, but the damage was already done. Now before my uncle had passed away, there was a time I thought I wanted to tell my mama and daddy, I remember this day so clearly in my mind.

Isn’t it funny, that the things you remember; if no one else recalls, it didn’t happen! Well anyway, this particular day, mama and daddy were playing music and we were having a good ole’ time, dancing around and laughing. Apparently, my uncle must have been there, now I don’t remember him in the house, but I do remember us looking out of the front door at him falling in the snow while I believe he was getting into a cab and us laughing at that.

While mama and daddy were still laughing and looking out the door, my sister and I were still dancing around, and I said to her, I’m gone tell mama and daddy that uncle be doing nasty stuff to me, and I will never forget, my sister who was only 2 years older than me, which made her around five or six; she looked at me and said, ooh, you gone get a whipping. She didn’t know any better, but can you imagine how hopeless and helpless I had to have felt? Every time I think about it, my spirit gets uneasy and I get mad. I was too young to realize it then, but GOD was the only one that was going to get me through.

Shortly after that, Little Man passed away at the tender age of two. When he was born, he was considered a Blue Baby, meaning he was born with a hole in his heart. The doctors wanted to wait until he was two, when they thought he would be strong enough before they could perform open heart surgery, but he never came home; and even then I associated Little Man’s death with my uncle.

I don’t know why, but I believed that uncle came back and took my brother from me to hurt me some more. You see, to me he was a monster, to my mother, he was a brother and to my grandmother, he was her son, but in reality, he was a pedophile. For writing this; some may say I’m brave, while others may think of me as a hero, but, there are some who choose not to believe me, and to them, I am a liar! I learned a long time ago, not to give a fuck!

* * *

(WHERE FROM HERE)

A normal childhood was never destined for me. After my little brother’s death, things went downhill quickly; my father started drinking so much he became an alcoholic, lost his job at the factory, lost the house, sold all our beautiful furniture and went on a war path with mama. They were fighting every day, at least he was. I use to feel so sorry that my mother had to go through that bull. OOoohhh! It just did something to me. I use to just want to destroy him! Who would have known that I would have grown to love him so?

I think I remember the day my mother decided, enough was enough! Aunt Ella had come over to take mama to the grocery store; and daddy knew it. Mama walked out of the apartment door, up the hall and down the stairs she started, when daddy busted out of the apartment door, ran down the hall; and when he came back through that door he had mama by her long, pretty, black hair, dragging her in out of the hallway, into the kitchen, to jump on her. I ran into the kitchen behind them, I was not about to let him kill my mama, as he stood over her and I jumped on his back.

The silverware drawer was right above his head; I grabbed a butter knife and started sticking, but he wouldn’t budge. (Okay, come on, I was only five), well anyway, mama kept screaming at me to get off of him and I’m crying no because I don’t understand; I’m trying to help mama, what you mean… . , I see her reaching up and I believe he was choking her and I was choking him. Mama said, MOVE, one last time, then said NOW; I fell off and she cracked his head. Back then, everyone used glass baby bottles; so, she drew some blood and that’s when she became my hero and I declared, AIN’T NO MAN, GONE PUT HIS HANDS ON ME!

Now, having a safe place to go when things are not going so good can be a comfort, but when you don’t know what you’re walking into, should have been torment for a child, but after you get used to it, it’s just a way of life. Hell, I remember spending a Christmas, sitting in the middle of the floor alone, playing my little box record player that stops when you open it and plays when you close it, surrounded by broken glass and a fallen Christmas tree.

So what did it matter, when you go to grandma’s house to get away from the madness and there they go, grandma and granddaddy, on the block, in front of the neighbors, running around the telephone pole; one with a knife and the other with a gun. POW! That kind of stuff happened on the regular.

I day dreamed every chance I got. I couldn’t wait till I could go off somewhere all alone and imagine the beautiful life I was going to have with a man who would only love me and never hurt me and I was not going to stop until I found him (literally); and then reality would smack me again! Daddy, busting out windows, granddaddy, staying out for days, got women calling the house, fights, fights, fights, fights and then, wouldn’t you know it; I get caught in the cross fire, a .38, to my left side. I was probably eight or nine.

That was then, I’m still here. Some days, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. A good life wasn’t destined for me either. Here I am, a small child, constantly thrusted into adult situations. I mean, it was hard enough dealing with the one molestation, it seemed like ever since then, I wore a scarlet letter and everyone that saw me, knew my innocence had been tampered with and the rest was up for grabs. Like the dusty looking white man in the back of my daddy’s cab. To this day I don’t know why we were all crammed into the back of the cab with him, nor why in God’s name was I allowed to sit in that man’s lap.

He touched me in my most inner place for blocks, until my daddy looked back and asked me was everything okay, stopped the cab, pulled the man from the back seat, beat him half dead and left him; or, the older boys on the block, Sean and Eric, who use to grab me and take me under Sean’s porch and make me touch them, while they touched me. I mean, who in the hell was watching me! Oh! I forgot; everybody was dealing with their own problems. Fuck it!

So what was the point in telling anyone that mama’s man, whom she had gotten with after her and daddy were finally over, stops me when I come through the door from school, (elementary school) and ask me did I know anything about sex. It really was no surprise to me, I just knew he wasn’t going to put his hands on me, so I said it with attitude, Why you asking me some mess like that and he tells me, Because if you ever want to know about sex, come to me and I’ll show you.

I don’t know what I ever did to deserve all this besides being born, but how much of this was I supposed to take. I got angry and politely looked him in the face and said these exact same words, If you ever say anything like that to me again, I’m going to tell my auntie and my daddy; and you know my daddy don’t like you; and you better hope that by the time they finish with you, that you won’t be dead and that was the end of that"!

I had so many emotions going through me, that after time they became harder to contain. I recall so many times telling mama I wanted to scream. I don’t know whether she felt my pain or if she just thought that I was crazy as hell, but she’d say to me, Baby, if you gotta scream, scream and I would. I still do that till this very day, sometimes I just have to scream!

* * *

CHAPTER TWO

(GOING, GOING, GONE)

It wasn’t long before I developed an attachment to my mother. I never wanted to be away from her; that was when I was with her, because after a period of time, auntie’s house became my sanctuary. Auntie was my rock, my safe harbor. I stayed with her when I needed a piece of mind and I went to my mama’s, for the back yard parties and because of Skeet. I was fourteen years old; we had moved into a nice neighborhood. I finally could breathe and embrace my youth.

I enjoyed school and loved meeting new friends, well not all of them, but some of them. As a matter of fact, my best friend to this day, came from that hood. The other girls in the hood just wanted to know your business, so that they could put it all in the streets and I knew that because they were putting their own business in the street. They got me caught up in some drama, right off the rip. They introduced me to Greg and we hit it off, next thing you know, he was my man, so I thought! Come to find out, he was they girls’ man and when she came back from where ever she was; I find myself in the middle of an altercation that even she didn’t want. Them damn girls got me a whipping for fighting over a boy, when all I was doing was defending myself. Bitches! After that, I knew I had to play them hoes like a violin.

Every weekend, Friday and Saturday, someone was throwing a backyard party. They would pass out index cards with all the party info on it. Most of the time it was a dollar to get into the party with a two drink minimum; and that was a no name beer with a big red and white stripe going across. This one particular party; I had only been there for maybe ten minutes, when in comes this fool,