I've Got Your Back: When You're Stumbling in the Dark Like a Blind Person

By Xlibris US

Gabrielles desire to be loved and accepted brought her down many dark roads and into the hands of those who abused and led her into prostitution. She had to overcome eating disorders and learn to live with an illness she tried to hide. Gabrielle was overwhelmed by the day-to-day struggles she had to face just to stay alive. Understanding and insight into herself is what she needed, which is the heart of this important Book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499053685

Book preview

I’ve Got

Your Back

When you’re stumbling in the dark like a blind person

Gabrielle Zander

Copyright © 2014 by Gabrielle Zander.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014913134

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4990-5369-2

                Softcover       978-1-4990-5370-8

                eBook            978-1-4990-5368-5

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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Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

AMP - Amplified Bible

Scripture quotations marked AMP are from The Amplified Bible, Old Testament copyright © 1965, 1987 by the HYPERLINK "http://www.zondervan.com/ Zondervan Corporation. The Amplified Bible, New Testament copyright © 1954, 1958, 1987 by HYPERLINK http://www.lockman.org/" The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Rev. date: 08/15/2014

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Table of Contents

Who Am I

Introduction

CHAPTER - 1      Voices from A Haunted Past

CHAPTER - 2      The Way Out

CHAPTER - 3      A Change of Life

CHAPTER - 4      The Unexpected

CHAPTER - 5      Calvin

CHAPTER - 6      Show Time

CHAPTER - 7      Remember God

CHAPTER - 8      The Shelter

CHAPTER - 9      Hidden Secrets

CHAPTER - 10   Killeen, Texas

Bring It All Together

Mother and Daughter

The Effects Your Parents Have On You

WHO AM I

I am a Woman

Who is created in the image and likeness of God.

To know why I am like him, I have to know and understand

God.

Who am I

I am a Reflection, Expression, and Extension of you, whether I choose to

reflect a part of you that stands on the street corner or express that part of you that

can keep an audience captivated,

I am an extension of you.

Who am I?

I am that wide-eyed child with wondering eyes, who wants to know why?

I am continually evolving into what God choose of me to be.

Who am I?

I am learning day by day, year by year that I am an Extension of

YOU

Thank You

Writing this book has been a wonderful and sometimes difficult experience. With the help and guidance of God, the book was completed.

I want to give a special thank-you, to my brother Samuel Ways Jr. for his belief in me and his encouragement. Thanks to all others for your help and kindness.

This book is a guaranteed page-turner and will prove to be of value to all who desires to peek into their own life.

The events in this book are true. Everything you read did happen in the manner in which it is expressed. The names of those who were involved and the states and locations where these events happened have been changed. Any part or persons in this book that may resemble anyone living or dead is coincidental.

INTRODUCTION

In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

I thank God, the Lord of Power, for guiding me safely through the old years and granting me entrance into the new years.

This book is written for you. I know your life may not have traveled down the same road as mine, but I would like you not to focus on the events that happened, but read to understand the circumstances surrounding the decisions I made to meet and overcome each event. By looking at my past life, I hope it will help you look into yourself a little closer. It is important that you see and understand yourself as best you can because we are blessed to be the ones to develop and shape the next generation that depends on our guidance.

I had no life of my own that I could measure any worth to. What it was like to live my own life and make decisions for myself did not register to me. I had no individual self I knew of. I reacted to whatever happened in my life. It never occurred to me to think before I acted. I had no mind of my own, no sense of stability, and I let others take total control of me. I did not feel I had anything of value to say, so I spoke when I was spoken to. I did what I was told to do better than any other woman that walked the streets. Unhappy is far from the best word for what was going on with me; it goes far deeper. It would be putting it very lightly to say that I was gullible to what others told me. I believed what I heard. If for some reason I did not believe what I heard, I acted as though I believed just to keep peace. I was extremely naive, insecure, and had no self-confidence. Whatever you want to call it, that was me. The only self-worth I had was what the pimps gave me, and I paid a big price for that. I was an unpolished diamond put on the block for the highest bidder—a passive victim used by anyone who had a plan to make money. Some who know me today raise their eyebrows in disbelief, but I kid you not. What I say about myself is no joke; this is the way it was. I lived it. I do not know how, but I did (and had to do it alone), or so I thought. There was a god, I did not know. He was surely watching over me. I will not tell you everything that happened in my life because some events are too personal to reveal. However, what I will do is tell you all that I can to help you to see the person I was, and the person I am becoming today.

In order for you to get a clearer understanding of what you are about to read, I will ask you to lay aside all perceptions of what you think you understand. I ask you to read what I believe God inspired me to write. By doing this, you will save yourself the time and trouble of trying to put together your own theories about what you feel should or should not have happened. This is my story. It will be a little shocking at times, but it will come together for the good in the end. I pray that God will bless you with understanding as you meet with the challenges of your life.

Get ready. You are about to take a journey into my life as it was.

Jackie V. Ways

CHAPTER ONE

Voices from A Haunted Past

I was thankful that my youngest sister Eva let me live in her home for a short time. However, her boyfriend Bryan was a different story. He was one fool that got on my nerves. He was nothing but a dope-dealing sex hound. Every time Eva’s back was turned, he would make some kind of sexual move toward me. I didn’t want him. He was my sister’s boyfriend. He was not someone I thought Eva should be with, but he was a far better choice for her than someone like Kenny was for me. I was hardly the one to tell her who she should bring into her home.

This particular morning, Bryan decided to visit the room where I was sleeping. My sister was not home, and he did not waste time. This was the opportunity he needed to make his move. I was lying on my side facing the wall. When I rolled over onto my back, there he stood, stark naked and aroused. He stood over me, looking down at me as if he was about to pounce on me any minute. By the look on his face, I do believe he thought that when I saw him in the nude, I would want him too. No way! That thought never entered my mind. He was barking up the wrong tree. Laying on the floor looking up at him was more than a frightening picture; it was like looking at a horror movie. I jumped up off the floor out of his way. I did not sleep on a full bed; I slept on a mattress that was on the floor. What Bryan had in his mind to do with me was just wishful thinking. I had just gotten away from pitiful Kenny; there was no way I would let this good for nothing slimeball get next to me.

Fighting Bryan off every other day was a continuous battle. I didn’t dare tell Eva what he was doing because I knew it would bring tension between the two of us. I was afraid that if I did tell her what he was doing, she would ask me to leave. For the time being, I had no other place to live and no other alternatives. Many days I had to leave the house to get away from Bryan. The only answer to this problem would be for me to get my own place. To live my own life and make decisions for myself was something I was afraid to do. At age twenty-three, I had three children, and I did not know what to do with them.

It had to be about one p.m. when I left the house that Thursday afternoon. It was so hot, I could feel the heat of the sun beating down on top of my head. There I was, walking down Main Street wearing my winter coat in the middle of the summer. I was wearing my coat for two reasons. First, I didn’t have any clothing I felt were good enough to be seen. When I left Kenny, I was in a hurry to get away. I had no time to pick and choose; I took only what I could carry. Second, I was trying to hide myself by wearing the coat. I was thinking that maybe Kenny might not see or recognize me with the coat. That was crazy thinking when I look back. What could be more conspicuous than wearing a winter coat in the middle of the summer? Kenny was the last person I wanted to see that day. It had been a month since I last saw him. I hadn’t had any problems with him because he did not know where to find me, and because I never went far from my sister’s house, I felt somewhat safe. For me to walk out onto the street in the daytime, I knew I was taking a big chance of being seen, but I had to take that chance.

My nerves were jumpy, and I imagined seeing Kenny’s face in every person walking down the street. I began walking faster toward the drugstore. The only thought I had was to get to the drugstore and back home before it closed.

Joy! Joy! I heard a man calling me. I kept walking, hoping that if I didn’t answer, he would go away.

Joy! Joy! The voice became louder and stronger, and it sounded like Kenny.

Please don’t let it be him, I thought. This time, I stopped and turned around to my right, just in time to see a small green car pull up next to the curb. My worst fear had come true; it was Kenny. He was sitting in the front seat of this car on the passenger side, leaning out the window, calling me. My thoughts were, He caught me. Should I stand, run, or go to him? I stood like an unmovable statue holding onto the front of my coat. As I watched him open the door, jump out of the car, and start to walk toward me, I could see he was a little hesitant in his approach toward me. There’s no way he could not see the fear in my face.

Joy, let me talk to you. I’m not mad, Joy, get in the car, he said.

At that very second, I was feeling like the little girl standing in front of the fireplace who didn’t want to go to her father but could not say no. However, there was a big difference, I was not that little girl, and no matter how afraid I was, I could say no.

No, Kenny, I said, and like a frightened child, I ran back to my sister’s house.

Not being able to say no to men I didn’t want in my life began when I was three years old. I am sure this fear I had of my father started before the age of three, but this is the age I can remember. Before I jump feet first into my story, let me take you back to where it all began. This will help you to see and better understand what I was seeing at that time.

Daddy

The earliest memory I have of my father is when I was a small child, two maybe three years old. I remember standing in front of the fireplace about to pick up something off the floor when I heard my father calling me. He was sitting on the edge of the couch across the room holding a pair of my panties in his hands. When I did not move, he called a second time. I remember him looking at me, waiting for me to come to him; I stood there looking back at him. For the life of me, I did not want to go to him. To tell you what I was feeling while I stood there looking at my father is not something I can easily put into words. The kind of fear I had of my father was not the kind of fear that you would feel if you thought you were going to be hurt, but it was a fear of dread and anxiety (if a young child could feel that way). No matter how much I wanted my father to love me, I was afraid of him. I was afraid of the man who screamed loud and beat my mother. I was afraid that if I didn’t do what he said, he would beat me too. I’m not sure all of what I was feeling, but I knew from a very young age that something was wrong. I only knew that I had to go to him, and I could not say no. There was no other place I could go, no other person I could turn to. The last memory I have of that time is holding onto my father’s arm and stepping into my underwear; the rest is a blank.

As I grew older, this inability to say no grew with me. I withdrew into a world nobody knew of but me. Yes, I had some good times when I was a child. I ran and played with other children, but even though I grew up in a world filled with other people, I felt alone. I don’t know what to call my life back then, but it was the beginning of a way of life that started when I was three years old.

As a young child, I saw my father as a big man, a man to be feared. He called everyone filthy names. In my father’s eyes, no one was any good. My mother never knew what to do when my father was home. She was always uneasy by the way she moved whenever he was present.

She would carefully pick every word she said to him. Even when she did try to say the right words, she was unsure if they would be accepted. My sisters and I did what we were told and what we saw our mother do. We didn’t want to say or do anything that would cause him to go off.

My father had an anger problem. About ninety-five percent of that anger was directed at my mother. She was his punching bag when he was upset—and he was always upset about something. I didn’t like seeing my father hit my mother, but as a child, there was nothing I could do but stand and watch. The only words I ever heard my father say about my mother was how worthless and stupid she was. He never said anything good to her or about her; if he ever did, the tone of his voice and the expression on his face said the opposite.

My mother worked the night shift at Johnson Medical Hospital. From what I could see, the hospital was the only place my mother could go where she could get away from my father for at least eight to ten hours a day. She tried her best to stay out of his way, but as soon as she came home from work, the store, or anywhere, he was on her like a bloodhound after a bone.

When I was in my early teens and my father would begin to hit our mother, my sister Lisa and I would attempt to stop him. My father came into the front room one night and forcefully grabbed me by one leg and arm, picked me up, swung me around, and threw me over onto the couch because I spoke at a time when he and my mother were fighting. I wasn’t hurt, but I was nearly scared to death. That was the first time I truly felt he was going to kill me.

Your mama ain’t nothing, your mama don’t know shit, your mama is stupid is what he would say to us along with more degrading words I choose not to repeat. These were common remarks he said when he would see us trying to talk to our mother. I recall one Saturday afternoon, there was a knock on the front door of our home. I went to the door to see who was there. When I opened the door, a tall heavyset black woman stood on the porch. She asked me if she could speak to my mother. When my mother came to the door, an argument started between the two of them. By the look of what I could see and the anger on the woman’s face, I knew something was about to happen. I could not clearly hear or understand what the argument was about, and my mother did not want me to know. She told me to go upstairs, which I did not do. I got back out of the way, but my mother could still see me.

When my father heard my mother and the woman arguing, he came out of the bedroom. He didn’t have far to go because the living room had been converted into a bedroom, which was no more that about ten feet from the front door. He shoved my mother back out of the way, and within minutes, he and the woman began to argue. I thought they were going to fight. (This would have been something to see because I never saw my father hit anyone but my mother.) Before a fight did happen, my father slammed the door in the woman’s face. I don’t know what was said between the two of them. All I knew was that my father was furious with my mother. He said that she said or did something to cause this mess. He used one of his long-standing words, shit. He hit my mother so hard that she stumbled backward across the room up against the wall and then fell onto the floor. I stood there looking at her. I didn’t know what to do. Whatever happened after that is a blank to me. I believe to this present day that I chose not to remember what happened.

Anytime my father was in the house, there was a feeling of impending doom. Whatever you were doing came to a stop until he either went to sleep or left the house. I felt I had to find a chair to sit in to avoid trouble. I would sit and watch him walk from the kitchen after he had his food back to the living room. I waited for the first chance I got to run upstairs to my bedroom to get away from him. We (my sisters and I) were afraid of our father. We never knew what he was going to do from one minute to the next.

I liked my father best when he was drunk because he could not clearly see what we were doing, and it was less stressful to be around him. You could breathe easier when he was home. However, if he was sober, it was every.bit like watching King Kong walk in the door. Not that he looked like King Kong because he was not a bad-looking man. He was not a big man in size, but his mannerism—the way he walked, and the sound of his voice—were frightening.

My father stood tall, kept his head up, shoulders back, and was careful with how he dressed before he left the house. He never wore jeans or anything that look like jeans, nor did he wear shorts in the heat of the summer. My mother made sure his shirts were starched and ironed every day. There has never been a day I can remember that my father ever went without freshly cleaned shirts and pants.

My sisters and I could not fight our father, but that did not mean we didn’t have other plans. There were many times we attempted to kill him. We were tired of him hitting our mother. One of the many plans we had was to push him down the stairs and make it look like he accidentally fell because he was drunk. We had it all planned. We were going to do this when he came home drunk and went upstairs to use the toilet. I would stand at the bottom of the stairs, and my sisters Lisa and Eva would stand at the top of the stairs. When he came out of the bathroom to go back downstairs, they were going to push him down the stairs. If he was not dead when he reached the bottom of the stairs, I was supposed to turn his head and break his neck to make sure he was dead. Well, we didn’t go through with that plan mainly because we were afraid. Another time we put rat poisoning into the beef stew my mother cooked for dinner. He ate the stew, and we waited to see if he would go to sleep and never wake up. The truth is, we knew we did not put enough poisoning into his food to kill him, but it was the pleasure in knowing that we could harm him if we wanted to and he didn’t know it.

The next time we tried to take his life was the night he and my mother got into a fight. After their fight, my mother left the house to go to her mother’s house, leaving us alone with him. We didn’t like him for making her leave us. We put together our plan to kill him when he came home drunk and fell asleep. This time, we were going to stab him in the chest with a butcher knife. As we had anticipated, he came home drunk as usual and went to sleep after eating. I’m not sure which one of us went for it, but one of us got the butcher knife from the kitchen, and we went into the bedroom where he was sleeping. We were going to put the knife on his chest, and at the count of three, we were going to shove the knife into his chest. Again, fear stepped in. We didn’t go through with that plan either. We could not do it because we were afraid that if whatever we did didn’t work and he didn’t