Love, in Spite Of...: Healing Through Forgiveness

By Yvette Holland

Rape, pedophilia , incest, domestic violence at the hands of kin, family friends, and adults who should have been protecting the women and girls in their midst have been traditionally “suffered privately “ by those women and girl victims, often times with the victims becoming the focus of recriminations when such situations have come to light .

-Dr. Harry Edwards
Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley/ Sociologist/Civil Rights Leader

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Growing up in an upper middle class family had its advantages and drawbacks. Although sheltered from most of the dangers of inner city life I was nevertheless isolated, groomed, targeted, and victimized within my own home. This all occurred among women who were highly educated and hyper vigilant about my safety at all times. Their professional accomplishments and intellectual achievements did not protect me from a ravished childhood trauma brought on by a predator who lived amongst us.

My struggles were insurmountable obstacles because I wasn’t in a position to deal with all of the complexities of the mind-games, deceit, betrayal and pain. As I grew older, I alone found the courage and strength to finally do something. Albeit a rough and often contentious journey, eventually I found the help that I needed. It started with a simple question: Can I forgive?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796055535

Book preview

I Loved Him

He was an elegant man. He had wavy hair and resembled Duke Ellington. He was most comfortable in a business suit. I remember his smell. He wore cologne every day. It was probably Old Spice. He kept his wingtip shoes shined (when that sort of grooming mattered) and smoked cigarettes with a gentlemanly flair that held my attention even though I loathe the smell of tobacco smoke. He taught me how to ballroom dance and let me stand on his feet so I could keep up.

I was young when my grandmother and he met. They were introduced by the husband of her next-door neighbor. He lived in the Bay Area and for a while they flew back and forth to see each other. I was only 8 years old then and fondly referred to him as Uncle Paul.

Born in 1917 in Muskogee, Oklahoma, he was retired from the Redevelopment Agency in San Francisco. He had adult children. I recall there being three of them but at some point he matter- of- factly told a fascinating story of how he also had a set of identical twins by a woman who was passing for white and she was terrified to have children born with brown skin. So, she put them up for adoption and moved to the west coast. She feared exposure because they were born with a darker complexion than hers.

He would sit at the breakfast table where he kept a small transistor radio and listen to the baseball games while nursing his favorite drink of Beefeaters and orange juice. Even if a television was close by, he seemed to get genuine pleasure from listening to the game.

A very even-tempered man, I do not ever recall him arguing or raising his voice at anyone. I was his running buddy. We went together to the market, the gas station and the car wash.

He never said no when I wanted a quarter so I could ride the pony in front of the grocery store or buy stale Mike and Ikes out of the candy machine. When I didn’t want to go with my mom shopping, he’d let me stay at home with him and I got to watch TV, eat snacks and have an all-around great time.

He saw me so often because my mother and I spent probably four out of seven evenings a week over there eating and visiting. That routine had started well before he came along and Mimi getting married to him didn’t stop it.

A master on the grill, he once got the opportunity to sell brisket sandwiches at Dodger Stadium. He drove me to and from my many theater arts rehearsals, and patiently waited when they ran late and he never complained. There was no one who met him who didn’t like him. He was fair, honest to a fault, jovial and dignified.

He was also a child molester.

Mamma Don’t Take No Mess

My mother was always overly protective. When she left the south and moved to the west coast, she literally put a fortress around me with locks, latches, curfews, and physical boundaries everywhere.

Culture shock would be an understatement for her. She grew up in a much insulated, segregated community and seldom if ever interacted with anyone other than black people. The policeman was black, the barber, the doctors, everyone.

Having grown up in that affluent upper middle-class community, she often laughs that she had never heard the term apartment until she moved to Los Angeles. She grew up thinking everyone in Louisiana lived in a home.

She may have remained there had she not gotten pregnant with me her freshman year at Lake Charles University. Her relationship with my father was not significant enough to take into consideration when deciding what to do. When questioned by her mother regarding her dilemma, my mom suggested moving to Los Angeles to save all the embarrassment an out of wedlock pregnancy would cause my grandmother. Mimi’s sorority sisters and other socialite friends would frown upon such a predicament and she had worked too hard to earn a stellar reputation to have it tarnished. Her aunt also encouraged her move by saying that no one in L.A. would care if she was pregnant and unwed; everybody did it.

A few months prior to my birth she moved to California, stayed with an aunt for a while and then other family members. She would eventually get to find out what apartment living was like up close and personal when she moved us into our first place.

It’s always been me and my mom, and then everyone else. Growing up as an only child was a very quiet existence. I remember finding many simple things to do to occupy my time. I stacked dominoes and then tipped them over, watched TV by myself in the living room and made intricate card houses on top of the coffee table. I had the most extensive Barbie collection ever and used my shoes as their cars, especially my Vans.

My boredom would extend to the kitchen where I’d come up with all sorts of ridiculous concoctions. I remember playing wall ball in the back of the fully enclosed four-plex where we lived. I would swing from the clothesline bars and make mud pies in the little plots of grass. Playing outside was minimal because I could only do so directly in the front or backyard. This was The Jungle so coined because of the lush foliage however, now affectionately called Crenshaw Village, a casualty of gentrification.

Most of the children on my street, which was quite long, could run up and down with reckless abandon. I enviously peered down, through the upstairs window watching them, yet not permitted to join in. The only time I got to run buck wild outside was when the melodious music announced that the ice cream truck had entered the neighborhood. Timing was crucial if you were going to catch him. The echo of Ice Cream being hollered down the street would signal to moms on Cloverfield to grab their coin purses so their child would not be left out.

My mom would throw money from the second story window down to me. My hand eye coordination had to be on point because I did not want to have to scrounge around in the bushes should I miss her throw. My favorites were soft serve vanilla, Now and Laters and Bomb Pops.

I understood why she thought she needed to provide adult supervision for me. She was a single parent from Louisiana, and we lived in the infamous South Central Los Angeles. There was crime and poverty all around. She taught at the neighborhood school for several years. Most of the students who matriculated to junior high and high school knew my mother and knew of me. They called me Ms. Hendrick’s daughter. Thus, I was held in high regard because Ms. Hendrick had a reputation that preceded her.

She taught before corporal punishment was outlawed in the public schools. She had many a student to touch their toes in her classroom and tapped their behind. Parents brought her instruments of torture. After multiple yard sticks were broken on her students’ backsides, I distinctly recall one parent ceremoniously bringing her a thick ping pong paddle with holes in it. It was warmly nicknamed black lightning and she dished out plenty of discipline with it. Those students respected, feared and seemingly loved her.

She was extremely stern, but I only recall receiving about four spankings while growing up. She didn’t have to lay hands on you because her verbal assault would put you in place. Her punishment for sub-par report cards? Legendary. She’d shut you down until the next five-week grading period. No phone, no outings, no TV, nada, nothing. That was solitary confinement.

There were many codes of conduct on the street. The ones dealing with authority figures like pastors, teachers, and elderly matriarchs of the community were well understood. The street code was that they were to be left alone, respected and not be hassled. She was one such figure and as her offspring I wasn’t bothered either. We resided on a very long street lined with four and eight-plexes.

When I was a little older, she occasionally and surprisingly allowed me to walk to St. Luke’s Church which was not too far away. There were gang bangers and drug dealers on my street which had only one way in and one way out. I was basically left alone because of her, but there was a time I was targeted despite her neighborhood status and notoriety.

One day while heading home from Sierra Junior High alone I was strolling along, minding my own business. All of a sudden I thought I’d tripped and hit the ground face first. I was blitzed. I had no idea what had happened, but when I tried to get up my body was again thrust to the ground and I felt a piercing sensation across my back. Every time I tried to get up, bam, knocked down. Finally, I turned to look up and saw an older girl with a menacing scowl looming over me to stomp me to the ground once again. This happened repeatedly from some girl I had never seen before.

I was about half of a block from my apartment building. Some kids ran to get my mother. The girl ran off when she saw my mother approaching. At that point my mother went into high gear. I trailed closely behind as she followed the girl over to her apartment and banged on the door demanding to speak with the girl’s parents. My mother had wedged her foot in the