Broken but Not Defeated

By Amelia Rate

The worst of times can sometimes be the catalyst to the best of times. At the age of forty-seven the author’s worst time dragged her into a whirlpool of self-pity. While suicide was knocking on her door, God sent an angel to save her life. God seems to delight in choosing unlikely saviors; Moses the stutter and Noah the alcoholic are two. The angel God sent to this author was a quadriplegic named Angelina Ayudar. With perfect timing, Angelina threw a lifesaver into the whirlpool that was taking the author down. After working a few months with Angelina, the author realized that this quadriplegic was living the fulfilled life the author craved. Little by little Angelina taught the author how to live a spirit-filled life, and this has made all the difference.

The characters in the book have been given anonymous names in order to protect everyone involved. The events in this book occurred over twenty years ago, and many of the characters are deceased, including Angelina and Silass. Everything in this book is as true as the author’s twenty-year-old memory can make it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781796084535

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Copyright © 2020 by Amelia Rate.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2020901425

ISBN:                  Hardcover                      978-1-7960-8455-9

                            Softcover                         978-1-7960-8454-2

                            eBook                              978-1-7960-8453-5

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.

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 Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Rev. date: 01/23/2020

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

Chapter 1     Fear Was the Catalyst

Chapter 2     Teacher

Chapter 3     Suffering Sucks Sometimes

Chapter 4     Chauffeuring Angelina

Chapter 5     In Poverty or Wealth, In Sickness or Health

Chapter 6     Lessons in Toleration

Chapter 7     Beware of Ultimatums

Chapter 8     It’s Crying Time Again

Chapter 9     Free From Silass

Chapter 10   Visiting a Religious Cult

Epilogue

This book is dedicated to my daughter.

Foreword

God seems to take pleasure in enabling the meek to lead the strong, since there are many examples of this in the Bible. This story is a modern tale of a meek, physically challenged woman saving a strong able-bodied woman with a damaged soul. You might ask the paradoxical question who is saving whom? as you read the testimonies of each woman. Both women have afflictions that helps the other woman recognize her potential and purpose. The physically challenged hero of this story, Angelina Ayudar saved the soul sick author from answering the Hamlet death question incorrectly. As the six-month period of this story unfolds the sick soul starts to recognize blessings as they come.

This author had opportunities to learn most of the tools described in this book before meeting Angelina, but it was Angelina’s example of using the tools that convinced the author to change her habits. Once the soul of the author felt close to its source, she experienced a free and happy life.

Excepting the anonymous characters in this book, the author has tried to be as honest to the story as possible. This book began not long after Angelina’s death, but the author had not completely accepted her past. In order to have the inner peace required for writing this book the author had to experience first tolerance, then acceptance, which helps the process of forgiveness. Forgiveness is required for a peaceful soul. This was accomplished after twenty years. Some souls are sicker than others. Today I thank God, Angelina, my therapist, church, and my forgiving family for the joyous and free life I experience today.

Chapter 1

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Fear Was the Catalyst

Using hindsight, I began to see Silass’s true colors on a spring evening when he answered the phone. He considered telephone calls an interruption. I can still hear him saying, People that interrupt other people at night are rude people. Not wanting to be rude, Allison and I did not chitchat with others and discouraged people when they called at night. Silass usually ignored the phone, so when he picked up the receiver, I diverted my attention away from the television. He quietly nodded his head over and over until he finally spoke into the phone, You want to speak to your mother.

I was up in an instant putting the receiver to my ear. Through the crying, I heard Allison say, Mom, come and get me.

I assured her with, I am coming, then I turned to Silass and said, Allison needs our help, her fiancé has hit her!

I cannot go to her fiancé’s apartment. If I fight Ahsan, I will be arrested, because people with black belts in Karate are considered weapons. I had no way of knowing if that was true; all I knew was that I was required to attend a family crisis alone.

The first thing I saw when I arrived at the apartment where my daughter lived was two patrol cars flashing blue lights. I walked up to the closest police officer standing outside of his car. He was heavily leaning against the driver’s seat car door as I approached. He was scratching his head, his hat was tilted back in a cock-eyed position, and his face had a look of exasperation when he said, If I were your daughter’s father, I would knock some decency into her boyfriend, but being a police officer, I can’t enter a private residence without cause. She is out of danger. She is no longer in her boyfriend’s apartment. You will find her in the neighbor’s apartment.

I wondered what the officer meant by danger as I knocked on the door next to where my daughter lived. Two frightened co-eds opened the door and pointed to Allison. I said Thank you, to the co-eds and picked Allison up off the floor, almost carrying her to the car for the drive home. As we drove home I said, Are you all right?

I don’t want to talk about it.

When we got home, she went to her bedroom and shut the door. None of us slept that night, and in the morning the situation worsened by exhaustion.

Allison refused to consider pressing charges against her fiancé, but she let me take pictures of the bruises all over her body. As I witnessed her bruising, anger flashed its ugly head. I began to feel heat rising from the sides of my head above my ears. Before I could try to calm myself the heat, in my skull, reached the top of my head where the hemispheres of my brain meet. This sensation, which doesn’t come often, usually scares me into sanity. My mind left Allison’s bruised body for an instant to remember Allison and Ahsan visited his parents in Bangladesh last Christmas. Thoughts of how much worse this situation would have been if it happened in Bangladesh gave me a moment of gratitude. Often when I find myself in horrible situations, I remember my mother’s rhyme, From the day of your birth, until you ride in a hearse, always remember it could have been worse.

What would possibly cause a person to be so cruel to another person? Maybe I would never know the reason for the fight, because Allison refused to talk and isolated herself in her room. Alison often shut down conversations I initiated. Once Allison entered her teen years, she slowly distanced herself from me. I had grown accustomed to my daughter’s avoidance, but I hoped she would grow out of what seemed like youthful defiance. I never considered my drinking as a cause.

The day after the battering, Silass calmly sat reading. Allison locked herself in her bedroom, refusing to discuss her fiancé’s brutality. Without a solution in sight, I turned to my best friend, alcohol.

On Easter Sunday, a week after this incident, Silass and I returned from church services to find a dark, empty house. A note from Allison on the kitchen table simply said, I have moved back to Ahsan.

Should we call Allison to make sure she is all right?

She is a grown person and has control of her decisions. We would only agitate the situation further with meddling.

Realizing my ability of persuasion was non-existent when it came to Allison, I grabbed the wine bottle from the counter and poured a drink. My solution for problems was alcohol in those days. As I drank, Silass prepared the Easter meal.

Insanity allowed me to believe alcohol enhanced my ability to solve problems. Of course, no solution to my daughter’s problem came, but depression came galloping in. After lunch, I secluded to the bedroom.

Eventually, my mind told me that my daughter’s solution was unattainable, but a solution to terminate my pain was. This was not the first time I considered ending my life in order to end pain, but this time I was completely dedicated to this permanent solution to a temporary problem. I swallowed all the pills I could find in the cabinet and sat back to wait for relief to come. Silass found me in the hell I created, and convinced me to trade oblivion for a vomiting spree. Once I was sober, I realized that alcohol was killing me. When I was sober I wanted to live; when I was drunk, I wanted to die. I needed to break up with my best friend, alcohol.

Of course, I should have taken off from school that Monday after Easter, but the insanity of the disease of alcoholism had affected both my sober and non-sober life. Believing I was sober enough to teach, I began the school day like every other day, until the vomiting began. I didn’t consider going