The 67th Book: No-Holds-Barred Conversation between Mom and Me

By Sharon D. Ashhurst

Sharon Daphne Ashhurst has the ability to make you laugh and cry, bring you to your 
feet or knock you to your knees, all with the power of words. She is just an ordinary girl that God 
used to do an extraordinary thing. From private schools and Carnegie Hall, to drugs and sexual 
promiscuity, she was considered

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sharon D. Ashhurst
• Release date: Jan 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9780692173206

Book preview

About the Author

Sharon Daphne Ashhurst is an ordinary girl who was raised as an only child by a single mother from Brooklyn, New York, Bedford-Stuyvesant. Her passion is spreading the message that, She is just a nobody trying to tell everybody about somebody who can save anybody.

I was born to one mother, but I cherish all mothers.

Can we talk?

The 67th Book

No-Holds-Barred Conversation

Between Mom and Me

SHARON D. ASHHURST

THE 67TH BOOK

No-Holds-Barred Conversation Between Mom and Me

Copyright © 2018 Sharon D. Ashhurst

All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher. Copying this book is both illegal and unethical.

ISBN 13: 978-0-692-59400-1

ISBN 13: 978-0-692-17320-6 (e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: in progress

Memoir/Autobiography

Printed in the United States of America

Interior Design and Layout by PricelessDigitalMedia.com

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my mother, Hettie Jane Kirby Ashhurst. I know that the beginning of life for you was hard, and the middle for us was hateful, but who could have imagined what the end would be, but God?

He taught us both that there is life after divorce, sexual assault, and death.

God had written our script before the foundation of the world. He was such a magnificent writer that He created a part for us in His story. Two little girls in grown women’s bodies who needed to heal. He knew what would happen before it happened, and who it would happen to. He knew the end before the beginning. Jesus is a great storyteller, and I never would have imagined Him using you and me as his characters to tell the world about Himself and the love He has for humanity.

After the script was complete, and the movie had ended, I came into agreement with Him that there was no other mother who could have played the role of my mother like you. What a great actress you are!

When I grow up, I want to be just like you. I will forever love you.

Your babe,

Sharon

Acknowledgments and Author’s Note

I’d like to thank My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for staying with me through some of the worst betrayals and circumstances that a human being can encounter, giving me divine protection and grace. My life is not my own, but it belongs to You. I am just a vessel You created to be used for Your purpose.

I’d also like to thank my high school English teacher, Mrs. Paula Yehezkel. You said, when I was sixteen years old, that I was a great writer, and you came back in my life at fifty years young to make sure I did it right with that red pen of yours. Thanks, for all your encouraging words, lunch dates, but most of all, for letting me bounce all that was inside of me off on you. I am forever grateful.

To all the men and women who have prayed for me, encouraged me, loved me, and mentored me throughout my journey, God never wasted anything. To all the people who lied, ostracized, and left me for dead, thank you. I realized that your part in my story was over. You have not lived until you have encountered a Judas; this comes with fulfilling purpose. I am forever grateful.

To all my family members that died before their time, I have learned my most valuable lessons from your lives: how to heal the little girl within. Thank you.

In this book, I tell many conversations my mother and I had. I tried to avoid causing undue embarrassment. However, I made sure not to change the dynamics of these conversations. This is a work of nonfiction. The conversations recorded have been to the best of my recollection.

Psalm 27:10

Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.

Contents

CHAPTER 1

THE DEATH OF A MOTHER AND DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIP

CHAPTER 2

THE RESURRECTION OF A MOTHER AND DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIP

CHAPTER 3 THE COMING TOGETHER

An Agreement Between Me & God

Victors

Introduction

Understanding Why

The whole world is full of hurting people. A person who never heals goes from one stage of life to another carrying the same hurt that usually stems from childhood issues. Adults with childhood issues have all types of dysfunctions, which then brings children into a dysfunctional environment, which leads to a generational cycle. This child grows up to be an adult who inflicts his or her pain on relationships. The relationship can consist of a husband and wife, parents and children, extended family members, and friends. Sometimes they will act out in a way that can be self-destructive, especially if they have unresolved issues. In order to have a productive life, you must be able to have relationships without inflicting your pain onto others. In other words, you must find a way to heal.

When children are growing up, and going through a crisis, the feeling that no one understands is usually what is most painful for them. Yet, that is so far from the truth. We all have faced similar challenges, but the thought that I am the only one going through this, is what is most devastating. No one is there to say, I have been through this too, and it will be alright.

Having a place to go where you can feel safe to disclose your most personal feelings about who you are, what you are going through, and who you want to become is a place that you can call a safe haven. A safe haven is a place that will give you direction and secrecy, but more importantly, it will help you to thrive while you make decisions, and even mistakes, as you go through life. Every adult has a little child inside who needs to feel safe in order to tell their most intimate secrets without feeling judged.

One day, I was sitting on my bed going through family photos. I came across two pictures that consisted of three of my family members who had died before the age of fifty-two. Two of the family members were holding me in their arms. While I was sitting there staring at the pictures, a strange feeling came upon me. It was as though there was a message they were trying to reach out to give me. Somehow, I knew that if I did not receive this message, I would be the next one in line for a burial. So, whatever they needed to teach me, I needed to listen.

As I sat there looking at their pictures, I began to study their lives piece by piece. I rehearsed in my mind the conversations we’d had in the past. It dawned on me how conflicting the conversations were with their actions. Even though they were grown women, the pain they had been through contributed to the choices they had made because of the little girl that had never healed.

Then, I looked at myself and realized that I was doing the same thing. I knew who I wanted to be, and I knew what I wanted to do, but I was not confronting the pain that had taken over my mind, body, and soul.

So often my mother would say to me, People are going to be the death of you. I thought I understood what she meant, but it was not until I was holding those pictures in my hands that her words became a reality for me. Aside from our passion for music, we all were exceptional givers. We loved loving. We were the type of people who would give you the shirt off our backs, and people like us are usually starving for love ourselves. Not being able to love ourselves put us in the line of fire to be bitten by, what I call, people who are deadly snakes. Most of the time we did not realize who the snake was until it was too late. People that love hard usually have a hard time bouncing back, especially when they have been abused, deceived, or manipulated.

I knew that we had a common denominator: self-destruction and depression. There were times that I went down the same road they had. Depression was a road that was destructive to my well-being. How was I going to master this thing called depression that had taken over my life? I had to find a way to get rid of it permanently.

I suddenly realized that I had to find the answer about how to survive in this world without killing myself: whether it was through drugs, suicide, or making long-lasting decisions that would bring about a permanent solution to a temporary problem. In order for me to beat life, and not let life beat me, I had to find the antidote.

When someone asks you, What do you want to be when you grow up? no one responds by saying, I want to commit suicide, or, I want to be a drug addict, manic-depressive, gang banger, or prostitute. Life has a way of hitting you with situations that are so hard. If you do not have the tools to make it, you won’t. There is no manual written that gives information on what tests we will face in life or how we should respond to the test. We all express our pain in different ways; the bottom line is, we all become adults with childhood issues.

The more I stared at those pictures, the more I realized that I had to do what they had never done and go places they had never been. Something deep inside of me knew that if I kept seeking, I would find it. I would find a way to survive in this world against all odds. Although I have been deceived, betrayed, lied about, ostracized, and criticized, somehow, I knew that I would still be able to go through all of that and land on my feet. What was it that I had to learn and where was I going to find it?

In that one moment, I realized something that I had never realized. Those three family members were a book with their own story, and all I had to do was read the pages. They would teach me how to survive, not by what they said or did, but by what they did not do. Each one had never healed the little girl within. Although those three family members and I were very much alike, there was one thing I did that they did not. I stepped away from the old, so I could learn something new.

One of the hardest things in life is to break away from what you know, and who you know, to learn something you do not know. I had to believe that nothing, and no one, I was connected to had the answers; and if they did have the answers, they were not willing to share them with me. If family could not help those three family members, who had died in the middle of their crises, then obviously they could not help me. My help could only come from those outside my family. I had already experienced seeing many of those who could have been a solution to my problem, become more of a hindrance in hopes that I would somehow fail. My surviving the odds made them feel inadequate. Rather than helping me, they became like crabs in a barrel. When one tries to pull herself up, the rest pull her back down. I totally disagree with the idea that blood is thicker than water. I have experienced things in life when water was there for me and blood was not.

Therefore, I had to be willing to start life over again without those that I love and cancel out all the myths that I was told. A second chance is not given by age. It’s given to you when you change your mind and want something different out of life. A person who always wants more out of life will constantly be on the move, learning from their mistakes, and the mistakes of others—trying new things. People who are complacent with life are usually stuck. Anything that is stuck eventually will stink, which means they have lost hope.

I started on this journey when I felt devastated, but I still had a little hope left. I attribute that to what they called a mustard seed. This mustard seed connected me to my spirituality. The thing I came to realize was that my total existence was not all wrong—if I allowed my spirituality to be in control, rather than my negativity. I had to learn how to cast aside my negative thoughts with positive thinking.

When a doctor wants to know about your health, he goes through your family history to find all the possible medical issues you may have to face in life. I took that same approach and began searching through my family history, looking at all the things that I may have to face in life: suicide, physical abuse, drug abuse, depression, low self-esteem, arrogance, pride, and sexual promiscuity. If I could overcome those things in my family bloodline, then I would have beaten the odds on dealing with life.

All of us come from families that are dysfunctional in one capacity and gifted in another. There is a gifted side to us and a human side. We are all born with gifts, but our dysfunction tends to control all aspects of who we are. The child who becomes an adult with unresolved issues still lives inside the person who is gifted. The pressure of life comes from people who feel your gift is the total sum of who you are, without dealing with the unresolved issues that you have incurred.

Although all three family members were smart, highly educated, and gifted, the problem was that they did not understand there were at least two people who lived inside each of them: the gifted person and the little girl that had never healed. The need to love and be loved was at the core of their pain.

We all express our pain in different ways. I had to learn how to stop hurting myself and to guard my heart from those who would try to inflict more pain upon me. The first thing was to detach myself from those who had hurt me, whether physically or emotionally. I had to remove myself from relationships that did not work for me—no matter if it was family or friend. Nothing can hurt you more than family and friend secrets. I no longer would obligate myself to do something just because it was familiar to me, or because this was the way it had been done through the years in our family’s history.

I decided to invest time in myself and stop giving so much of myself to others, leaving me handicapped. I had to take time and look at all the things that were wrong with me, then take another look at all the things that were right with me. I had to learn how to reconstruct myself from the inside out.

As I embarked on this journey, I only needed one person in my life who really wanted the best for me—one person who I could learn from without being subjected to negativity. He was the only person that I brought from my old life into my new life; except this time, we would have a different type of relationship. The thing about Him is that He loves starting over. He is always up to doing something new when it concerns you, if He is given a chance.

Actually, He never remembers your past. No matter what had been done to me, or what I did to myself, I knew that I would never hear about it again, because He only saw the best in me. Now, He would teach me to see the best in myself and to not tolerate anything less. This love lifted me, encouraged me, and covered me. This was not the type of love that said I love you in one breath and betrayed me in the next one. This was not the love that used me for convenience, manipulated me, or even tried to control me. This love was the godly kind of love and it made all the difference. This was the love I needed in order for me to make it.

A religious experience will not help you to stand through hell storm, but once you have a revelation experience of love, it will introduce you to a relationship that you now have as an anchor for your soul. So, when everything around you begins to shake, and there is no one around you can trust, you will have something to hold onto that will keep you steady—just like a ship rocking at the