Storms of Life: The Development

By Mindy Scott

A genuinely personal, Storms of life: The Development is a story about Mindy Scott. She has increasingly defied the odds and defeated obstacles in hope that telling her story inspires others to do the same. This unique story introduces you to an African American girl who grows up in sunny southern California. The place where the weathers almost always nice, with tall trees and beautiful greenery all year round. The first book of an autobiographical memoir series of deep-rooted reflection, alluring storytelling, and life altering shocking events. Struggling through dramatically circumstances from birth, drastic family changes and mind-blowing trauma. Mindy describes unnerving and triumphant both public and private moments with honesty telling her story as she has lived it and on her own terms.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mindy Scott
• Release date: Apr 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9780463341933

Mindy Scott

Mindy Scott is the author behind The Journey of Intercession and Storms of Life: The Development. She is the mother of a young adult, a poet, an artist, and a designer. She has also been a teacher’s assistant, a supervisor, a mentor, and a dancer. She does her best writing at home at her desk overlooking the beautiful landscape of nature, or parks nearby in sunny southern California. After not writing or publishing anything for years Mindy decided to write again. Mindy wanted to share the knowledge she’s gained and the journey that got her here. Mindy obtained three degrees on her journey, an associate and bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and an associate degree in Occupational Studies Medical Specialties

Book preview

Storms of Life:

The Development

Mindy Scott

These are my memories, from my perspective, and I have tried to represent events as authentically as possible. To maintain the anonymity of the individuals involved, I have changed some details.

Published by Mindy Scott at Smashwords

Copyright 2022 Mindy Scott

All rights reserved

Discover other titles by Mindy Scott:

The Journey of Intercession

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Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Whisper

Chapter One: The Beginning

Chapter Two: The Journey Begins

Chapter Three: The Unexpected Turn

Chapter Four: School Days

Chapter Five: Memory Lane

Chapter Six: The New Beginning

Chapter Seven: Tender Vibrance

Chapter Eight: What Were You Thinking

Chapter Nine: The Return

Chapter Ten: Line Cast

Chapter Eleven: The Temperature Rises

Chapter Twelve: Trail of Events

Chapter Thirteen: Graduation

Chapter Fourteen: Hooked

Chapter Fifteen: Secrets Out

Chapter Sixteen: The Cat is Loose

Chapter Seventeen: Arriving at Assignment

Chapter Eighteen: Breaking

Chapter Nineteen: New Arrival

Chapter Twenty: Behind Bars

Chapter Twenty-One: The Truth Comes Out

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Ghosts of Men Past

Chapter Twenty-Three: Extended Family

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Gemini Twin

Chapter Twenty-Five: Deer in Headlights

About the Author

Introduction: The Whisper

Everybody has a story to tell. This ultimately is what lead me to write my story. Just as many of you that will read this was not born with a silver spoon in their mouth or living the life of the rich and famous. We are born into what is before and adapt accordingly or break the mode and do something different. This is my encouragement to you! Do it! Be bold, be courageous, be you and let God be your guide!

As I began to write this book many scriptures came to mind but this one in particular: I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33 NIV This is how I feel and believe God whispered when I was going through my toughest storms and whispers when I go through a new storm. In times when I felt there was no one there or no way out I remembered God whispers through the storm. I let God be my guide so that I could see the light of each day and the beauty of seeing the opportunity of what tomorrow could be.

The storms of life started one day in November of 1978 in sunny California. I was born with struggles that would follow me throughout my life. I was born weighing 5lbs. 5oz, but that was not it. I was also born blind in my right eye, due to my mom having German measles. This comes from what she says, we have yet to find out or proved if this is true. Not only did I have visible physical issues. I also had one internally, a heart murmur. As you can see my life starts in turmoil and questioning truths. From the title of the book, you can see they do not stop here.

Chapter One: The Beginning

Now that I’ve given you my beginning, let’s do a little family history. See, my family roots on my mother’s side start in Virginia. We are said to be Creole which consist of Black, Blackfoot Indian, and White ancestry. My grandmother May was the one who was Creole. She was a light skinned, good hair, and farm fed country girl. My grandfather, Jack was said to be Black and Jamaican, son of a Pastor. My grandparents met at a young age. From stories their decision to be together was not smiled upon by his family. The story goes, his family of witches put a curse on our bloodline, because they did not like my grandmother. My grandfather decided at the youngest age possible then seventeen, to join the Navy. Shortly after joining the Navy, and fresh from bootcamp he decided to marry my grandmother. Not long after they began to have children and start their family. My grandfather was in the Navy for a short time when he was told he’d be re-stationed. He and my grandmother packed up and moved to California from Virginia with their small family and when my mother was young.

Although they lived in a nice suburban area, home life was not always the best. Once my grandparents stopped having children it was a total of nine of them, my mother was third to the oldest. My mom and aunt were like a second mom to their younger siblings. My grandfather became a Chef in the Navy, and my grandmother was a stay-at-home mom. My grandmother was the laid-back type until she got fed up, then she’d be raw and uncut. My grandfather was as the saying goes nice nasty type. He’d be smiling but would be mean as hell. But in one sense I understand you can’t be soft and go to war. But this was no excuse for the sexual abuse that my grandfather did to the girls, he was supposed to protect in that household. This is a subject my family doesn’t want to talk about, but this is where a lot of our family issues stem from. It created a gateway for incest to come into our family bloodline.

To date, I know of my grandfather attempting to rape my mother and continually molesting one of my aunts, that he continued having a relationship with for years into her adult life. At this point I believe it became a choice and consensual. One of his excuses was not being sure if they were his daughters, which was truly an excuse. For years, this situation has been just tip toed around and it’s not healthy for anyone. For this reason, many of us girls in the family did not have a relationship or extremely limited contact with him. After many years of marriage my grandparents divorced. He later remarried, but she did not.

I believe with my mom and aunt being like a second mom to their younger siblings, and the sexual abuse, they grew up fast. Which caused them to decide to marry at young ages. My mom, Maci first got married at 16 to a man that she thought was her forever, Henry. She wanted to marry him, but he did not want to marry her. Henry was a young Sailor, my mom met hanging out by the local naval base. My grandparents told him to marry her, or they were going to his commander and say he got their daughter pregnant and was not making an honest woman out of her. So, she and Henry got married and had my sister Alani. They were married for a while then separated.

My mom later met Philo, who actually wanted to date one of my aunts. They met at a party by her stepping on his freshly cleaned white shoes and him making a scene about it. Not long after they met they had my sister Trisha. They had an on and off relationship for a while but never married. My mom continued dating here and there. Then she met the man, I grew up knowing as my dad, Miles. He was a young recently discharged Sailor turned flashy street hustler from Texas. He caught her eye when he walked into the bar, she was dancing in one night. That night my mom told her best friend Luiza, Miles would be her husband one day. My mom and Luiza both danced at the bar. To this day I think my dad was my mom’s pimp at one point, but she swears he wasn’t. My mom never lied to us about being a dancer. She would tell us stories about her friends, and one of them was a transgender named Marg. Marg was a man that put himself together so well as a woman, shoot when you first met her, you would swear she was a woman until someone told you she wasn’t.

My mom says, I was a dry birth, meaning coming down the birth canal long after her water broke and stopping then later restarting active labor. My mom gave birth to me with no family support, being I was her third child. My grandmother decided to go be with my aunt, since she was giving birth to her first child at the same time. From my mom’s version of events of my birth, my dad was taking care of my sisters and hustling. He did come to see me born but left since my mom’s labor stopped and I had not been born yet. No one else who was around during this time remembers him being around. It is said he was doing one of his many stints in prison. My parents lived a life that only movies seem to depict. My dad dealt drugs with the local drug ring and a few Mexican dealers. His clothes were tailor made and he stayed buying any and everything from boosters.

My dad and his friend, Leroy upgraded to business owners of a local bar, but still hustled on the side. We weren’t rich but they didn’t hesitate to look the part. On the surface, our family looked like a picture perfect, but we were just getting by. Then came the drug addictions and my dad’s revolving door of jail and prison. During my dad’s many revolving jail and prison visits, it is highly possibly Leroy, and my mom had a relationship. Leroy’s wife, Nina, has a story about the time she almost ran over my mom, behind Leroy. Nina said she could of swore she saw Leroy and my mom making out. Nina said she jumped in her car and tried to run them over just after seeing them. My mom was visibly addicted to crack cocaine at this point. Although so many people could see, very few attempted to help. She struggled with her addiction, taking care of us; me and my two older sisters.

Many people addicted to drugs, live an abnormal life, along with their immediate families. Although my mom had her addiction, she tried to ensure our lives were as normal as possible. Our house was decent, our clothes were clean, we always looked presentable, and my sisters went to school regularly. Being the youngest at the time I had no clue of the situation. As like most people, I don’t have many memories of this timeframe, but I have several stories. I have been told of people asking was I for sell as a toddler walking around by myself, thinking I was a walking doll because I was so small. Then there’s the stories about my first pictures.

I had on this green and white dress, which my dad bought. According to the stories, I was sleeping when the photographer arrived and was still tired during the shoot. To wake me up when it was time to take every picture, a cold rag was placed on my face, which startled me awake and he would snap a picture. We grew up with our life being a little unpredictable. Trisha has told me stories of us going to the club my mom danced at with Luiza. We would sit on the bar, drink Shirley Temples, and run around until it was time for the bar to open for business. We had two Rottweilers, who went everywhere with us. It’s a story of us going to the park and my dad sitting me on a bench, telling the dogs to watch me and they sat there the whole time while he conducted business in the park and played with my sisters.

Chapter Two: The Journey Begins

One day at the age of two, came one of the biggest changes of our lives. These are the accounts of that day as I have been told. One afternoon my granny came to visit. For some reason unknown I was afraid of her, it just might have been she was a mean woman. I came running full speed toward the dining room; running inside the house was something she did not like. I ran straight into her sitting at our dining room table. She calls out to me, and I bolted the opposite direction, towards the kitchen, in search of my mom. I ran into the kitchen, directly into my mom, who was holding a pot full of boiling water. She was preparing some tea for her and my granny. My running into the kitchen and her frightened her, causing her to jump, wasting the water all over me and the kitchen. This caused me to have third degree burns on the upper left side of my body.

My burns ranged from my left cheek, down to my neck and shoulder to the top of my breast. My mom rushed me to the only place she could think of for help, my primary care provider. He wrapped my burns in gauze, causing my burns to continue to become worse. After me crying insanely for hours my mom with the help of Luiza, took me to a hospital. By this time, the gauze had melted to my exposed and burnt skin. This made the task of aiding my burns three times harder. The doctors worked franticly to remove the gauze by using saline water and surgical scrubs from my now terribly burnt skin. Once removing the gauze, they rushed me to surgery to begin skin graphing. The doctors removed skin from my thighs to be placed over my burnt areas. The doctors told my mom as I grew the skin would stretch and begin to look normal. Thus, being no one would ever know of the burns. Once released I returned home, my body healed as much and as well as it could. I carry a scar as a memory of this, my lower neck and upper shoulder skin never grew enough to generate enough new skin.

After several conversations with Trisha, I