FIND BEAUTY within DARKNESS: Stopping the Pattern (revised and updated edition)

By Giselle McNab

At age fourteen, Giselle McNab was on her own. Grieving the loss of her childhood, Giselle wrestled with the events of the past and the bleak promise of her future. She wondered where she would go when she hit rock bottom.

In this intense and emotional retelling of events in her life, Giselle weaves an incredible story of triumph and overcoming e

• Language: English
• Publisher: Giselle McNab
• Release date: Jul 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781088042939

Giselle McNab

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Find Beauty within Darkness

STOPPING THE PATTERN

Giselle McNab

Copyright © 2022 by Giselle McNab

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or transmitted in any printed, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

The author has tried to recreate events, locales, and conversations from her memories of them. In order to maintain anonymity, in some instances, she has changed the names of individuals and places and may have changed some identifying characteristics and details such as physical properties, occupations, and places of residence.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

EISBN: 978-1-0880-4293-9

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

My pumpkins—Alexys, Angel, and Gianni—you are the best part of me, the reason my heart beats. Elijah, Nana loves you so much! My step-children—Khalil, Jalyce, and Joshua—You have been a blessing in my life, and I am so thankful to be a part of yours. I do this for you all!

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter One: Ring Around the Rosie

Chapter Two: The Apartments

Chapter Three: Crying Wolf

Chapter Four: Spring Flowers

Chapter Five: Seesaw

Chapter Six: Repeating Patterns

Chapter Seven: The Devil You Know

Chapter Eight: A Fractured Ego

Chapter Nine: When Patterns Shift

Chapter Ten: Love and Stepping Stones

To My Readers

Resources

About the Author

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, my darling husband: you found all that my heart, body, mind, and soul had to offer. You never hesitated to invest your time and love in little, broken me. You helped me break the chains that have kept me confined for so many years. You breathed life into my soul. I have never felt so alive, beautiful, energetic, and ready to conquer my dreams. You have genuinely believed in me day after day. The achievement of writing this book is not only mine; this was us. You are my heart, backbone, hero, love, and best friend. It is an honor to be your wife. Te Adoro Mi Amor!

Dad, thanks for the times you tried helping me. I wasn’t mature enough to understand then, but I get it now. Love you!

Jose, my wonderful brother, thank you for reminding me that I’m a giant, even though I’m only five feet tall. You never fail to lift my spirits! I love and appreciate you!

Mery, mi prima querida. You have been an inspiration to me from our young days in the Dominican Republic when you taught me how to sew a button. You are a phenomenal woman and I thank you for paving such a wonderful path to follow. To all my friends that have supported and encouraged me now and throughout my life. I thank you with all my heart!

Caroline, my wonderful editor, thank you for allowing me to be me and giving my story life. You Rock! I’m ready for the next one!

To my beautiful mother, I wrote your story from my eyes; but only you knew your truth. You faced pain and obstacles that I could not explain nor fully understand. But I do know that you fought, even through your worst times. Now, as an adult, as a mom, I thank you for those struggles. I thank you for the hard times. Because of you, I am not afraid of what’s to come. I take life by its horns and become more powerful than the evil that tries to enter. You left this world with a powerful connection to God, and Mami, I follow you in that path. The moment you left to be in a better place, I prayed for God to forgive your sins and provide your beautiful spirit with everlasting life. I will carry your smile and genuine love in my heart until we meet again. Rest in eternal peace!

To my sassy Grandma Lourdes, thank you for being such a positive role model in my young life. For taking on the responsibility of caring for me with so much love, patience, and dedication. For providing me with a nurturing and safe home. Thank you for always having confidence in my abilities and for teaching me the etiquette of a young lady. Thank you for always reminding me how beautiful I was inside and out. Every manicure, every high heel, and every beautiful dress I slip on will always carry a memory of you. I will always live by your guidance and love in my heart and soul. Rest in eternal peace!

Chapter One

RING AROUND THE ROSIE

I remember the closet was small and tight, crowded with coats, shoes, and boxes. I pressed myself into the corner of it, trying not to cry or make a single sound, while the man of the week was making my mother cry. They hit her, they did drugs with her, and they used her. Most of all, they scared me.

I was happy before that when it was my mother, my father, and my older siblings. I was five, the youngest of three kids, all of us living in New York City in a third-floor apartment across the street from the Chelsea housing projects in Manhattan. Even though my brother and sister had different dads, my dad was their Papi as much as he was mine. He taught my sister how to ride a bike and taught my brother sports. No one was left out. Back then, I attended a Catholic-based Pre-K located inside a brownstone off of 9th Avenue. I remember playing and singing loudly, Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posies, while happily waiting for my dad to hoist me onto his shoulders to carry me the ten blocks back home. I felt loved and cared for.

My mother worked two jobs: one, at a diner called Smokey’s on 24th Street and the other at a local community center on 8th Avenue. My father worked for a clothing company called Cacherel, which meant we always had the cutest clothes on the block. My dad came home almost every night with clothes for all of us. I remember so many of them, even a mushroom print shirt that was the style back then. Thinking about it makes me laugh now.

There are so many good memories from those days: playing slip and slide in the apartment hallway, watching TV and movies together before bedtime every night. Of course, like kids we also gave my mom a hard time; we messed around and made noise during our bedtime. I even fell off the top bunk bed one night right on my sister’s hard, Candi’s wood clog, busting the entire front of my mouth. That was the beginning of a lot of pain and the cause of my ever-so-embarrassing buck teeth! I think the craziest sibling memory of all had to be when my brother didn’t want to disturb my mom with the light, so he decided to look for his sneakers with a candle under the bed. How my mom got that burning mattress out the window still confuses me but hey, that was our mother—always a step ahead!

I loved the summer days at Brighton Beach with all the other families from 21st Street. I can remember loud radios playing everything from Motown to salsa. Some nights, my father and his friends gathered in Central Park, playing the congas, claves, cowbells, and timbales to create the best salsa sounds I ever heard. My father was so young—only twenty-one—so he was always full of energy.

But soon enough, the arguments between my parents increased. My father hated when my mother went out with her friends or away for the weekends. They accused each other of cheating and doing drugs. My mother hated my father questioning her whereabouts or telling her what to do; it just made the arguments worse.

I remember one night my mother was in the kitchen cooking dinner. Our bathtub/shower was in the middle of the kitchen and my dad was showering. The argument had started before that, and kept getting worse, until my father jumped out of the tub and began fighting with my mother, slapping her over and over again.

Then he turned around and noticed me. I was sitting there, at the kitchen table, watching it all. He tried to soothe me, but there was nothing that he could say to erase what I had just seen or calm the fear in my heart. He left the apartment that night and I didn’t see him again for quite some time.

Things just went downhill from there. We moved out of the apartment in Chelsea and stayed with a family member on Cypress Avenue in the South Bronx for a little while. The neighborhood was suffering from a total economic collapse, with fires destroying more than ninety-seven percent of the buildings. The media speculated that landlords were burning their own buildings for profit from the arson insurance. Regardless, the fires left a lot of people homeless