Yet I Rise: A Woman’s Transformational Story About Breaking Free and Changing Her Circumstances

By Lezlie Roberts

The struggle to escape your circumstances and transform the future is at the heart of human pursuit.

In Yet I Rise you will follow Lezlie's fight against fear and ignorance. Born into poverty, she found a higher power and surrendered to the metamorphosis that shaped her into a stronger and successful woman.

With her newfound faith, she was able to free herself from those circumstances and now she wants to help you do the same.

She shares her experience to help others change, grow, and rise!

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Perspective, A
• Release date: Jan 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9781957577128

Book preview

PART ONE

lost

CHAPTER 1

lost in innocence

Iwas five years old on Germantown Avenue, shopping with my mom's little sister. Aunt Kate meant the world to me; I loved these days. I was unaware of how my life would take a turn. While hanging out with my aunt, I thought that the day was only about shopping and people watching. I enjoyed living in Philadelphia, especially going on the avenue where the busyness of commerce and trade was the scene. Philadelphia was the only place I knew, so I had no comparisons at five, being that this was my birthplace.

The sounds that would permeate me while being out with my family were exciting. Outside of the city sounds, there was another sound that was familiar to me. The question that I would hear quite often from strangers was, Where is that pretty little girl from? I never understood what that question meant until I was older and learned. It was about my light-skinned complexion with pretty hair. It's a stereotype that black people have bad textured hair. The people thought I did not belong to my family because of my South American looks. I know now it's all racist, but back then I would wonder what in the world were these people talking about.

Until this day, I did not realize that there is a second person responsible for my birth. I knew my mom, but never heard her or any other family members speak of anyone else.

I lived in a home with my grandmother and her husband. My mother, her sister, little brother, and the older brother. The older brother is vaguely in and out because of having to go to prison. I had no siblings, and I was the only grandchild. I was so spoiled it was written on my forehead. I never thought about a daddy unless I would see dads pick up my friends from school. Seeing my friends’ dads caused me to wonder, but I don't remember ever asking my mother about a daddy. I never thought it was a question to ask until today.

Today was a fresh feeling that I was experiencing. I was happy, but now I am not. Confused, I'm too young to understand the feeling. As I was skipping and running around looking at all the vendors, I ran into a stranger.

This stranger was a man who I accidentally tripped and fell onto his legs. My playing had been interrupted by my aunt's voice saying, Mimi, that's your daddy.

Mimi was the nickname given by my mother because I looked like her. She believed I was her mini-me. Aunt Kate’s voice sounded like a foreign language to me. At five, I could comprehend none of this, so all I could do was shake my head when this stranger, who was just introduced to me as my daddy, had picked me up to greet me. He smiled at me and hugged me tightly. He looked a little familiar, but not familiar enough to know where I had seen him before. I thought about how I looked and could see where he looked like me. Questions, concerns, and silence filled me all at the same time. When he put me down, I stood there stiffly, not knowing what this all meant. I heard the word, Daddy; what does this mean to me?

After the introduction, Toney, my father, held my hand and walked me into a store to buy me a pair of wildcat tennis shoes. I still did not understand what was going on and who this man was, but I was smiling. All children like gifts. The grin lingered on my face, and then we were left saying our goodbyes. The sight of watching this man walk off and go one way while I turned to go another way had me baffled. However, I had some shoes, and I cherished them.

The walk home with my aunt was quiet for me. She offered no more information, and again, I did not know what to ask. When I got home, I heard my aunt tell my mom who we had bumped into. I noticed that this information made my mother upset. That too was confusing, but it made me not bring it up again to her. Even though I did not bring it up to my mom, it did not stop me from thinking about it. I couldn't get this tall man who I remembered had nice-looking hair out of my mind. Maybe I got my hair from him or my mom because she had beautiful hair as well. It was not until I got older that I remembered being a toddler and being with my father's family. His face was familiar to me because, in those times that I would visit his mother and his sisters, he would come into the house one or two times while I was there. He spent no time. He was in and out.

It would have been nice to have a father in the house with me. The things that I remember experiencing until five had not been all pleasant. We moved to DC when my mother married. My mother had gotten married to her high school boyfriend when I was a toddler, which introduced instability into my life because her marriage lasted for only six months. When she left him, she sent me back to Philadelphia to stay with my grandmother. Her marriage had become abusive when she learned he was taking the rent money for drugs. She felt it was safer to ship me back to safety until she could safely leave.

My grandmother drove to pick me up, and I was so sad leaving my mother, even though I loved my grandmother. I was too excited when my mother came back to live with us shortly. She did not stay away too long; she returned within weeks.

Our stay with my grandmother did not last long because my mother felt the need to find independence. She wanted to better her life and move out of her mother’s and that's what we did. She was determined to become independent. Before relocating back to DC for the second time, unfortunately, I did not get to know my dad. I left the only opportunity to get to know him. Which kept me thinking, WHAT IF?

When we arrived in DC, we stayed with my mom's girlfriend for a while. I think they had fallen out of their friendship, which is why we moved into my great-aunt's house next. I was in elementary school, and this was a fun time for me. I missed my immediate family back in Philadelphia, but the friends in the neighborhood helped me get over it quickly. I met my first BFF, and life could not get any better.

If I was not at her house around the corner, she would sit on my aunt's porch with me. We were inseparable. Every morning we would meet up at the stop sign on the corner and walk five blocks, the equivalent of 1.2 miles, to school. We had so much fun together, along with her brother and several more neighbors. We would stop at the corner stores and buy pickles, hot flavored crab chips, a bag full of Nickel and dime peanut chews, gum, etc. I loved school. I was still called cute and petite with pretty hair by the students, which caused problems for me.

Black girls did not like me because of my hair. They would tell me how I thought I was cute. I would never respond because I was afraid. I did not want any problems. I was confused about how some called me pretty and some said I thought I was pretty. When girls would mess with me, older class girls, who thought I were attractive, would stick up for me. These older classmates always adopted me and took me under their wings. They loved playing with my hair at recess. My classmates called me their little sister to protect me. I never had to be afraid, even though it did not stop the fact that I still wanted these haters to like me. I was a friendly little girl with a big heart.

I was in third grade, at Payne Elementary in Southeast DC. I had to learn how to adapt to the environment, being a young black girl living in the hood. Our hood was not a rundown place, being that we were staying with my great-aunt who had a well-paying job and living middle class. I still had to learn to survive. One afternoon before the 3:00 bell rang, some girls came over to tell me to watch my back while motioning with their fists toward their eyes and noses. I was afraid.

I did not know what I had done. Still, I knew that these DC girls would not allow me to answer questions of rationality. They walked past me. The bell rang, and I had lost sight of them. I did not know how this walk home would go, but I had to keep walking.

I walked down the long hall, down three levels of steps out of a big, metal, double door exit. Each step was made with a hundred heartbeats in my chest, and my palms were sweaty because I was afraid. As soon as I got to the other side of those heavy doors and heard them close behind me, I laid eyes on my haters. Enemies, I did not understand why I had them, nor did I want to have them. I looked around, hoping to see my best friend, but she had not come out yet. I was alone. As I got closer to the edge of the street to walk off the curb, one girl came over and said, You think you’re cute, don’t you?

I was going to answer NO, but before I could say a word, one of the older classmates who adored me jumped in front to protect me.

She then said to the girl, What do you want to do?

The girls backed down and ran away. They told me to never explain myself to anyone for anything and sent me home. My BFF Tamala and I gathered our walking friends and headed home. We had to stop and get our junk food for later. It had become our routine. From that day forward, I did not have to worry about any other girls. The fights after the 3:00 p.m. bell continued daily but did not include me.

I felt the tension at home between my mother and my great-aunt. She and her daughters and my great-grandmother, my mother's grandmother, would all have an attitude with my mother. I would get home before my mother after school. When she would come in, I would already have my homework done and be ready to go outside, possibly before dark. One day she came in, and the atmosphere was so cold. All the family members had not spoken to my mother, nor did they respond to her saying hello. She asked what was wrong, and they all had something to say. They told her she borrowed some money and was taking too long to pay back. She only owed one person, but they all sided with the one. From that day forward, our days there seemed like years. The school was right, but home life had changed.

My mother figured out a way to move us out of there, and we moved to a real hood still in Southeast DC. I continued to go to school near my aunt's house, but the journey was different. My mother wanted to keep me in school, so we sacrificed two hours to get to and from school. I'm so glad that my mother did not mind the transportation struggle because then I did not have to break away from my best friend. We had to catch a bus and subway and walk blocks. My mother could not afford too much. Her plans were to stay with my aunt until she saved enough money, which was interrupted prematurely. We lived in the back of this rundown neighborhood, which thankfully kept us away from all the hoopla that we had to walk through to get to our apartment. When we would get off the bus into the vicinity of our neighborhood, we would have to walk a few blocks to enter the apartment complex. The noises of us approaching our complex grew louder and louder as we got closer. The sounds of loud music, kids playing and laughing, and grown folks cursing, using no limits in their profanity. Some nights coming in, we would witness adults and kids fighting. I have seen it all coming home, but it was better than the tension I felt at families' houses. I was excited to finally have our own space. The neighborhood was nasty, but when you walked into our apartment, you would have forgotten what you had just witnessed coming in. My mother kept our place clean and full of green plants. She has a green thumb, and raising plants was her pleasure. A few times, my family allowed my two cousins to come over on the weekends, but that ended after some disagreement. I loved going to the skating room, library, and swimming with my two boy cousins. We had built a bond when I lived with my great-aunt, and I loved hanging with them. My mother believed that they were embarrassed by where we lived and stopped them from coming over despite our lovely apartment. While they were being embarrassed by us being broke, this apartment was where I first believed God was real. The greenery would remind me of the garden of Eden that I was learning in church. We would catch the bus to the subway and walk blocks to church every Sunday. We went to a Lutheran Church where the Pastor was a tall white man who wore a long black robe with a red task shawl around the neck. He would speak to the congregation and then tell all the kids to come over to where we would sit cross-legged around his chair. In contrast, he told us stories about Jesus and the Garden of Eden. It made sense to me to come home, smell the fresh plants, and feel the comfort it made me think. I was aware that maybe my mom knew God because she sure would embarrass me on the bus when she would talk to others about her God. Outside of that embarrassment, I woke up anticipating church and playing with the kids at the church.

My mother wanted more in life. She was tired of walking me through all that chaos in our complex. She wanted to move us out of there. She made a life-changing decision after not being able to make ends meet, to join the Army. This decision interrupted my routine of everything once again. I had to relocate again, but this time for only eight weeks of her doing basic training. I wish my mom and my great-aunt were good, and I could have gone to stay there to be close to Tamala, but I had to go to Philadelphia and stay with my grandmother. I was taken out of school and enrolled in a different school for three months. My mother graduated from boot camp. She was stationed back in DC at the Army National Guard's headquarters. When she came to get me, she surprised me when we moved into a new apartment now in Maryland. Maryland, in my opinion, was a lot better than DC. I was enrolled right back in my old school where Tamala was in DC. We still had no car, so we would ride the subway together, and then she would get on a bus to work while I would walk down the street to Tamala's house. I would stay with Tamala until my mother would get off the bus and walk some blocks to contact me. Then we would walk a block to the subway station and ride to the end of the line.

Our apartment in Maryland was in New Carrollton, which was then and still today the end of the line. We would get off in Maryland and walk a mile down a long, dark road between trees.

The trail between large trees that they would later build on was behind our apartments. We had heard of people being hurt on that path, but that was our way home.

This was our Monday to Friday routine, and then on the weekend, Tamala would come over to spend the night with my mother and me. I loved our new apartment. It was more agreeable than the last. Maryland was a lot nicer than the hood in DC, so I was grateful. Having my own room was a big deal. Tamala and I would plan our weekends on the phone during the week. We would schedule what we would play first, second, and third.

We would begin playing school and then house with our baby dolls (Cabbage Patch Kids), and we would end the weekend playing outside. I was glad we had our own place in a more excellent, cleaner neighborhood. I felt like we had moved up like the Jeffersons to a condo in the skies since our apartment was on the third floor.

Moving around until this point was consistent, but I felt like this was our last move for a while, since my mother was in a better financial position. We did not have to worry about not paying now, and that absent frustration made my bond with my mother enjoyable. She was more present, and our weekend rendezvous was a blast. My favorite things with my mother were her pancake breakfast. She would fix me on the weekends before going to the skating, library, and swimming pools. She would cook giant juicy hamburgers for Tamala and me for Monday school. All the children would be jealous of our sandwich that would drip and mess when we would eat.

CHAPTER 2

lost in pain

Ithought life could not get any better. I was now twelve years old, entering middle school. My mother decided since I had completed elementary school, I could start fresh in middle school riding the school bus. She was concerned about not ripping me out before it was time. I am glad she allowed me to finish because my elementary years were with Tamala. I was excited to ride the school bus with the other children in the neighborhood. I was tired of walking up that hill, onto the subway, into DC. My mornings were not that long anymore. I could wake up, eat breakfast, go out of my apartment, and walk across the street to where the other children waited. Our bus stop waits were fun, being that it was about thirty neighborhood kids conjured together, joking, laughing, and rapping.

Conversations were exciting. Life was good.

I was dancing to my tune, in love with my mother and our bond. I THOUGHT!

One night, we had company at our apartment. It was a man who my mother worked with at the Army National in DC, where she worked M-F, 9-5.

It started with one night into two, three, and four-five nights that this man was there and never left. My life was abruptly interrupted. It’s like you were listening to your jam on the radio and then an Amber alert breaks in; that is the way I felt next.

Even after the first night of him coming, I noticed his clothing in my mother’s closet. So, at some point, he had to be over, and I did not know. I went from happy to sad immediately when I saw the actual move-in but still never was spoken to about it at all. I was ignored, as if he was not moving in, and it was none of my business. I was disregarded for only being a child with no say; I guess that is what my mother felt because she never sat me down and told me about the new tenant. A tenant that I had never been cordially introduced to.

Days have become so hard for me.

I would get out of school and come home to an empty house because I was a latchkey kid. The loneliness of coming home never bothered me until now because I knew I would no longer see her or talk to her when my mother would come home. After all, she would disappear into her room with her new man. I used to look for those times when she would get off.

When the two of them would get home, I became so tense. He would small talk with me, a few words here and there. My mother's conversation with me was limited, too. She was uncomfortable speaking to me too much, and I no longer felt comfortable speaking to her. I assumed. I could not understand how this woman who loves me, and I love her, is so distant now.

I had to handle the thoughts in my mind running like a roller coaster.

I was now coming home and finding mischief to get into. As a latchkey kid, I was told not to allow other kids into my home without an adult. My hurt became rebellion. I allowed all my friends who I played with within the neighborhood to come in after school. A few times, I had to hide them in my closet, if my mom would come home unexpectedly, but I was not afraid. I became unconcerned and decided I would have fun and do whatever I could to cross those boundaries that I felt no longer were there. The conversations that I would hear between my mother and her boyfriend confirmed and made my rebellion acceptable in my mind. She would discuss her frustrations concerning me with him. He would suggest that she beat me if I would disobey, which made my behavior worse because she did not take up for me. She would not follow through with the beating all the time, but sometimes he won the argument, and I would receive a spanking.

I had a crush on a boy in the neighborhood. He had become my first boyfriend. Jamal showed attention to me and asked me for my phone number. He rode my bus every day and lived a few blocks up the street. I felt overwhelmed that he liked me. I could not believe that I had a boyfriend. We would talk on the phone every night. We would sit together every morning on the bus but would not say a single word. I had butterflies in my stomach, and every time I tried to speak, I would