A Look at Me in the Mirror

By Rhonda Johnson

This book is about the life of a little girl who had to grow up fast. She endured several scary things in her life. She was spoiled by her family. She encountered more than a little girl should ever have to. Crying, not knowing what to do, she would figure it out. I can't tell anyone--something bad will happen to us. She did just that--she figured it out and began a new journey of more excitement.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662479915

Book preview

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A Look at Me in the Mirror

Rhonda Johnson

Copyright © 2022 Rhonda Johnson

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-6624-7990-8 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-7991-5 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

A Little Girl

Young Lady

Grown Woman

Chapter 1

A Little Girl

As I look at myself in the mirror, the beginning of my memory, I was about three years of age in the stories that my family used to tell me. My mother was very protective of me: never letting me out of her sight, keeping me clean and pretty. Everyday my hair bows, socks with ruffles, and even my ruffles on my panties matched. Whenever I got a speck of dirt on my clothes, she would change everything completely with everything matching. She would tell me that I was her angel, and angels were beautiful and pretty every day. She would tell me to put my clothes that she took off me in the basket in the bathroom, but not knowing what she meant, I would put them in the toilet and flush them. I remember her telling these stories after I got grown.

She wasn’t the only who felt this way about me; my aunts and uncle would spoil me as well. They would say I was the prettiest doll. My mom would tell them to be careful with me, that I wasn’t a doll—I was a real baby. They would hold me and sing to me.

She would look for my dresses because that’s really all she would put on me; as I was saying, she was looking for them and couldn’t find them. So she continued to change my clothes and told me to take them into the bathroom until she caught me just as I was about to flush them. She called my name so loud, it scared me, and I jumped before flushing the toilet. She said, So that’s where your missing clothes are! and I just looked at her and tried to flush them again.

I remember going to visit my grandmother a lot in a little city called Whitesburg. My grandmother lived by a railroad track, and my brothers, cousins, and I used to love when the train would come by because we would get in the front yard and dance, and they would throw candy out to us. No one was home but my aunts who were a little older than me. They would yell at us and say we would get in trouble if Grandma and Mama caught us, but we didn’t listen to that; we kept right on doing it until we got caught and we all got a spanking. And that was the end of the railroad dancing until they told me about my mom’s railroad dancing. My mom and her sisters used to do the same thing—railroad dancing.

Still at Grandma’s house was a regular thing for us; we visited her house often. The grown-ups would be at work, and children would be playing in the front yard. One day looking in the mirror at me I remember my cousin and I were playing with our dolls, combing their hair and putting bows in it. You know how we used to pretend that they were our babies, so we decided to do each other’s hair. I proceeded to put bows and ribbons in my cousin’s hair, but when it was time for her to do my hair, she decided to take the scissors and cut my ponytails off. Just as she started with the top one, my mom came in and caught her. Thank God for the miracles in the mirror; I was mad because she did cut off one.

One Saturday morning my grandma had went and bought a bushel of tomatoes and told us not to bother them, but yeah, right; we were kids, so when she left me and my aunt, we went straight to those tomatoes with the salt and pepper. We almost ate the whole box; they were so good. Needless to say, you know how that story ended with a spanking and a tummy ache. I asked her what were all those tomatoes for, and she said she was going to can them for the winter, so she had to buy more. But this time we didn’t get close to those tomatoes.

My grandmother’s house was about two stories high, and it had a lot of stairs that I remember a lot of us fell down from. She had this friend that would come over, and all the kids were afraid of this lady. You know why—she had a wooden leg, and she knew we were afraid of it. She would take it off and chase us with it, so up the stairs we would go with nowhere to run. I went toward the window; here she came out the window. I went twenty feet without a broken bone—another look in the mirror at me, another miracle.

I remember another time here at Grandma’s: this house was so scary at night with all the lights out. One night we had been watching a scary movie about vampires. It was very scary; we were scared to move. It was time for bed, but no one wanted to move because we were too scared. We all moved at the same time and heard something in the living room; we were screaming, but nothing was there. That was the end of watching scary movies for me at night.

I remember when I was about six or seven years old, I was at my grandmother’s house. This was another house; she lived on Whooping Creek Road. So my aunt, uncle, and I decided to go outside, and we built a fire, but it was more than we bargained for. This fire got out of hand—and when I say