Through the Eyes of Nisey: Memoirs of a Lost Mississippi Girl Discovering God's Truth and Understanding My Past

By Danise Donerson

Through the Eyes of Nisey: A Memoir of a Lost Mississippi girl by Danise T. Donerson is a whirlwind of events of a little girl growing up in Mississippi. Nisey often wondered why she had to endure the many years of physical and mental abuse while being just a little girl who needed to be cared for and loved by her mama. She longed for the love and care from her Big Mama who took care of her up until her death when she was five years old. The life of hardship began immediately. She had to take care of her little brother and sister while her mama worked her many factory jobs. She learned how to cook at the age of eight years old because her mama didn’t know how. Her mama seemed lost and didn’t know how to take care of her kids like how Big Mama did. Her mama had a nervous breakdown around the age of sixteen, and Big Mama helped her cope. She had to learn the hard way.

In the seventies, she struggled to find her way in this world. During the eighties, she got help for her mental issues and started taking medication. She often took out her frustrations in life out on Nisey, even trying to take her life and Nisey at the time. She somehow thought they were better off dead in her mind. During this time, Nisey had many wonderful people in her life to help her manage the hard times. During the nineties, her mama felt that she will hurt you before you hurt her. She would cuss out at anyone whom she felt was a threat to her or her children all while being controlling of Nisey’s life.

She was married with children, and her mama was controlling her household. She knew in her heart that she did love her. She wouldn’t give up on her mama. At the age of twenty-nine, she started seeking God. She took control of her life, and at the age of forty-four, in 2012, she was bedridden from her many back surgeries. Her mama was there for every surgery and almost every doctor’s appointment. Something wonderful began to happen, and she and her mama’s broken relationship began to mend. There was forgiveness, and an explosion of love filled both of their hearts. When her mama died on May 23, 2019, three days before her birthday, she realized that fifty years of her life was entangled in her mama’s life of mental illness. Everything that she had endured as a child and adult was because of her mama trying to cope with her issues. It was at that moment that she realized that this book was about her mama who was like a caterpillar that evolved into this beautiful butterfly. That’s why this story had to be written as a therapy for herself and to share her mama’s life who had mental health issues. This is a real illness and is too often not dealt with in black families.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781647018047

Book preview

Chapter 1

My Lost Love

It all began in the Deep South in Mississippi, in the city of Jackson, at 927 Lanier Avenue, which was located in Georgetown in a little ole house that literally looked like a cube. Surely not meant for a family bigger than two or three, I was this bubbly little girl who was about two years old then. Yeah, I could remember that far back. I was so happy to be with my Big Mama. I remember waking up to the smell of coffee in the air, grits, bacon, and eggs. Boy, do I miss that. She would get me up in the morning, dress me up in a cute little dress, with Barbie-doll white socks rolled down, and my little flats.

Big Mama was the backbone of my family. She raised her children, her sister’s (who died during childbirth) two children, her daughter’s three children, her niece’s three children. She took in a young lady from New York. We called Aunt Marie just passing through town from the bus station and me, Woo, meaning Big Mama helped a lot of people. All in that very small two-bedroom house with one bathroom and a kitchen and a six-square-foot front yard, or maybe a ten-square-foot backyard too. Wow. Oh, did I tell you that she worked as a nurse’s assistant at the state hospital? That was Big Mama, the super mama.

One night, my Uncle Ronnie and his friend were up late watching TV. I think that it was an old Western movie. Well, I always wanted to hang out with him. I fell asleep underneath the coffee table. Uncle Ronnie picked me up to put me into bed. I woke up crying, screaming, kicking and shouting, I don’t want to go to bed. I want to watch TV! He laughed and said, You were asleep. So Big Mama tried to comfort me. She gave me a shiny nickel. That did the trick. I held on to that nickel in my tiny, little hand, clenched in my fist very tightly.

I went back to sleep next to Big Mama in her bed. That nickel was so precious to me. I awakened the next morning only to realize that I had lost the nickel that she gave me within the sheets the night before. I was almost late for day care. The station wagon was outside, and the driver was blowing her horn. Big Mama made her wait. She took the quilt off the bed. She shook the sheets, and out fell my nickel. Oh, how happy I was. She hurried to get me dressed for school.

It seemed like I was always with Big Mama. She was taking a shower one day. She left the door open. I guess I had missed her, so I went looking for her. I heard the water running. I pulled the shower curtain back, and I saw something that I could not understand until now. She only had one breast. Hmm… It looked weird to me, but I never asked her why she only had one. After all, I was only about four years old.

I could go on and on, but the day I remember the most was that day when I awakened from a nap, and I wanted to go outside with my Uncle Ronnie. He was playing ball in the streets. I asked Big Mama if I could go outside to play. She let me go out, but shortly afterward, I became ill. She called me inside. I remember having a fever. She tried to call my mama, but she couldn’t reach her, so she gave me a pink children’s aspirin. I lay down for a nap, then I was awakened by my Uncles Robert and Ronnie carrying Big Mama out of the house. The next thing I remember was my mama and grandmama sneaking me into the hospital to see Big Mama. She was lying on a bed I had never seen before. It was very different from her bed at home, as it had those iron things on each side. And it was higher than her bed.

Well, I looked out of her hospital window, and I could see this highway that seemed to go on for miles and miles. I saw white and red lights. I was in awe. Because her room was so far up from the ground, I wondered to myself, When was Big Mama coming home? It was like when I closed my eyes, I was sitting in a church on the front row, and I remember dangling my little short legs and small feet from the pew. I had on this too little dress. (I know my mama knew better than that.) Well, I saw Big Mama in this thing that looked like a box which had a top on it. I looked around and I couldn’t figure out why everybody was crying and carrying on. There were people singing behind a man who was standing above Big Mama in that box. I was waiting on Big Mama to get up so she could tell those people to stop crying, but she never moved. I looked around again, and I saw all these pretty flowers all around that box, but I could not figure out why there were so many flowers inside that place.

After a while, these men started walking in a straight line, then some ladies started picking up all those flowers. I looked around, and someone had closed the top on the box that Big Mama was in. But I never saw her get out of it. I was so confused. Then these men were carrying her outside. I got up, and I followed them out. They went across the road to this hill, and there was this hole with dirt on the side of it. I looked around at the people, but everyone was looking down into the hole. Those men started putting the box with Big Mama in it on top of some straps, then they began to lower her into that hole! I was still wondering when was she going to get up and out of that box!

I looked down into the hole, and I saw the box. I was standing next to my Uncle Ronnie. I watched a man throw three flowers into the hole, then men began to fill the hole with dirt. Everyone was still looking sad and crying. I began