Out from the Darkness into the Light

By Cornelia Thomas

This is a true story about a woman who was introduced to drugs and alcohol by her father at the age of nine, living in a world of darkness, not being able to trust anyone, and waiting and praying that death would take her away. Living in this world for forty years caused her to develop split personality disorder—until God took over her life. She wants people to see what God can and will do, from a defenseless child growing into an addict, losing everything, and becoming homeless, to a woman with no fear, writing her first book, and getting her own cooking group. God has given her a new life, and she hopes this book will help open up awareness of child abuse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781684090181

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Out from the Darkness into the Light

Cornelia Thomas

Copyright © 2018 Cornelia Thomas

All rights reserved

First Edition

Page Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-68409-017-4 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68409-018-1 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Introduction

A LITTLE INSIGHT ON THE FAMILY

COUNTRY IS IN OUR BLOOD

Country music is what we grew up on. At first, Dad would have nothing to do with it. Whenever Dad left the house, Mom would have it playing. When Dad pulled up, she would change the station. One day he was driving up and Mom was in the restroom. She didn’t have time to change the station. Dad got into the house and he heard the music. Mom rushed to change the station. Dad told her to let him hear what kind of shit she listened to when he wasn’t home. But he liked it. From that day on, country music was the only music played in our house. We were all into country music, the whole thing—the hats, boots, the jeans—everything that had to do with country western, even down to the shaft and spurs.

THE LOVE OF ANIMALS

Dad loved animals and so did we. He bought a house in Covina, and that’s when we started getting our animals. We had five snakes, seven dogs, two alligators, one duck, one talking bird, and one monkey. I couldn’t even count how many cats we had. Dad stopped getting them because one of our dogs would play with them; he would play rough and would kill them.

BRUNO

One of the dogs he got for us kids was named Bruno. He was a German Shepherd, and he was very protective over us kids. He was so big; we used to ride him like a horse. One day we got into trouble. We was about to get a whooping. Dad chained him to the washing machine, but Bruno snatched the machine from the wall trying to stop Dad. Dad had to pull a gun on him to stop him. He might have been a dog, but he was a smart dog. Bruno backed off. There were some people on our block that hated him. One day, they put pins in his dog food and he died. Dad knew who did it but couldn’t prove it. He went and got their dog and cut its head off, nailed the head to their door, and left the body on their step. The police were called, but no one could prove anything about each other.

COCO

Another dog was Coco. She was Dad’s dog. She never ate dog food. Dad took her everywhere he went, even to the stores and restaurants. She ate what we ate. She was his pride and joy. I think he loved her more than us kids. She eventually died of old age.

As for the alligators, I think he got them imported here as babies. They got big enough where Dad had to keep them in the pool. We had to wait until after Dad fed them before we went swimming, or Dad would just tie them to the big tree out in the back. We were never afraid of them. Whenever people got too close to the gate in the backyard, they would bark like puppies. They were never allowed to come into the house because of Loretta.

LORETTA, OUR MONKEY

Loretta was our monkey. She was very jealous of Dad. Whenever Dad wasn’t around, she was fun to play with. You would think she was one of us kids, but as soon as Dad got home, she would get mad because he would pay attention to us. She would scratch us and try to bite us. We would have to make sure we put her in her cage before Dad got home. She lived in a cage that Dad had pinned to the top of the living room wall so she could see everything. She knew how to open her cage when he would call her. When he would tell her to go home, she would go back to the cage. She was very smart. We used to feed her with the Mother’s brand animal cookies, but her favorite ones were the Mother’s Iced Raisin Cookies.

LORETTA, OUR AUNTIE

So here is the story about how our monkey got her name. Out of thirteen kids, Dad named some of them after family members. There was a brother that was named after him of course. There was also a sister was named after Mom, and another sister was named after Grandma on Dad’s side. I was named after Dad’s stepmom, and another brother was named after Grandpa on Dad’s side. There was also a brother named after an uncle on my dad’s side. Auntie Loretta was upset because she didn’t have a namesake after her. Dad told her if he and Mom had another baby she would be named after her. One day Dad came home with a baby monkey. Mom asked what we should name her. Dad said, I told Sis the next girl we got I was going to name it after her. I will never forget when he called Auntie and told her she had a namesake. Auntie said she would be right over. Auntie came in the house all excited, asking about the baby. Dad came out with the monkey. Auntie was so mad at Dad. She started crying, asking him how he could name a monkey after her. She was so upset it took a few weeks before she was talking to him again. After a while, she loved the idea.

A DUCK IN THE FAMILY

Dad would feed the snakes rats. He would send our sister to the animal shop to get a few small boxes of rats from time to time. One day they were out of rats. My sister called home and told Dad they didn’t have any. They were out of rats, but they had a baby duck. Dad told her to go ahead and get the duck. When she got home, Dad was mad because even though it was a baby duck, it was way too big for the snake. So that’s how we wound up with a duck.

Even our bird Michel was smart. Whenever Dad wanted one of us kids, he would tell Michel to call us, and he did. We could never say we didn’t hear Dad calling us because Michel was calling us as well. I can say lots of things about each of our animals, but that might be a book on its