Shattered Into Place

By Red Clay

Defying the odds of adversity, this book is about a young girl who experiences years of family trauma but refuses to allow her circumstances to dictate the trajectory of her life. This book will provoke one's inner being to respond to life's roadblocks as a personal invitation to be who they are destined

• Language: English
• Publisher: Empoword Publishing Worldwide
• Release date: Apr 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987505816

Book preview

Introduction

Growing up, we have always been told that what happens in the house stays in the house. While the rationale behind the instruction is apparent, what is being communicated and taught is that you do not discuss any destructive behavior patterns experienced in the home with anyone outside the circle of dysfunction. Consequently, it has become taboo to talk about family matters in a public forum, and this has opened the door to silence being the number one undocumented contributor to us, as emotional beings, living defeated, ashamed, and in guilt while suffering at the hands of those who should have been helping us to flourish and succeed.

Shattered into Place: A Daughter’s Journey to Freedom is about a daughter navigating the challenges of growing up in a household with her mother’s misplaced anger. Struggling under the longstanding pressures to accede, the daughter finds the strength and courage to live her life on her terms.

Understanding that every woman is a daughter, this book is for daughters, daughters who have become mothers, and for the mother and daughter relationship that has been broken or is currently broken. Yet, this book is also for dads and fathers who understand the value and power of their presence. I hope this book serves as a catalyst to rescue daughters who are estranged from their mothers, and mothers who are estranged from their daughters, and fuels bravery for daughters, no matter where they are in their journey of life, to speak up and share their challenges in a safe space, to fill the emotional holes and close the psychological gaps caused by family dysfunction.

As you travel these pages, my hope and prayer are that any time you see yourself, you own it, take note of it, correct it, and embrace whom you are meant to be. When you finish this book, I hope that every daughter masking her pain finds the courage to engage in the process of healing. I hope every daughter suffering in silence taps into courage, makes her way through her past and present experiences, and discovers purpose in the end. I pray that every daughter reckons with her plight and comes out on the other side, healed, in peace, and free.

Chapter One:

The Power of a Name

STAN: What is your name?

ME: Calpurnia.

STAN: Say it again. [Sounding more like a question than a statement.]

ME: Calpurnia.

STAN: Is there something shorter to call you? Do you have a nickname?

ME: Yes. Calpurnia. [In a firm tone because calling me something shorter is not an option for strangers.]

STAN: How is it spelled? [Eyes now stretched; it looks like he realized he should not have asked those questions. I could tell he was surprised by my answer and now probably thinking what to ask next to keep the exchange pleasant.]

ME: C-A-L-P-U-R-N-I-A. [Sounding off all nine letters one by one. Then the tutorial.] "It’s Calpurnia. CAL, as in short for California. PUR, like a cat purrs. NI pronounced KNEE (while pointing to my knee). A, pronounced UH, as in what people often say aloud when trying to figure out what to say next. Calpurnia."

STAN: Ahhh. Ohhhkay. It is spelled just as it sounds.

ME: Yes. It is spelled just as it sounds. [With half a smile that was more like a smirk.]

STAN: Is that a flower or a country or something?

ME: Mmmmm…sort of. It is a genus of flowering plants and a Greek queen. [Impressed with the follow-up question.]

STAN: What does your name mean?

ME: Beautiful, good-natured, and loyal.

STAN: WHO named you?

ME: My father.

STAN: How did your father come up with that name? [In a curious tone.]

ME: Have you ever heard of Julius Caesar? [Ready to give the next part of the tutorial.]

STAN: Yes.

ME: My father’s name is Julian, a derivative of Julius. He loved Greek mythology. Calpurnia was Julius Caesar’s third and final wife and his favorite wife. She was good-natured, his most beautiful, most loyal, and faithful.¹ As my father’s firstborn, he pronounced and proclaimed me his favorite and most beautiful. And that I would be loyal and good-natured. Therefore, he named me Calpurnia.

STAN: Ahhhh, very nice. I like it. Your name has meaning and significance. It is a beautiful name, Calpurnia. It sounds like a lot of thought, love, and hope [jokingly] went into it. The story behind your name makes it even more special and easier to remember. Thanks for sharing. Seriously . . . [Sounding pleasantly surprised and appreciative of the story.]

ME: Thank you. And you are welcome. Yes, a lot of thought, and perhaps hope, did go into naming me. [Sounding very proud of my name.] Although I did not know it at the time, I am beautiful! I am Calpurnia. [Catching the joke that was not really a joke. He chuckled, but I smiled.]

STAN: Okay, I can go with that. I can even attest to the good nature. What about being faithful and loyal? [Continuing the banter.]

ME: Some things happen in time. [We both laughed out loud.] But seriously. For those who earn it, absolutely I am. [My order number was called, so I raised my receipt in the direction of the counter to indicate my muffin and drink were ready for pickup.]

STAN: [Having caught the que.] It was a pleasure meeting you. I have never met a Calpurnia, and I will never forget the name, or you.

ME: Thank you. [Flattered.] Have a great day.

STAN: You too.

Stan was a guy I encountered at a cute, quaint coffee shop in downtown Washington, D.C. Striking up what turned out to be an interesting conversation about art and décor, ten minutes into the exchange, we realized we had not shared our names and thought we should probably introduce ourselves at this point. We did, which is how the discussion shifted to my name.

I love my name and always have, especially because it differs from most. It would become quite the conversation piece every time I met someone, and this time was no different. However, these discussions did not always end on a positive note. In more than half of the conversations, I would become frustrated with the calisthenics surrounding the pronunciation of my name because people would not make an honest effort to learn my name or enunciate it correctly. People would say, Cleopatra, California, Caldonia, etc., and I would become even more annoyed hearing my name being butchered. It was torture on top of torture. My entire being would cringe when I knew someone was about to take a stab, pun intended, at enunciating it. In anticipation of the level of creativity they would take with its pronunciation, my face would turn sour as if I suddenly smelled something foul. The energy I used guiding people through how to say my name was just way too much. More times than not, I felt like people were making it unnecessarily more difficult than it needed to be. After all, it is spelled just as it sounds.

When it became obvious that people were not making a true effort to say my name correctly, calling me something off-kilter, I immediately stopped speaking with them and tuned them out. Eventually, they got the message, at which point most of them offered something that sounded like it might have fallen in the category of an apology. But it didn’t matter at that point because the damage had been done. I no longer wanted to be bothered.

Sadly, and surprisingly, middle school seemed to be the worst. Growing up in Franklin County, Ohio, I attended public school. At the time, the Ohio Department of Education required teachers to use Official Student Record Sheets, commonly called attendance sheets, to track student presence. Each morning, during homeroom, teachers would conduct roll calls for all the students assigned to them for the school year. Homeroom was a brief classroom period where students at the same grade levels reported at the beginning of each school day for their teacher to record them as present (or absent) and, if necessary, give any important information for the day.² During this time, students would do whatever, until it was time to go to their first class of the day. Some would use this time to catch up with other students, others would organize their backpacks and paper stacks, several would gaze out of the two paned glass windows that showcased the main parking lot in the front of the school, and a few of them, catching some last-minute snooze, would bury their heads into their folded arms as their torso laid stretched across their desk.

On the first day of school, homeroom was always a hoot. Most would look forward to attendance being taken to learn who was who, putting names with faces. In alphabetical order and with a pace that sounded more like a military cadence than taking attendance, the teacher would sound off each student’s name and wait for them to respond with Here or Present. It went something like this:

Teacher: Carmen.

Carmen: Here.

Teacher: Dell.

Dell: Here.

Teacher: Keith.

Keith: Here.

Teacher: Lisa.

Lisa: Here.

Teacher: mmmm - - - - [Complete silence.]

I knew when the teacher landed on my name because roll call’s cadence came to an abrupt halt. Like clockwork, it happened. After the last Here.- - a hesitation, pause, a faint slow mmmmm, which turned into an extended period of silence. And that turned into complete silence which set off a domino effect in the classroom.

One by one, each student began turning their heads toward the front of the room