Molding My Destiny A story of hope that takes one child from surviving to thriving

By Patrice M Foster

If you feel you have had it rough, wait until you read Molding My Destiny – it will change your perspective about many things, including how forgiveness can transform your life and make you triumph over adversity!"

Discover How One Woman's Journey Will Inspire You to Overcome Any Obstacle!

Molding My Destiny is a touching memoir that will tug at your heartstrings and inspire you to overcome any challenge. With honesty and vulnerability, Patrice Foster shares her journey of overcoming adversity, from the difficulties of growing up in poverty and being abandoned by her father to the challenges of battling depression as a teenager.

Throughout her story, she reveals how she learned to channel her pain into strength, using her experiences as a stepping stone to creating a better life for herself. Through hard work and perseverance, she emerged as a beacon of hope for others facing similar struggles.

This captivating and heartwarming tale of resilience will encourage you to believe that anything is possible, no matter how difficult the road ahead may seem. Foster's story is a testament to the power of forgiveness, demonstrating that it is never too late to let go of the past and start anew.

For anyone searching for hope and inspiration in the face of adversity, Molding My Destiny is a must-read!

"For anyone who has known disappointment, personal tragedy, or the long journey to salvation, this book will resonate in countless ways." - Self-Publishing Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patrice M Foster
• Release date: Dec 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223126164

Patrice M Foster

About The Author Patrice M Foster is a Registered Nurse in Childhood and Adolescence Psychiatry, with more than 30 plus years of clinical experience. She blogs and writes about issues that affect kids' mental health

Book preview

Introduction

Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is, therefore, the means for correcting our misperceptions.

- Gerald G. Jampolsky

_________________________________________________

One basic need holds true for almost all humans: the need to be loved.

When you're lost in a sea of suffering, treading water like a drowning swimmer thinking there's no way out, no way you will ever find love and respect, it’s hard to imagine that things may actually turn out okay. You flail in the water, desperately reaching for a hand you hope will be there to pull you out of that stormy sea. Sometimes I look back and wonder how I ever survived and made it this far. Now that I’ve come this far, I realize anyone can overcome their obstacles.

There were so many times when I felt doomed to a future as bleak as the arid desert soil, and I truly believed that no one out there would ever love me or treat me with respect. Sometimes I wondered if I was the type who simply loved to suffer and endure pain, or maybe I learned how to cope with it like an addict able to tolerate higher doses of a drug.

The story of my life could best be described as a patchwork quilt of every type of heartbreak and suffering imaginable, but also a journey through pain, struggle, and a renaissance that led to a new woman. If there were lessons I had to learn in my life, I certainly learned them in a way no book or classroom could ever teach me.

We like to think childhood is a period of safety, love, and family. Many have beautiful memories of growing up in happy homes. How different it was for me. By my tenth birthday, I had been molested by a preacher, abandoned by my parents, and shuffled around from one foster home to the next.

By the time I graduated from high school, I had been gang raped, arrested for distributing drugs, and endured prostitution so my sister and I could eat. I was no stranger to homelessness; the reek of the street was one that was very familiar to me. Pride was a foreign word, and I did whatever it took to survive, even if it meant accepting handouts from strangers and kind friends.

Of course, this drastically changed my perception of the world. I became angry and suspicious because I never knew what to expect. I also learned never to trust anyone, adults in particular, because they always lied and found ways to hurt me. Adults, and those I thought I could trust, such as a pastor, held a powerful influence over me because I would do almost anything to fill that deep emptiness within me.

Just when I thought I had found love, it slipped away. Love hurt so often and deeply that I began to believe it wasn't meant for me, that it was a dream as ephemeral as a cloud.

I remember experiencing so many negative emotions fear, sadness, isolation, disappointment, and the sense of being old before my time. The lower I felt, the harder I searched for love wherever I could to fill that void, even for a while, no matter how destructive. I slept with men for twenty-five dollars to feel any kind of connection, but it only left me feeling soiled, empty, and even more vulnerable. I was gullible and naïve, but I also erected a wall around me that concealed the good heart hiding deep within. The streets taught me a brutal lesson—your choices impact every aspect of your life, beliefs, and self-esteem.

Even though I hit rock bottom and suffered the epitome of despair and anguish, my sense of humor and hope sustained me even during my darkest days. It would have been easier to surrender to drugs and alcohol, but I continued to hope that my pain would disappear and that my life would one day change for the better.

Love was all I wanted, but it was impossible to find. I believed my parents hated me, and I wasn’t willing to listen to their side of the story until later in life.

Time slipped by, and I finally found the courage to take my life into my own hands. I finished school even though my sister had given up, and my brothers had fallen into the dark world of drug dealing. It was a struggle to put myself through nursing school, but it was worth it.

After struggling for years with feelings of abandonment, resentment, and loneliness, I also realized that I had to start the long and difficult process of healing the wounds from the past. Though I made peace with my father on his death bed, it took many more years to make peace with my mother. It was incredibly difficult for me to even call her and then finally visit her daily to forgive, forget, and eventually make peace with my soul.

Through sheer willpower and determination, I matured, progressed, and learned to rely on myself and pull myself through. It took me years to realize what a career counselor once told me, You are a queen; you are unique. You are one of a kind, and you need to believe in yourself. You can be whatever you want.

The hardest part is learning to trust people after they’ve hurt and abandoned you. You have to learn to let people get close, and it’s still a frightening prospect for me. While I haven’t mastered it yet, my wounds will heal in time. I feel confident that my life will unfold the way it should. It’s simply a matter of determining who is real or superficial and what will or won’t work.

I’m still searching for myself, and I know the journey will be an uphill climb, but I’m happier and more in tune with myself than I ever have been.

It takes a gutsy woman to make it through abusive relationships and experiences, whether with strangers, parents, so-called friends, or coworkers. I knew the only way to survive was to keep moving forward, keep my faith, follow my instincts and get a degree, raise my kids, and risk starting a new business all alone. Each successful step was a rite of passage, and every tear, every heartache, only made me stronger.

One of my proudest and most significant achievements in my life was going to college to become an LPN and then an RN. My father always told me I would fail and that I would never get a degree because I was stupid, just like my mother. Fortunately, I chose not to listen. Since becoming a nurse, I’ve purchased two homes and two cars, had three children, and started my own business.

Through my business, I hoped to give people something I had always wanted and still want: respect. When you’re subjected to people beating you down and telling you you're worthless, or when you work for someone who doesn't recognize or appreciate your value, you need and deserve better. I started a company called Respect Medical Services. It places people in the medical services industry, such as nurse practitioners and support staff, in positive work environments where they will be treated well and receive the respect they deserve.

No one should have to suffer as I did, and I hope my story will help others, especially women, understand and accept that no matter what you've endured, you can survive, thrive and enjoy a good, respectable, and meaningful life.

Overall, this book is about a young woman coming of age in New York and her struggles with the three men in her life, which became her struggle to ultimately find herself.

Chapter 1

Preparing for America

Hope and a desire for love are what keep us going in our darkest moments.

— Unknown

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To this day, curried goat and reggae music reminds me of my homeland, Jamaica, and triggers memories of betrayal and lost love. Yet, to a nine-year-old girl, on a day nearly thirty-four years ago, they were the promising signs of life falling into place after a bleak period of tragedy and heartbreak.

I remember that I had a lot to celebrate that day. I was about to embark on a journey to recover all I had lost and heal all my scars.

My six brothers, sisters, and I were going to America, the land of riches, or as they say in Jamaica, The land of milk and honey where no one works, and money grows on trees. Friends of ours, who had moved from Jamaica to America, would come back to visit and tell us how no one has to work in America and that the people have everything they need.

It sounded like a fairy tale, but then, who didn’t love fairytales? They described magical people and wonderful faraway places where everyone lived happily ever after. It was a dream that everybody wanted to hear and live.

***

My mother was the first to go to America as she was selected through the lottery and left us behind so that she could go find work and better provide for her family back home. It would have been tough for her to bring all of us when she had no place to stay or a job to feed us. It would later be explained that these were her reasons for leaving us behind.

She was hired as a maid by a white client in New York and later took on several jobs as a house cleaner to save as much as possible to send back to the people taking care of my siblings and me.

At the time, she lived with her sister, Sofia, and her husband, Desmond. They had no children as neither liked nor wanted them.  However, my aunt had a daughter from a previous relationship living in England.

My mother was different from her sister, obviously. She had all these kids, six of us. She worked hard to try and create an excellent foundation for us. She intended to file for my father to come to America first, and then my siblings and I would follow. Her dream was to have her perfect family all together in the land of opportunity.

Unfortunately, this was not to be, all thanks to my father. He did want her to file, but he was not concerned about having proper arrangements to ensure we were well taken care of before he left us. He had another plan and dropped the ball on her when he went to America.

Once my father arrived, he served my mother divorce papers and went his separate way. He left here there wondering what she had done wrong and what to do next.

Unfortunately, it turned out later that the divorce documents were fraudulent – and illegal. My mother believed for years that she was divorced when she was not. She found out when she tried to file for my oldest brother to come to America, and the attorney discovered that there was never any divorce.

My father had wanted to marry his girlfriend in New York and get rid of my mother quickly. He didn’t want the long divorce process, so he cut corners and got some fake documents to get my mother off his back. My mother had no idea. And as it turned out, this was not the only thing she had no idea about, when it came to the man she married and trusted.

When my mother left us in Jamaica, she believed our father was taking care of us and had our best interests at heart. But then he left us to go to America. The man she trusted with her kids had abandoned us and literally left us in the streets, in the hands of welfare and social services.

We tried to live together, but we were just kids unable to take care of each other. Eventually, we got separated and placed in boarding homes all over the island. My brothers went to live with a couple in Kingston. My two sisters were sent to a family in Kingston, and I was sent to Westmoreland to live with my Uncle Francis.

This was not what we had pictured our life to be. It was a terrible shock for all of us. It would remain to be the most traumatic and life-changing experience of our lives. We never thought our father would simply walk away from us as though we had never existed, and all of us suffered through years of being shuffled around from place to place to live with people who didn't really want or care for us.

But dad did go, and he didn’t look back. I don’t even think he thought about our welfare. The man was going on with his life with no regard for the children he had brought into this world and left behind. He selfishly went on to live a good life in America. He became a holistic naturopathic doctor and founded the Microcosmic Science School in Brooklyn, which taught healthy living and nutrition using alternative medicines, herbs, fruits, and raw foods.

In 1974, he also founded the Universal Sanctum of Meditation, wrote several books, owned apartment buildings and health food stores in New York, was chauffeur driven everywhere, and was well respected by his clients and church members. Quite an achievement for a man trailed by a dark past of leaving his little children behind. But I guess the end justified the means – at least for him.

I did see my father occasionally (my brothers Jovan and Conner were regular members of his church), and while he was pleasant enough to me and sometimes gave me money, he never really showed any remorse about leaving my siblings or me.

He had children in America and Canada who would never acknowledge us and whom I had never known existed because my mother never spoke of my father’s other women.

Unfortunately, just like us, these kids had also been abandoned. Like us, they had a father who was not there for them. Some of the other women thought that my siblings and I benefited from our father's success and disliked us for it. That was never the case. We were victims of my father’s selfish acts, just as they were.

Chapter 2

The Breaking Point

I do my best to please everybody, far more than they’d ever guess. I try to laugh it all off, because I don’t want to let them see my trouble.

- Anne Frank

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As the youngest of six children, I was definitely the shy, reclusive member of the family. Physically, I was short with an average build and bow legs like my mother. I was brown-skinned with a scatter of freckles around my nose and always wore my hair in braids as a child.

We grew up in a middle-class neighborhood of Kingston. To be considered middle-class in Kingston, you were neither the richest nor poorest people in the area – just average and could afford a few nice things, which included a maid!

Yes, we had a maid at one time, who we nicknamed Kooly Ellen. Her complexion was like rich and smooth honey. She had brown eyes and long black hair that she wore in a ponytail wrapped up in a bun. She was a strong and beautiful Indian woman who worked for my mother and helped out around the house.

I wish I could tell you all the details of our home, but Kooly Ellen might be my only clear memory. There was so much abuse, hunger, and bad things that occurred in that once happy and warm home. The trauma from it all was so bad that it pushed my mind to try and forget everything in an effort to be happy.

The memories I have now are blurry, like a faded old photo.

I barely remember the color of my room, and we have no pictures left. I know the house was located in Sydenham Villa in Spanish Town, St. Catherine. It was a cramped, one -bedroom prefab that was a definite downgrade from where my family had lived before I was born.

The house was empty beyond a stove, refrigerator, a cardboard box, and a cloth tie-up for a bed. My siblings and I slept on the hardwood floor.

Despite our relative poverty, my father could fool people into thinking we were better off than we were because we had a house. You see, not many people in Jamaica could afford decent housing in a working-class neighborhood with electricity and running water.

But we couldn’t hide the poverty well enough, as we still accepted handouts. One neighbor, a policeman, and his wife, a teacher, were kindhearted people and often brought milk and cheese home that had been donated to the school from churchgoers in America. We never said no to these handouts, and their kind act taught us a valuable lesson about compassion from these generous people.

Of course, we never said a word about these donations to our father. He spent most of his money on alcohol or other women when he should have been spending it on his family so we could have food in the refrigerator. What’s more, we had no decent refrigerator. The fridge in our house was old and dysfunctional, so much such that it needed a cord to keep the door shut.

My mother said President Kennedy was sending milk and cheese to Jamaican schools, and the teachers would bring it to the students. It was basically the same few foods, a cheese sandwich made with the sweet bread eaten at Easter (which some Jamaicans ate daily). This was the typical delicacy in our house.

We also had rice with cheese and vegetables, cheese dumplings, or eggs and cheese. I found the yellow cheese rich in flavor, but I hated milk unless it was chocolate milk, which was a rarity. It didn’t matter, though. As we were always hungry, I was grateful for the food.

I know we had a dog, a mutt named Rover, who I loved dearly. He ran across the street one day and was hit by a car. That broke my heart. It seemed like every time I loved something and got close to it, it always went away.

To this day, we only have one family picture, and the faces in that photo reflect how we all felt back then—sad, defiant, and hopeless. Even Rover, who was still alive at the time, looked lost.

***

My mother, Winnie Ruddock Foster, was born in Westmoreland, Jamaica, to Zelpha Macintosh, a native of Germany who emigrated to Jamaica with her parents. Her father, and my grandfather, Frederick Ruddock, was half black and half East Indian. Zelpha came from an affluent family, and she and my grandfather disagreed with my mother’s choice of husband.

My mother met my father in one of those random ways that often bring people together. Dad was a fast-talking salesman who came to the house. My grandparents didn’t like it, but it didn’t stop my father from striking up a conversation with my mother. He continued to stop by even when they forbade her to speak with him. She would often sneak out to meet him.

Later, I had the opportunity to speak to my grandparents about the situation, you know, about my parents meeting and marrying.

My grandfather was charmed and blindsided by my father. He couldn’t really see him clearly for what he was. I guess his salesman charisma really did a number on him. He liked him for it, and what’s more, from his speeches and random scripture quotations, my grandfather thought he was also a man of God, living in the word.

It was my grandmother who really disliked my father. She had encountered and seen things that convinced her that the man was not what he pretended to be.

When she visited my mother one time, she wasn’t happy with the way she saw him treat her. She had also seen the bruise that my mother tried hard to hide.

One time, she and my mom took the bus to visit Uncle Wendell. My father happened to hop on the bus, and my grandmother approached him, kicked him hard, and spat in his face. She was a tough woman, but she couldn’t convince my grandfather of her misgivings about my father.

I’ve often wondered why my father wanted to get married. Certainly, his behavior afterward made a mockery of every vow associated with marriage. The fancy wedding they had a year after he and my mother met was little more than a showpiece to convince my grandparents that he was serious about their daughter, but only my aunt attended. Even before they exchanged vows, dad cheating with my mom’s cousin, one of the bridesmaids, only foreshadowed the heartache in their stormy relationship.

My mother should have left him the first time he laid hands on her or when he cheated right before he made those marriage vows. But just like so many women throughout history have done, she stuck by him, believing that she could change my father after marrying him.

Her dream of a better life after changing the man she married soon transformed into a nightmare when she learned, in the most traumatic ways possible, that she didn’t possess those magical powers of transforming a grown person. She would painfully learn that people can’t be changed – and no one can change unless they truly want to.

***

As you can imagine growing up in a dysfunctional family, the product of a catastrophic marriage, was not easy, and we didn’t get out of it unscathed. It left us with scars and trauma that we have carried for a long time, greatly affecting our lives.

For example, our ability to form and have healthy relationships got a hit. To this day, and mostly because of what we saw in our parents’ carnage of marriage, I’m still single, and all my siblings, except Jovan and Grace, are unmarried as well. Jovan is married - to his third wife, Stacy, and they have one child. He has finally found a happy, loving relationship after a long time of searching and being lost in the wilderness of love. He did not only find a partner, but he also found a family as well, as he has been welcomed into his wife’s family.

Grace was married and is now divorced with two children. Her ex-husband still loves her and remains in her life. The problems with their marriage had more to do with her and the baggage she carried from our childhood than issues with her husband.

As for my father, my mother thought he married again and lived happily ever after in a happy family.  But I doubt it because I don’t believe that he changed his ways or even had an inkling of conscience about cheating on anyone else. If he was still the same guy, then there was no way he would create a happy family with anyone.

One thing about him is he always attracted women, the best of them, just like my mother. He had a unique charm, the one that he had blinded my grandfather with, and women fell prey to it very easily. I’m sure that they believed they would be the ones to change him.

My mother did love him, and just like those women, she thought she would have her fairytale life with him. Because he traveled all over Jamaica, she probably saw him as someone sophisticated and ambitious who would give her a better life. She turned a blind eye to all his wrongs and continued to believe in the dream.

Of course,