In my fifteen year on this earth, one month before my sweet sixteen. I lost the only person that could see me. I was invisible to everyone else, at least that's the way I felt. My great grandma Amanda Belle Brown, she died of cancer. Me and all my siblings were at her bed when she muttered her last words. Most were incoherent. She called my grandma and Uncle Jake names asking them to remove the chickens from the yard. A reference to the days she lived in the hills of Kentucky fifty years prior. My sibling and I looked on with watery-eyed grief. I grabbed her hand and kissed it, she recognized me and said, "Sally, we're going home." (Yes, she called me Sally). After that she went into a coma. She never recovered, two days later she died.
Grief, like a dark blanket thrown over my head covered me. Sleep escaped me, and guilt consumed me. Since I can remember my great grandma has been in and out of the hospital. She taught me how to pray and many bible stories. As a child I knew when I prayed things changed. Every time I prayed for her she recovered. I knew God answered my prayers. This time I forgot to pray or more to the point I was caught in the grips of teenage rebellion and didn't pray. I was to consumed with my friends, drinking cheap wine and smoking marijuana. God and my grandma had to take a back seat to my new found social life and my struggle to fit in. Now, that grief consumed me I was sucked into a black hole of guilt. If I would've only prayed, maybe God would have been gracious to me and gave her more time with me. Now, I had no one to see me, to know me, to love me.
I had a boyfriend of almost two years. He has pressured me to have sex for two years. I needed to belong to someone. I needed to feel loved.God was far away to me then. A being that was there, but not very close. He only answered prayers for good girls that prayed. He probably didn't see me neither. So I did what a lot of young girls searching for love do, I let a boy have my body. It was May 21, 1975 on February 20, 1976 my son was born. Teenage pregnancy come with it's on set of problems. One of which is the boy I loved; like everyone else, he didn't love me.
That night we had a warm spring breeze, I still remember shaking with fear and anticipation and hope that someone-he would see me, and love me. We half undressed in the large tent in his grandmother's backyard. I never expected it to hurt, I begged him to stop. I wasn't ready to lose my virginity. It was to late. Afterward I lay holding back tears wondering what I had did. I didn't feel like the women I had expected. I felt scared and abused. I don't remember how long I lay fighting tears. He felt bad and went in the house and made me a ham sandwich and a glass of Vernors ginger ale. May be he thought ham and Vernors would fill the hole that was left in my soul. It didn't.
I didn't talk to him the rest of the summer. A month later I realized that I was pregnant. I told only my closet friends. They feed me, help me to run away to avoid the death penalty I was sure would come when my parents and grandparent found out I was pregnant. I hid my pregnancy under oversize shirts and sweat shirts. I would have probably went on like that until I went into labor, but my grandma was more observant of me then I realized. By the following fall sometime in late October as I lay sleeping after school she peeked under my oversize sweat shirt. She didn't wake me. When I woke up her and my mama where sitting on the couch with worried looks on their faces. The brokenhearted look they gave made me want to run.
Before I could take flight my grandma addressed me. "You're pregnant, not one month or two, you're three or four months aren't you?" A part of me was glad it was finally out, but not the scared part. I open my mouth to deny it. My grandma said, "If you lie to me I won't help you. My grandma was the family rock. The day and a half I had run away, I came home when I called and she was crying. I never meant to make her cry. I was young and immature and scared. I needed her help, I needed her love and acceptance. I whisper, "yes I am." She said how many months, I said, five months. She said to my mostly quiet mama, Oh my God, Trisha take her to the doctor.
My sister went to school the next day and told my peers. After that day people started looking at me different. I could feel the cold stares of judgment. I was judged as loose and fast. It was hard for me to hold my head up, but I did. Inside I was dying a thousand slow deaths. I still hadn't spoke with the boy since that night. I was hurt and angry and so alone. Two days after it had gotten around the neighborhood, the boy called me. He said, I heard you're pregnant, I said "yes." He said, "is it mine?" "What do you think?", I asked in a snarky tone. He said, "I'll be right over.
He came over that night after my grandma had went to bed. I had missed him so much. My heart finally started to mend. The last few months were spent watching the boy from a distance with longing and pain. My only saving grace back then was the little bundle growing in my belly; finally someone to love me. Unfortunately we didn't have a happily ever after. My grandma said she didn't want him to visit me. She called his grandma, both of our grandmas were strong domineering women. They ruled the roost. Even our parents couldn't veto what the said, and mostly they didn't try.
When the grandmas talked or should I say argued. My grandma told his grandma she expected him to help take care of his child. His grandma denied the baby was his and attempted to call me a whore. My grandma said, "If you say it I promise you I will break through this phone and kick your ass." She stopped short of calling me that to my grandma, but that's the name she called me to my face not long afterward. I went from a loved starved virgin to a label of whore. Five months prior, I was the exact opposite of a whore. That didn't stop me from getting labeled.
There's more to the story. I will post part two tomorrow and I will tell the reason I'm telling the story.
Fearless
Grief, like a dark blanket thrown over my head covered me. Sleep escaped me, and guilt consumed me. Since I can remember my great grandma has been in and out of the hospital. She taught me how to pray and many bible stories. As a child I knew when I prayed things changed. Every time I prayed for her she recovered. I knew God answered my prayers. This time I forgot to pray or more to the point I was caught in the grips of teenage rebellion and didn't pray. I was to consumed with my friends, drinking cheap wine and smoking marijuana. God and my grandma had to take a back seat to my new found social life and my struggle to fit in. Now, that grief consumed me I was sucked into a black hole of guilt. If I would've only prayed, maybe God would have been gracious to me and gave her more time with me. Now, I had no one to see me, to know me, to love me.
I had a boyfriend of almost two years. He has pressured me to have sex for two years. I needed to belong to someone. I needed to feel loved.God was far away to me then. A being that was there, but not very close. He only answered prayers for good girls that prayed. He probably didn't see me neither. So I did what a lot of young girls searching for love do, I let a boy have my body. It was May 21, 1975 on February 20, 1976 my son was born. Teenage pregnancy come with it's on set of problems. One of which is the boy I loved; like everyone else, he didn't love me.
That night we had a warm spring breeze, I still remember shaking with fear and anticipation and hope that someone-he would see me, and love me. We half undressed in the large tent in his grandmother's backyard. I never expected it to hurt, I begged him to stop. I wasn't ready to lose my virginity. It was to late. Afterward I lay holding back tears wondering what I had did. I didn't feel like the women I had expected. I felt scared and abused. I don't remember how long I lay fighting tears. He felt bad and went in the house and made me a ham sandwich and a glass of Vernors ginger ale. May be he thought ham and Vernors would fill the hole that was left in my soul. It didn't.
I didn't talk to him the rest of the summer. A month later I realized that I was pregnant. I told only my closet friends. They feed me, help me to run away to avoid the death penalty I was sure would come when my parents and grandparent found out I was pregnant. I hid my pregnancy under oversize shirts and sweat shirts. I would have probably went on like that until I went into labor, but my grandma was more observant of me then I realized. By the following fall sometime in late October as I lay sleeping after school she peeked under my oversize sweat shirt. She didn't wake me. When I woke up her and my mama where sitting on the couch with worried looks on their faces. The brokenhearted look they gave made me want to run.
Before I could take flight my grandma addressed me. "You're pregnant, not one month or two, you're three or four months aren't you?" A part of me was glad it was finally out, but not the scared part. I open my mouth to deny it. My grandma said, "If you lie to me I won't help you. My grandma was the family rock. The day and a half I had run away, I came home when I called and she was crying. I never meant to make her cry. I was young and immature and scared. I needed her help, I needed her love and acceptance. I whisper, "yes I am." She said how many months, I said, five months. She said to my mostly quiet mama, Oh my God, Trisha take her to the doctor.
My sister went to school the next day and told my peers. After that day people started looking at me different. I could feel the cold stares of judgment. I was judged as loose and fast. It was hard for me to hold my head up, but I did. Inside I was dying a thousand slow deaths. I still hadn't spoke with the boy since that night. I was hurt and angry and so alone. Two days after it had gotten around the neighborhood, the boy called me. He said, I heard you're pregnant, I said "yes." He said, "is it mine?" "What do you think?", I asked in a snarky tone. He said, "I'll be right over.
He came over that night after my grandma had went to bed. I had missed him so much. My heart finally started to mend. The last few months were spent watching the boy from a distance with longing and pain. My only saving grace back then was the little bundle growing in my belly; finally someone to love me. Unfortunately we didn't have a happily ever after. My grandma said she didn't want him to visit me. She called his grandma, both of our grandmas were strong domineering women. They ruled the roost. Even our parents couldn't veto what the said, and mostly they didn't try.
When the grandmas talked or should I say argued. My grandma told his grandma she expected him to help take care of his child. His grandma denied the baby was his and attempted to call me a whore. My grandma said, "If you say it I promise you I will break through this phone and kick your ass." She stopped short of calling me that to my grandma, but that's the name she called me to my face not long afterward. I went from a loved starved virgin to a label of whore. Five months prior, I was the exact opposite of a whore. That didn't stop me from getting labeled.
There's more to the story. I will post part two tomorrow and I will tell the reason I'm telling the story.
Fearless
1 comment:
:) - :( Hi, Fearless.
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