Читать книгу Souls of My Young Sisters: - Dawn Marie Daniels - Страница 19

By Ebony Fletcher

Desperation: having lost all hope; reckless or violent because of despair; having undertaken a last resort, nearly hopeless; critical; extreme.

This is how Webster’s dictionary defines desperation. I believe your life can go in two directions: you either become really successful or a menace to society.

My ex-boyfriend had nobody in his life to lean on. I was his everything, and he almost loved me to death!

Since I was five years old I knew I was someone special. Growing up in the projects wasn’t easy. Peer pressure, drugs, sex, and violence was what I had to deal with. My great-grandmother raised me from birth. My mother was there, but she was off doing her own thing. My grandmother was a minister, so I’ve been going to church all my life. She sheltered me way too much from the outside world. I was dealing with college, family members dying, my horrible relationship with my mom, and bad choices in men. I felt that my life was spiraling downward. I got stuck spiritually. I felt God had forgotten about me and no longer wanted to talk to me, so I stopped talking to Him. I started doing things on my own.

We started dating in 2000. We were introduced by his sister-in-law. His sister-in-law took me and my friends to an event in Coney Island called Bro Day, which is a series of basketball games given in honor of a young man named Bro who was killed. Watching him play on that court was the most exciting moment. He was a ball player. He was a strategic ball player. The kids in the neighborhood were calling him “The Goat.” I was so fascinated by his swift moves and jump shots that I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I fell in love with the passion he had for the game. He put in his all and nothing less. His drive for basketball was a rush I couldn’t resist. He was determined to be the best street ball player in Brooklyn, but I told him he would be the best in the NBA.

In 2001, we moved to the Bay View Projects. That’s where his mother lived before she passed away. I’d seen the closeness that he and his mother had, but I also knew there was some anger on his end. He told me about his mother’s drug addiction. I knew it was hard for him to talk about. I also knew he had an outlet, and that was basketball. He would play for hours. He would come home exhausted and dehydrated, but still feel a sense of release. When I first met his mother I thought she was cool. She had to be about four foot eleven and was tough as nails. She had four children, and three of them were boys. My ex-boyfriend was the baby boy, and she loved him the most.

We would talk about my ex’s father and she would show me pictures of them together back in the day. The way they looked then was how her son and I looked at the time. He would always say to me, “You know, you look just like my mother.” When I finally met her I saw the resemblance. We were both short, thick, with a big butt and a lot of attitude.

His mother had become very ill and needed to be hospitalized. I don’t know why she was sick. It seems like it happened so fast. He would visit her all the time with his other brothers. One day he came home and told me his mother died. I was in total shock. I didn’t know what to say or how to feel. I know I wanted to be strong for him. I had already known that his father died when he was younger. I didn’t know how it felt to lose a parent, and he wasn’t showing any emotion. He wouldn’t cry, scream, curse, or anything. If he was playing basketball for five hours before, it just went up to ten.

In 2002, we moved to Unity Plaza. I thought everything was great at the time. He started working for a construction company and I was still working for the DOE. Our bills were paid. We had everything we needed. That was the year his grandmother passed away. She was a tough cookie and always got what she wanted. This was the grandmother that didn’t use drugs; she sold them. When he told me his grandmother used to sell dope back in the day, I didn’t believe him. I met her on Thanksgiving 2002. The whole family was there. They were all saying how good we looked together. I thought so, too, until everything started going really crazy. His basketball dreams weren’t coming true. He was very depressed and was using drugs heavily. If he didn’t get to smoke weed, all hell was going to break loose. He wouldn’t talk to me. He wouldn’t even sleep in the bed with me. I had to give him money to get weed first, and then we could start a conversation.

In 2003, he had become so consumed with doing nothing, he gave up on himself. I never gave up on him. I thought that if I loved him enough, things would be better. He would change sooner or later. In November he was incarcerated for eight months and sent to Rikers Island. He had a prior felony before we got together. I thought to myself, What the hell is going on? I couldn’t be by myself. I had never been to a jail before in my life. I found out how to get there and I went. I went to see him on every visit. This is between working two jobs and going to school. I was taking care of him, myself, and a household. I thought I was big shit!

For the last four months of his imprisonment, he was sent to the Boat in the Bronx. I had to take two trains and a bus just to get to him. I went to see him in the rain, sleet, and snow. I wanted him to know that he had me above all else. He came home on June 21, 2004, and I thought things were going to change. I was exhausted from all the work I was doing on the outside while he was on the inside thinking I was sleeping with someone else.

When he came home it was good at first. The first couple of weeks were nice. We talked about life and how we wanted to make things better. And then the bullshit started! I kept a bottle of Vicodin my doctor prescribed for my kidney stones in the medicine cabinet. It was prescribed for pain. I was in pain from all the pressure, working, and fatigue. He wanted to have sex all the time. I was scared from all the stories I’d heard about jail. I didn’t want to sleep with him. I was just tired of the same old drama. I would pop one of my magic pills and everything would be numb. I didn’t have to feel hurt. He didn’t care after a while. He just felt as long as he was getting some, who cares. I would lie there and think to myself, I wish he’d just hurry up, so he can get off of me.

My life wasn’t going well at all. I was physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually sick to my stomach. I had been with this man for four years and I was comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. It sounds crazy, but I understand it now. This man had never hit me. I didn’t see a sign. He wouldn’t even call me a bitch when we’d argue. He never raised his voice.

One day I popped out of bed and said to myself, “I can’t do this anymore.” I packed a bag and went to my aunt’s house in Harlem. I’d finally had it. As much as we’d broken up and gotten back together, this wasn’t one of those times. I had enough with taking care of a grown-ass man. He would call me on the phone to talk, and I didn’t want to talk to him. He would ask to visit me, and I wouldn’t let him in my house. I was done for the last time.

Two days later my ex-boyfriend came to my house to kill me. On that day, I agreed to talk to him. He was calm, sober, and he looked a little tired. We talked about getting back together, and that was a conversation that wasn’t going so well. I repeated to him that we needed a break. At the time, I was going to school and working two jobs. I didn’t have time for bullshit. He pulled the revolver out of his coat jacket. He said to me, “If I can’t have you, nobody will.” My first thought was, I’m about to die! I looked straight in his eyes and said, “We need to talk things over. Calm down and go take a walk.”

I looked at him in total shock. I couldn’t believe something like this was happening to me. I’ve read in the newspaper that this type of domestic violence happened a lot that year. There were plenty of women being killed by their boyfriends or husbands. We started to fight for the gun and he shot me in my leg. He sat on my back after I fell to the floor. He put the gun directly on the back of my head and pulled the trigger. When you hear people say their life flashed before their eyes, it’s a true statement.

It was God that said to just lie there and don’t move. After I closed my eyes, I never felt more assured in my life that God really had my back. I was rushed to the trauma unit at Brookdale Hospital and was asked all kinds of questions: Do you know where you are? How many fingers am I holding up? What’s your name? The doctors and nurses were astonished. They were all wondering, if she got shot in her head, where’s the blood?

My five-year journey after being shot wasn’t easy. I went through horrifying nightmares. I used to wake up, screaming, in a cold sweat. I couldn’t stop crying. I would think that if I fell asleep, I wouldn’t wake up again. When I walked down the street I was so paranoid, thinking that someone was going to walk up behind me and shoot me in my head. I felt so numb; I couldn’t talk half of the time. I had to walk around with a gash in my leg where I could stick two of my fingers inside. It was a time when I didn’t want to look at my own leg.

My friends and family suggested that I go to counseling. They wanted me to talk to a stranger about what happened to me. I felt this was the most embarrassing thing in life. I’m a twenty-four-year-old female, and I wasn’t a loose female. I graduated from high school and continued to college. My grandmother raised me in the church, and I was involved in every activity from the choir to the usher board. Why did this happen to me?

Being in a domestic violence incident had made me close off every part of my life. I isolated myself from everything and everybody. I was scared all the time. I didn’t want to meet anybody new out of fear they might do the same thing. I needed something to keep me busy, so I enrolled in beauty school in 2005. Even though I’d been working for the Department of Education for seven years, I needed something else to do. I strived for the best grades in school. I graduated with a GPA of 98.7. I worked at the school in the mornings, went to school at night, and styled hair every day. I was angry, scared, frustrated, and sick about the whole situation.

I started thinking, Maybe I can open my own hair salon. I wanted to write an awesome business plan, so I got in front of the computer and started to type. I prayed and told God, “This is what I really want to do with my life, can you please help me?” It took two years to write my business plan, and I finally finished it in 2007. I wrote a sixty-five-page business plan out of sheer anger. At that point I didn’t want to go to sleep. I guess God said, “If you’re not sleeping anyway, let’s put that to good use.” After completing my business plan, I decided to get incorporated. My business is now called Ebbie’s Hair and Nail Salon, Inc. I just love the Inc. at the end.

October 23, 2004, was the worst and best day of my life! It was the worst day because I never would have thought he could do something like that to me. It was the best day because my relationship with God became stronger. I was never one to take life for granted. I appreciated everything, especially life. I have so much planned for the future. I want to be married and have someone to share the rest of my life with. I just realized that I’m stronger than I think I am, and whatever life has to throw at me, I’m going to throw it right back. I have purpose and meaning in life. I’m here for a reason!

Everyone has a purpose in life—a unique gift or special talent to give to others and the world. And when we blend this unique talent with service to others, we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals!

Ebony Fletcher is the proud owner of Ebbie’s Hair and Nail Salon, Inc., in Brooklyn, New York.