Preface

This is my fourth attempt at writing a book.

I started with a composition book when I was in middle school and stopped after Grandma found my sister’s diary. Then, about eleven years ago I started typing into my laptop. I knew Grandma didn’t know how to use a laptop and nobody knew the password. Thank God for technology! I wrote frequently over the span of ten years and recently decided it was time to finish and publish my writings as a birthday present to myself.

When I began keep a diary, it was because I did not have anyone to talk to about my feelings. My entries were raw and, as expected from a middle schooler, filled with colorful words and top tier theatrics. My writing was the one space that I felt safe to poke at my inner most thoughts, anxieties, and vulnerability. At that time, I had no intentions of publicly sharing my story and I must admit that I am still, as I am typing this, wondering if I have made a huge mistake. I feel worried that I am invading the privacy of another version of myself. I even played with the idea of completing and publishing my book anonymously because I was afraid and embarrassed that the people who knew me would judge me or feel attacked by my truth. Nonetheless, I chose to be obedient.

Then, God said to start over. I was confused and angry. What did He mean I should start from scratch when I had over a decade recorded already? At first, I complained, but I started praying about it and felt something in my spirit say that it was time to tell my story from the perspective of the victor. In the past I used my writing to swaddle me as a victim. I was filled with shame and regret for the many mistakes I made.

This is my story of Faith. It is an invitation to journey with me through the most forming years of my life. I have personally enjoyed re-witnessing the evolution of my mind and spirit. I find myself responding to the experiences I share as if I am right back at that time. I have also enjoyed finding glimpses of Holy Spirit operating incognito throughout my life. Truly, this was an out of the body experience. It is my story of stepping into divine identity as a living stone.

I am ready to embrace my truth and tell my story. I pray that by the end of this, you are ready to do the same.

I love you.

Chapter 1

I bet Monica Raquel Brown and Gervis Alphonso Rowe did not imagine their only child would be sharing their love story one day with the world. I did not plan to until I learned the full truth about their entanglement as an adult. Both of my parents are from small rural communities in Jamaica. My mom grew up in Duck Pond, St. Andrew and my dad in Pond Gully, St. Catherine.

Daddy is the eldest of four children all sharing the same mom and dad while mommy is in the middle of thirteen for her mother and Lord knows how many for her dad- I think about forty. By the time they met, mom and dad each had a son- Chad and Omar, respectively. Omar was a twin, but his other half became ill and died shortly after birth.

Daddy grew up with more privileges than my mommy. In a society where colorism continues to run rampant, he had a fair complexion which made him a favorable pick among the ladies. It didn’t hurt that he also had a car which I think was a yellow Mustang. He was a carpenter by trade and lived in a two-bedroom home on maybe three acres of land right at the gate of the Cassava River community on top of a hill. I later learned that he raised pigeons and rabbits which was a big deal and signal of fortune in those days so everyone in the community called him Cash.

Daddy received regular allowances from his mom, grandma Diana, who had migrated to the United States already with her other three children. I don’t remember much of grandma from my earlier years. I just remember she used to bring those nasty jelly candies that tasted like licorice each time she visited from the states. Yuck! I can taste it now just thinking about it. What possesses someone to buy that for children? Mommy had a different upbringing. Mama, her mom, struggled as a single mom to take care of everyone. So, mommy and her siblings were deprived of a lot of things as a child. She was very close to her mother, though. To this day they are the best of friends.

Mommy and Daddy met at a party. I obviously was not there, and I have not asked for the specifics, but I would like to imagine that mommy had on some sort of spandex and polyester outfit with huge gold earrings. Daddy definitely had on a marina with a beanie hat. He loved a good beanie hat. Mommy spotted my daddy out in the party and told her best friend, auntie Janet, “I am going to marry that man”. Mommy says that she fell in love with him from the first time she laid eyes on him. They danced together the entire night and spent the next few weeks falling in love.

Daddy eventually asked mommy to move in with him and she gladly obliged. They loved each other for over twelve years but never got married. I never knew that. The version of the story I knew started at the demise of their relationship. I always wondered why they didn’t get married after all that time. Although back then marriage was not something commonly sought after by women; at least not in the legal sense of signing a certificate and getting rings. Having a working partner that provided for the family was enough.

Daddy began to gamble and drink heavily throughout their relationship. Mommy say she still remembers leaving from work and finding daddy in ditches because he had been too drunk to find his way home. I asked her why she didn’t leave, but she said it was because she loved him. Things got escalated to where people in the community would call my mom to come and get daddy from bars. Although embarrassed, she was committed to loving her man. She used to go down to the bars so much that my dad’s friends would warn him before she turned the corner.

Mommy said eventually she got tired of arguing with herself because daddy would never argue back, and he was not listening. I remember that version of him. Daddy wouldn’t raise his voice at us kids either. He was calm and peaceful. He did not have a negative bone in his body and his tolerance for contention was out of this world. Mommy on the other hand can go from zero to a thousand in a breath. Their union was dynamic and, as I would later realize, a foreshadow for what was to become of my life.

I was a planned baby conceived from true love. I did not know that either. The story I knew started with Francesca. Daddy cheated on my mom with Francesca who became pregnant with Diamond, my older sister. My dad was afraid of losing my mom and for the early parts of Diamond’s life, he did not claim her as his child. My mom was heartbroken. One day she went to visit Francesca and the baby. She said she took one look at Diamond and knew that it was daddy’s daughter. Eventually, my parents decided they wanted to start a family of their own and begat me.

As an adult, I can’t help but to think that having a baby was a desperate attempt by my parents to save the relationship. I know they loved each other but it could not have been easy for my mom. While they were on a break, daddy cheated again with Francesca who became pregnant with my little brother, Tony. Mommy decided that was the last straw, moved back in with Mama, and took me with her. Daddy became a heavier drinker and would often arrive drunk trying to take me home with him before his scheduled weekend.

Mama used to tell me the story of a time that he arrived absolutely wasted and got so upset that mommy wouldn’t let him take me that he told Mama to go out and buy a black dress for mommy’s funeral. If nothing else proved that he was not in his right mind, surely that did it. He wouldn’t stand a chance against mommy. I think she did let me go with him at some point.

Later on, Francesca moved into the house with my dad and her two kids. I do not know why, but right after they moved in together, daddy stop taking care of me. He stopped buying pampers, milk, clothes, and everything else to spite my mom. She wasn’t working steadily to provide for me on her own and still had Chad, my older brother, to care for too.

One day my mom was reflecting on everything she experienced with my dad and became so angry that she had my uncle who owned a taxi take her to daddy’s house. She waited for him to leave for work and sneaked into the house to find Francesca. It was the weekend, so mommy knew daddy had just been paid. My dad bought food and diapers for Diamond to last for the next two weeks. Mommy ravaged through everything and stuffed it all into the back of uncle’s car. When my dad arrived home that evening, he was livid.

Mommy had another baby a year later, my baby sister Rachel. Mama had been helping to care for Chad and Rachel lived with her grandma in the town. Mommy could not handle three kids on her own at only twenty-seven. She eventually found a maid job for a family, and I started staying with daddy more often so she could go to work during the week. That is when the abuse started.

I was only three years old, but I knew that Francesca hated me. I remember how she snared at me with disgust and anger in her eyes. She had a best friend named Nina that would come over to scold me. I have vivid memories as if it happened yesterday and I can not help but to wonder if I am forgetting worse things that I endured as a survival mechanism. When daddy would leave for work, I was not cared for in the same way my siblings were. I was beaten with wet rags so it would sting but not wale my skin and often took on a servant role to my siblings.

The abuse lasted until I became mute. My dad did not have a clue because when he was around, I was treated exceptionally well. Sometimes, and even more so since I started working in child welfare, I ask how could he have not picked up on the signs? I was not talking, never wanted him to leave, and always had rashes because of the many wet and dirty underwear I was stuck in for hours. Mommy was working so often she did not notice either. I also ask if my brother and sister saw when all of this was going on? I believe this is where anxiety and mistrust of people began to lay roots.

I remember the day my mom found out I was being abused. It was daddy’s weekend to have me, but he needed to leave for work. I cried from the moment he went to shower until he was getting dressed begging that he took me with him. I did not want to go into the house where Francesca and my siblings were. I was afraid and never felt that I belonged. I was outside waiting for daddy to come home from work since he left out that morning and I pooped myself. I was slow to speak at that time, so I did not know how or even wanted to tell Francesca. When she found me, she became so irate that she broke a stem from the lime tree at the front of the yard and beat me with it. With each slash she swung at my back, a graph of skin and blood was pulled back by the thorns on the stem. I screamed until no sound was left and my throat ached. I thought she was going to kill me.

My godmother, auntie Juju, lived a few houses towards the bottom of the hill. I ran towards her house knowing I would be safe there because as an observant, I picked up on how Francesca always rolled her eyes when we passed by. The message of what happened was sent to mommy and I stayed with auntie until she came. I have a clear picture of mommy coming up that hill with fire in her eyes. I ran to her and wept. No words came from her mouth, but I knew I was safe, and that Francesca couldn’t hurt me anymore.

Mommy turned me around to see the bruises on my back and immediately took off with me to confront Francesca. She broke through the fence to get into the yard and popped a branch of the same lime tree used on me. Mommy beat Francesca with every ounce of her strength with that stick. When it broke, she grabbed a plyboard and used that. I remember Diamond was in the yard yelling at my mom to stop. Tony was crying. Why didn’t they do that when it was me getting beaten? Mommy even used a metal pipe and continued until my godmother and some other people came to hold her back. Francesca got the chance to run and hide in the house, but mommy took that pipe and broke all the windows to reach her. Those windows are broken to this day.

Francesca mistreated Omar too. So, in a sick way I loved it when he was over at daddy’s house with me because I wouldn’t feel alone. I remember once when she beat him on the head with a broomstick. He crawled under the bed, and I crawled under there with him. We held each other until she stopped and went away.

After the confrontation, my mom told daddy what was happening, but he didn’t believe her because Francesca said she was the victim. Uncle Clement, daddy’s best friend, was the one that finally got him to believe. I remember the night that he confronted her. Omar and I were there, and she denied everything. She even locked us out on the veranda with my dad. I remember asking daddy if we were going to sleep outside.