A Moment in my TRUTH

Dear, Knickky

Let me start off by saying I love you. I loved you the best way that I knew how at the time. No matter what was going on it was never an excuse for the way I treated you. If no one else was there for you I should’ve been, but I walked away from you just like everyone else. For that I’m so sorry. The old me is dead and I hope that this new me can prove to you that we are better and we want better. Before we can completely move on there’s a few things I need to apologize for and you need to hear this.

    I just want you to know that you were loved. Your mother and father did love you. They were just battling addictions and couldn’t give you what you needed at that time in your life. They couldn’t take care of you the way that was needed. It’s not that the drugs and alcohol were more important than you. It’s just it was around before you were even old enough to know something was wrong. They became hooked and there was no way to shake it. So please let that go. Stop looking for answers to why you weren’t enough because it wasn’t you. You have always been enough. Even in the midst of it all you could still see how much your mom loved you. She showed up at important events. She always found you on Mother’s Day. She always made her love known in some small ways when you needed it. As for your father, you guys now have a better relationship then you could have ever imagined. So just concentrate on that. Better late than never.

    Your grandmother loved you the best way she knew how. It may have not been a hands on full of affection kind of love, but she did love you. She wanted you to be the best possible. So she pushed you. She made you strong. She made you determined. She made it so that you would be able to stand tall and hold your own in any room with any crowd. It may have not been what you wanted but she gave you what you needed to navigate this world alone. She was preparing you for a time such as now. If she wasn’t so tough on you, a lot of what you went through would’ve broken you. You would’ve been defeated. She wasn’t using church to punish you. She knew that in order to make it in this world you needed to be prayed up. She knew the more she kept you in church the less time you would have to run the streets and get yourself into trouble. She was trying to protect you the best way possible. When you asked for advice and she gave you scripture she was really just sharing with you what she knew would work. She knew that God was a healer. She knew that He was the only friend you would ever need. She knew that when everyone else walked away or turned their back on you that God would always be there for you. 

I want you to know that the rape wasn’t your fault. No matter what you were wearing. Doesn’t matter if you snuck out the house or not. It wasn’t your fault. No one has the right to take anything from you. If you didn’t lay down with him willingly he had no right to force himself on you. I wish I would’ve let you speak up and tell someone what was going on with us. Instead I told you to keep it to yourself and let it go because we were wrong. We should’ve never been there. Wrong place wrong time I used to say. I never let you cry about it. I sat back and watched as you started to change. I watched as you started to act out recklessly. I said nothing. I sat back and I just watched. I knew it wasn’t right and I knew you didn’t want to, but I also knew you were doing it to numb the pain you were feeling. You were walking around thinking if people can just take something so precious from you whenever they wanted why not just give it away. I never stepped in to help. Truth is I didn’t know how or what to say to you. What do you say to someone after watching something so precious being taken from them? How would you ever be the same?

Please believe that I am sorry, sorry for all the times I let you down. Sorry for all the moments I should’ve walked away but, instead I stayed in all those unhealthy relationships. I’m sorry for all of the moments I allowed people to make us feel like we weren’t enough, because we’ve always been more than enough. Sorry for never giving you the chance to properly grieve. I sat back and I watched you suffer in silence. While I was too worried about what everyone around us must be thinking about us. Sorry for allowing you to keep getting caught up in fake relationships. I allowed you to give your heart to people that never deserved it. I allowed you to pour into people and give all that you had while receiving nothing in return. I allowed people to come into our life that only wanted what you had to offer. I’m sorry for forcing relationships on you. If they were not checking for you when you were down, why should we allow them in our space now? Sorry for pushing you to go and do it when I should’ve just let you be still. Sorry for making you do what other people wanted you to do and act the way they felt you should. When all you ever wanted was to be true to who you are and what you felt. Sorry for making you so standoffish and closed off. I’m sorry you don’t know how to love or how to accept love from others. I’m sorry I never taught you how to deal with pain. So now all the relationships in your life are failing.

    I promise in 2020 I will treat you better. I will put your needs before anyone else. I will stay on top of your mental health. I will no longer pretend that there isn’t a problem. I will take better care of you. I won’t allow anyone to keep walking in and out of your life. I will be there to hold your hand and stand by you. I will embrace all of you, not just the good parts. I love you and I promise I will tell you and show you that more often. If something isn’t right for us I will let it go. I wont try to make things fit into our lives that doesn’t need to be there. NO longer will we have to hide who we are from people. If they cant love an except us as is, then they don’t need to be in our lives. I will continue trying to heal us one word at a time.

Love always,
Nicole

What was meant for Evil, God uses for GOOD!!!!

    Mother’s Day has and will forever be one of those holidays that’s just hard for me. Yes I’m a mom now and my children are a blessing from God, himself. The holiday just holds a lot for me that I’m still trying to process and let go of. 

    I can’t really remember what Mother’s Day was like when I was really little and still lived with my mom. If she made it like other holidays we had together then I know it was nothing short of amazing. If she put the same effort into it then; like she did when we were apart then I’m still sure it was amazing. I just really wish I could remember those first few Mother’s Days that I had with her. I would even settle for someone who was around then telling me about them, but I haven’t gotten that lucky yet. So in my mind this is how our first Mother’s Day went… she would stay home with us all day because she just loved and missed us so much. We would play games and dress up until it was time to make dinner. We all prepared dinner for her while she sat and watched us smiling with her big bright smile. After dinner we would all present her with her gifts that she deserved so much. Later on we would cuddle up with her and watch a movie until me and my brother fell asleep. Well at least they were good in my head.

    The first Mother’s Day I can remember was spent with my grandma and the rest of my family. Mother’s Day weekend is the time my family chooses to have our family reunion. So every year a few days before Mother’s Day my family loads up in my grandma’s van and we head to South Carolina. The trip down is always so much fun. We are on the road for 12 to 13 hrs all together. Gospel music flows through the speakers while my uncle drives and my grandma sits there praying and asking my uncle if he is okay because she really believes that he is sleep driving (LOL).  While the rest of us are in the back laughing, joking and just enjoying each other’s company. When we finally get to South Carolina and get to see family that we haven’t in a really long time it was always special.

    Sunday is the close to all the family reunion events. We always go to church; someone from the family preaches and the family choir sings. Then we go back to my aunt’s house and we eat, talk, laugh and just have a good time with each other. Then they start the family picture slideshow. Also, we get to tell everyone what we are thankful for thus far. Sunday’s were always my favorite day and it has nothing to do with anything I previously mentioned. Don’t get me wrong, I loved spending time with my family. They just weren’t what I looked forward to most that day. Every Mother’s Day my mom would call my aunt house looking for me. So she could say Happy Mother’s Day to me. I remember asking her why she said it to me when I should be the one saying it to her. She said she wanted me to know no matter how far we were apart or no matter what was going on I was always the first thought on her mind. I cried every time we had to get off the phone with each other or if I had to pass the phone for her to talk to my grandma. It got to the point where they would let her talk to my grandma first then me.

    I’m not sure if anyone ever took into account how I felt. Granted my mom was alive but I couldn’t be with her. It’s not like it was just for a weekend or something. I really just didn’t see my mom much. Here I am surrounded by family, celebrating family, everyone is with their moms, and I’m alone. I don’t think this ever crossed anyone’s mind. Just how hard these Mother’s Day trips were on me. Mother’s Day morning I would wake up to all my cousins running to their mom giving her gifts, hugs and screaming Happy Mother’s Day. Then they would run to my grandma and here I was. Don’t get me wrong I always told everyone Happy Mother’s Day and I even got my grandma a gift most of the time, but it just wasn’t the same. No one noticed when I would slip off and cry. I would come back as if I wasn’t just crying my heart out and act like nothing ever happened. Needless to say I lived for that 5 minute conversation I would have later in the day every year.

    Eventually I would get to spend Mother’s Day with my mom that I would remember. I was able to get her a gift and card. I finally got to wake up and run into my mom’s wide open arms and tell her Happy Mother’s Day. Those moments were some of the best memories of my life. No longer did I have to wait for the 5-minute conversation on Sunday. I got to have her with me all weekend and it was nothing short of amazing. I finally got to feel how everyone else felt sitting next to their mom while learning our family history. Finally I wasn’t the odd man out. 

    Who knew that one day I would long for those 5-minute conversations on Mother’s Day with my mom, again. Who knew the one thing that brought me great comfort at one time, would be the one thing I longed for so much even now. (first time I’ve admitted that to myself) My mom passed away in August of 2003. So that was my last Mother’s Day with her. The last time I would hear her voice, see her smile or even get to run into her open arms and scream Happy Mother’s Day. However, I would continue to go to South Carolina with my family for Mother’s Day but it was never the same after that for me. I faked a smile the whole trip. I couldn’t wait to get back in the van and just go home. The only part I liked was the fact I got to miss school. But, this time I guess some of my family realized this was a little hard on me. It was harder than I ever thought it would be. Sometimes I didn’t make it out of the room before the tears would start to fall. When that happened I tried to move as fast as possible so no one would see me. When I was able to slip off on my own I would look up and Crystal would be making her way towards me. She is nosey and if I’m ever missing for too long she will find me. (LOL) truth is I think she has a connection to my heart and for some reason she knows when it’s hurting even till this day. It’s like I get sad and she calls to ask me if I’m ok. She just knows.

    Some people may wonder why I didn’t start this off with talking about my grandma. If you’re one of those people then you don’t know our relationship as well as you may think you do. Yes, I do consider my grandma to be my mother also, but it wasn’t until after my mother died that I started to look at her as my mother. Same goes for her. After my mother passed away she told me that the Lord gave me to her because he knew he was going to take her baby girl from her. He gave me to her to ease the pain a little. Then, she told me I was her child. It was nothing you could tell me. She was mine and I was hers. If anyone doesn’t like that then oh well. Mother’s Day with her was still the same. I still missed my mom like crazy. I was still stuck in South Carolina but she made it just a little easier to handle. Our bond had changed and it made things feel different. No it didn’t stop the pain and it definitely didn’t stop the tears. It was just good having someone there that looked at you like you were their kid. It was always fun getting my grandma something for Mother’s Day. No matter what it was she made it as if you brought her the biggest present in the world. Even if it was just a card. She would keep the card and when we got back to New York she would stand it up on the table in the hallway for all to see.
   
When I finally got old enough to stop going I stopped. I told myself I would never spend another Mother’s Day in South Carolina. It wasn’t for me. Sure, I would miss not being able to see my family but I would get over it. Guess that wasn’t the plan, because a few years after I stopped going my grandmother packed up and moved to South Carolina. So now I had no choice but to go down there. I fought it for a couple years. Eventually, I gave in and went back. When I did return I was a mom myself. I only went because I hadn’t been to see my grandma since she moved down there and she told me if I loved her I better show up. So I did. It was the same old feeling from all those years before. It was nice to see my family but I still felt like this wasn’t the place I wanted to be at that time. It was great to see my grandma though. Even though I couldn’t spend Mother’s Day with my biological mom, I still had the mom God had given me instead. I remember crying and my grandma asking me what I was crying for. I told her that Mother’s Day was just so hard for me because I didn’t have my mom. She asked me what she was. I said no but you know what I mean. She asked me why I was crying when I had everything to be happy about. I was a mom and she was getting a chance to spend time with me and my son. She explained to me how Mother’s Day was rough for her too. Not only had she lost her mom, but she had lost two of her children as well. I never looked at it like that before we had that talk. She had lost half the reasons why she was a mom.

    My last Mother’s Day with my grandma will always be one to remember. When I got down to South Carolina she was in the hospital. Funny thing is that I never planned to go to South Carolina that year. We were in the car on our way to Washington with the kids. When I walked in her room she called my name and asked if that was really me. I said yes. She said she wasn’t sure because I looked fat and she hoped I wasn’t pregnant. When I told her no I wasn’t pregnant. She turned around and asked me what was I waiting on to give my husband a baby. That she was old and wouldn’t be here forever. I should just hurry up and give him a baby already. I laughed. The next day she complained about my nails being too long and said they looked like claws. Then she told me my eyelashes were too long and I looked like I was going to fly away. So I sat as close to her as I could and laid my head on her. She whispered and told me that she missed me and was happy that I came. That was my grandma. She could be praying, reading her bible, quoting scriptures then she was joking with you. When I walked in her hospital room that Sunday we all said Happy Mother’s Day and gave her the gift we had gotten her. When I was leaving to head back to New York she hugged me as tight as she could manage and told me she loved me. If I knew then that would be our last Mother’s Day together I would have held onto her a little longer. I would’ve held on until my arms gave out. If I knew that would be our last Mother’s Day together I would have climbed in bed next to her and said Happy Mother’s Day until I no longer had a voice. If only I would’ve known.

    My grandma died in February of 2019. As I was leaving her house after she passed away I told myself the last Mother’s Day we spent together would be the last Mother’s Day I spent in South Carolina. That’s a promise that I plan to keep. I also hope it’s one that everyone will respect. Mothers Day of 2019 was my first Mother’s Day without both of my moms and it was one of the hardest days of my life, and I’ve had some pretty hard days in my life. I did nothing last Mothers Day. I tried to look at the bright side and say to myself they are both in a better place. They’re no longer sick, in no more pain and no longer dealing with this crappy world. None of that helped. I ended up sitting in my dark closet crying my heart out. Everyone always goes oh you’re a mom. I can’t understand why you would be so sad on Mother’s Day. Granted, I am a mom and it’s something I’m thankful for, more than anyone will ever know. But, by no means is it easy. I have an amazing little boy that my mom never got to meet. I know she would’ve loved my son. She would have given him all the things she couldn’t give me. I know that in my heart. Then there’s my grandma. Yes he got to see my son but they didn’t get to build the bond I would’ve wanted for them to have.

    Mothers Day 2020 I will spend locked in my house thanks to this virus going around. This year I’m hoping I can hold it together and make it through the day. I will spend the day trying to get my kids to play games with me. Maybe I’ll even get to take a nap. I’m just hoping I find something to do to keep my mind occupied and off both the moms that are no longer with me.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to all the moms out there. A BIG SPECIAL HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO MY TWO MOMS. I MISS YOU BOTH MORE AND MORE EVERYDAY. I’M DOING MY BEST TO TRY AND MAKE YOU BOTH PROUD. UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN. I WILL LOVE YOU BOTH FOREVER.

What was meant for evil, God uses for GOOD!!!!

So I grew up kinda crazy. I moved around a lot. I lived with different family members and I almost ended up in foster care. When I was really young my mother used to leave me and my brother in the house by ourselves. Sometimes it was for a few hours other times it was for a few days. Each Time she would leave, she would say not to leave out of our room unless it was to use the bathroom and , we better go right back in the room. I remember one day she tested us to see what we would do when she left. She told us she was going out and not to come out the room. Maybe an hour after we thought she was gone we both came out the room and called ourselves going downstairs to look for food. As we walked down the stairs she jumped out from the bottom and asked us what we were doing. We ran back up those stairs so fast. After that my brother never left out the room  again after she left. I remember one day we woke up and she was gone and we were hungry. My brother refused to go downstairs to get us anything to eat. So I did. I remember pushing the chair to the stove and climbing on top of it so I could get the cereal out the cabinets. I was too small to reach the bowls, so I filled our pencil cases up with cereal and took them back upstairs and we ate on that until she showed up. I guess she realized we couldn’t keep living like that and that she shouldn’t keep taking the chance of leaving us alone. All I know is that one day we woke up and we went to my grandmother’s house (my dad’s mom) and she left us there. 

I loved living with my grandmother. I was her only granddaughter and I was the only little girl around. So she used to spoil me like crazy. She really loved me. It showed in everything we did. She used to let me do beauty pageants. They were super cool. I remember she used to go to McDonalds and buy the happy meal toys and bring them home to me every day. I had every happy meal toy that came out that year. She was raising me and my brother, another one of my cousins. It turned out to be a little too much for her. So my mom came and took me away. I only got to live with my grandmother for a year but I had to leave.

I was back with my mom and we were living in a new home and things were better. This was gonna be the fresh start we needed. I just knew things were gonna be better this time around. She had learned from her year away from us and she was ready to be the mom we needed. I was back with her for a week before she was back to her old ways. She began to leave me at home by myself this time because my brother didn’t come with me to live with her. She used to leave in the mornings after her boyfriend went to work and she would come home right before he did. So he didn’t know she was leaving me alone. I would stay outside all day until she showed up. Eventually those hours turned into days and we could no longer hide that there was a problem. Her boyfriend gave it a couple days but she didn’t show up. So he called my grandma(my mom’s mother) and told her that she needed to come get me. He couldn’t keep leaving me in the house alone and he needed to work.

My grandma showed up that night on her way to church. She walked in the house and grabbed me by my hand and i never went back.That was the summer before i was to start 3rd grade. I never would’ve thought that would be the way i would end up with my grandma but it was. My grandma lived in a big brownstone house in Brooklyn. It was a house full of people. It was my grandma, her husband, my aunt, her husband, and all their many kids(it’s a lot of them) and a special person happened to be there when i showed up MY BIG BROTHER. My grandma and my aunt raised me. It was a little more than a little rough. I will say they loved me the best way they could, but they didnt love me the way I needed to be loved. My grandma wanted me to be the best and that was what she was pushing me towards and that’s how she showed her love in correction. While I was worrying about why I wasn’t good enough for my parents to love and want(but that’s a story for a different time).

Years later while I was in 8th grade my mom would show back up at my grandma house this time to stay for good. She moved in but she wouldn’t be around for long. Shortly after she showed up we found out that she had breast cancer. At first she was taking the chemo and we thought things were getting better. The chemo started making her sicker than the cancer and she didnt wanna go through it anymore. So she walked away from chemo. Shortly after that we would learn that her cancer had spread to her bones. The doctors gave her 6 months to live and that placed her in hospice. She outlived the expiration date the doctors gave her and she went on her own terms. When she was ready. Shortly after my mother passed away Child Services showed up at my grandma’s house to take me away. I hid because I really didnt wanna go somewhere else to start over. My grandma told me she wasn’t going to let them take me. I remember having to sit down with the lady from child services and her asking me what I wanted to do. I wouldn’t speak. She asked my grandma to leave the room so she could talk to me in private. My grandma politely declined. I told the lady I didn’t wanna leave and that I wanted to stay with my family. Then I asked if I could be excused. That was officially the start of the rest of my life. That was the day that my grandma really became my mom. She liked to tell me that i was her baby and that God gave me to her because he knew he was gonna take her baby from her too soon. I always wondered why my dad never showed up to fight for me (again that’s a topic for a different story) bet y’all didn’t think i had one of those….. LOL

What was meant for Evil, God uses for Good!!!!

Hey everyone, my name is Nicole. My life hasn’t been an easy one. I’ve been through some things that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I’ve had to deal with some things i thought would break me but, yet i’m still here stronger than i was the day before.Believe it or not i suffered through a lot of things. Some mental, some physical, some emotional, and even some spiritual. Pretty much everything i was dealing with i kept to myself because i was too ashamed to share it. Well that stops now. My grandma always told me i had a voice and now i’m finally going to use it. I’m gonna use my voice to help heal my soul and live in my truth. This blog is not meant to hurt anyone. Nor is it meant to cast anyone in a bad light. It’s meant to help aid me on my journey of healing and hopefully helps some others like me along the way.

Welcome to A Moment in my Truth. Thanks for stopping by. I wanted to start this page to share some of my life story. Hopefully these stories will help someone going through some of the stuff that I’ve gone through or maybe something similar. I realized that i couldn’t let things go and i couldn’t move on and start to heal until i began to acknowledge the stuff that i had gone through. When I began to talk about it, I started to heal. By no means do I feel like I’m a life expert or a life coach. I’m just sharing moments of my life, and how they affected me. Also how I grew from them. I know that when I was going through certain things I felt like I was alone and the only one dealing with these things. Which made dealing with it even harder. It wasn’t until i got older and started telling some of my story did I realize I wasn’t the only one dealing with this stuff. So hopefully someone reading this that’s going through will get the strength they need to keep fighting. You’re not alone. In these blogs I will cover topics such as….

• Rough upbringing/ moving from place to place
• No parents around/ living with my aunt and uncle
• Grandma taking me in
• Growing up without my brother
• Growing up with my cousins
• Growing up in church
• Sex vs love 
• Rape 
• Losing friends/ out growing them
• You won’t amount to anything/ you’ll end up just like your mom 
• Relationships
• college/ freedom
• Stressful pregnancy
• Premature baby 
• Dealing with someone in jail
• Abusive relationships
• Being homeless with a child with special needs
• Moving on from  your relationship after having a child
• Marrying someone that isn’t your child’s father 
• Death-  losing my mom and then losing my grandmother 
• Blended family 
• Love after pain

As topics come to me I will also talk about those. I am willing to answer any questions that anyone may have about anything that i’ve posted to the best of my knowledge. I just want to be true to me and tell my story. Hopefully my life can help someone in the process. Even if it’s just one person. My voice was given to me for a reason and I think I’ve finally found that reason with this blog.im going to try to post once a week. I will drop the topic for the following week at the end of each blog. I will try to answer all questions and respond to all comments before I drop the new blog the following week. If I get really good questions or comments, maybe I’ll make a blog surrounding those. 

What was meant for Evil, God uses for Good!!!!!