Lies of a Real Housewife (22 page)

er’s funeral was being held, I just knew it was somewhere in Atlanta.

Watching every exit the officers drove by, I noticed that they weren’t

stopping. They transported me straight back to prison. When we pulled up, and I saw the prison gates, I was so angry. It was enough to push me over the edge and make me go crazy. What
had happened was so ironic. It was such a simple misunderstanding that could’ve been easily corrected. But I knew

then that it just wasn’t meant for me to be there.

Seeing my mother dead, I wouldn’t have been able to handle that. To

watch my children mo
urn, not be able to hold them, and then return to prison would be unbearable. God knew best. It would’ve just been too overwhelm-

ing for me.

God knew that the look of death on my mother’s face would have

been enough to drive me insane. I couldn’t cry an
ymore. My feelings were numb, and I just kept pinching myself, trying to wake up from the nightmare. At that very moment, I chose to believe that my mother was still alive some-

where, waiting for me to return.

Three days later, I received a sympathy card from Phaedra. She in-

formed me that she had to stand in place for me at my mother’s funeral. She told me how beautiful my mother looked, and the unexpected high turnout. She elaborated, explaining how there were people lined up outside the church, waitin
g to pay their respects. The outpouring was tremendous. Phaedra had even given some of my grief-stricken family members a ride from

the church to the gravesite.

“Be strong and everything will be great when you come home. God

bless! Phaedra.”

I read the letter a couple more times, and smiled in satisfaction. I knew my life was completely different now. My mother was laid to rest, and no longer dwelled amongst the living. Only thing was, I felt dead too. Riddled with guilt and buried in a bottomless pit of depression. I looked just

like my mother.

The simple task of looking at my reflection, proved difficult. I went

two months without ever looking in the mirror. I hated what I saw looking back at me from behind the glass. I hated what I had be
come. Three months after her passing, I finally mustered the strength to look in the mirror. I sat there staring, looking at the person in the mirror, and trying to figure out ex-

actly who she was.

I wanted to know what, and why things happened the way they did. No person as a child have said, “When I grow up, I want to go to prison.” What went wrong? Somewhere in my mind I figured that if I could get these answers, then maybe I could get to the root of the problem, and fix myself.

Replaying every event
in my life that had a dramatic effect on me, I

began a self analyzing journey. I saw the five-year-old girl who died that day

when a much older cousin molested her.

Anthony was someone my family trusted. He was my mother’s

nephew. There were all those times I ran away from so much pain, not knowing I wouldn’t be able to totally escape. This was an inexplicable kind of pain

that existed deep inside. A silent hurting which traveled everywhere with me!

I relived the moments in time when my mother chose her husband

over me. I saw the time going by when my father couldn’t be my father anymore. I crossed paths with everyone who hated me, mistreated me, and spoke so many foul things of me. Those instances were the ones that turned me to the streets. I was out
there in the cold world, searching for some type of ac-

ceptance. I had never felt needed or wanted by anyone.

The needs were still there, but in order to address them, I had to

figure out my life. There was some soul-searching to be done. I had no sens
e of my true identity. I really needed to do something about what and who I had

become. I refused to die after living the life of nobody.

Knowing everything I had gone through must be for a reason, I never

regretted being born into this world an innocen
t child. I had just as much of a shot at living as anybody else. The one thing my mother always tried to point

out to me was to never give up. She always told me that quitters never win.

All the pain I was going through, and all the suffering I did, had to

be for some cause. But what? It seemed like the enemy was constantly playing tricks on my mind. There was so much separation between mother and

child that it left me detached from reality. First my mother and her child were separated. Then it was my baby and her mother. I had experienced it on both

ends, and it wasn’t a good feeling.

Only the strong survived, was what I kept hearing inside me. I knew

that was a fact, and it was time for me to rise above my circumstances. I had to make it home to my five children, Aleea, Lekwaun, Leontae, Jayvien and Emani. They were the five perfect reasons to live, and not die. Losing was not an option. No tim
e to ball up into a shell and depart this life. It was time to

live, time to deliver, and time to heal. It was time to set my mind free!

I loved to write, and I found healing whenever I wrote about some-

thing. It was my way of releasing built up emotions inside me. There was something cathartic about letting another person hear my story or reading about someone else’s misfortunes in life. This by some means made me

grateful for the life I was living. I mean just the mere fact of knowing that you’re not the only one—it helped. I needed an outlet for my pain, something to keep my mind active and focused. I was already preparing for my future.

So I decided to write a book while I was locked up.

I knew that every woman inside the walls of this prison had a story. You didn’t just trip over a rock, and land in prison. It was a process that brought you there. You were tried and proven guilty. I knew that. Just like me, none of them had planned from childhood to end up living behind prison

walls.

We all wanted to be singers, actors, lawyers, or doctors, just like

every other normal kid in the world. I really wanted to hear the stories. Not only did I want to hear them, but also I needed them documented. I had
made up my mind that I was going to help young troubled girls. I too had once been

labeled, ‘Troubled’.

The one thing that I remembered from my childhood was all the

counselors. Yes, they did all possess degrees in their fields, but they lacked real lif
e experience. In my view, they weren’t survivors. So how could they tell me how to overcome childhood sexual abuse, if they were never abused sexually as a child? I couldn’t look up to them, and that was because I couldn’t

bond with them.

These girls nowadays need someone they can bond with, and look

up to. If they look at me, and see I made it against all odds, surely they would

believe and have faith that they too could make it through the darkest hours.



Every single day I was walking around Pulaski State Prison armed

with a pen and several pads. And every day it was my goal to document someone’s pain with as much fervor as I had when I walked around them luxury car lots, documenting information for Phaed
ra’s scheme. I used some of the same skills, and documented information for the world.

This time my efforts were for the purpose of healing rather than

causing harm. I was now doing more good than bad. In addition to that, I would be doing my part to help the world become a better place. As I interviewed my fellow prison mates, I never quite understood what it was about

me that they trusted.

What it was about me that got them to open up, and share things

about them that they would have never told anyo
ne. I was going to use their stories to help young girls. Of course, these would be the type of young girls following in their footsteps. Or should I say, following in my footsteps. I had experienced pain so severe that I never want ANYONE to ever go through

what I had been through.

Before I knew it, I had many stories. They were from so many dif-

ferent women of all walks of life. These women were of different races, different religions, different ages, and had committed crimes as petty as theft to