Tragedy to Triumph

The following is the introduction to the book I'm writing for a young girl who was sex trafficked.  The name of the book is Tragedy to Triumph.  I'm hoping to have the book done by Christmas.  

Introduction

This is my story, but it could be the story of many women/girls/boys who end up trafficked into sex slavery.   Predators are ruthless in their pursuit of helpless, scared, desperate individuals.  They don’t care how old you are or from whence you came.  To them, you are a commodity, that’s all.  You’re not a feeling, emotional, or spiritual human being that can be hurt.  

Hurt and wounded are synonyms that infer outward scars.  Yet no one can truly comprehend the inward scars unless you’ve lived it.  “Lived it” implies that one actually “lives” this kind of life.  I contend “living” is not what we do.  We captives are really dead.  That’s the only way to survive the “life” of a trafficked person. Years ago, trafficked persons were put up on an auction block and sold to the highest bidder.   They were chained to keep them from running.  

However, I was never chained.  He might as well have chained me, but he didn’t need to.  I willingly ran into the arms of my jailer.  All he needed to do was promise me food and a roof over my head in exchange for sex; no big deal.  Right?

Today, slavery stills robs souls.  It still turns people into objects of desire.  Today’s slaves are put into dirty, dank rooms and sold over and over again to anyone who pays to play.  In my room, the men checked their souls at the door to play.  The soulless “play” was evil and meaningless with no passion and no affection.  

My soul checked out long ago.  I was nothing but a shell with innards that didn’t matter anymore. Sure, I had the working parts I needed to satisfy the customers, but the rest of me was as dead and rotting as road-kill.  Maybe the men couldn’t smell my rotting, but I did.  In the night, when rest eluded me, the smell was as palpable as if I were standing next to my decaying carcass.  

I died inside the day I made the choice, at the ripe old age of thirteen, to run away from the only home I knew.  I chose to run free.  In reality, I ran into the folds of captivity, bondage, and subjugation.  

Now, I am searching for freedom again.  I’m searching for meaning and life.  Will I find it?  I’m hopeful.  I’m hopeful that telling my story will set me free.  Telling my story might help set someone else free.  Telling my story might help me to find myself again.  

Sometimes, I feel like I’m still running.  I think a part of me will always be running away.  I’m not even sure what I’m running away from, but I know I won’t be set free until I stop running away and run to the right savior…

This is my story of finding myself and running to my savior.

Unkempt

 The following is an excerpt from my book, Drama Momma in the Land of Un.  The book is available on Amazon.com. The book is authored under my pseudonym, Gwen Thorne.  I added a link to Amazon at the end of this post.

Chapter One 

The Farm

December 2016

 

Something in the air caught my attention as I strolled through the shade clutching my laptop. Instead of searching for a log on which to sit, I went in search of the smell. I stood for a moment under the towering oak trees in the hopes that the shade would cool the hot, humid air. I was wrong. The familiar smell was adding to the thick swelter. It wasn’t a pleasant smell like flowers or anything green and pretty. It didn’t smell pretty. It smelled dirty… and unkempt. Did I smell homeless? No. Not homeless.Almost, though. I remember smelling homeless behind the park where I used to work. I knew that smell, and this wasn’t it. This smell awoke a distant memory in the recesses of my brain. Long ago, I smelled this when I was walking in the hundred acres behind my house. It intrigued me then, and it intrigued me now. 

It didn’t take long to find the smell’s origin tucked under a fallen limb where I would not sit—not today anyway. There, blending with the shades of brown, was an indiscernible shifting shape. But for the smell, I would not have noticed the four or five piglets huddled together. I guessed they were less than a week old, which meant that momma pig had to be close by. Piglets didn’t scare me, but wild momma pigs did! I quickly made my retreat to a distance I felt was safe enough and found a less threatening branch on which to unwind and write. I figured it might take me a while to relax, so I needed a comfortable spot.Was there such a thing as a soft branch? No, but I had enough padding to endure sitting for at least an hour. An hour away from the house was more than enough time to mull over the thoughts ricocheting through my brain. I had given up on writing for a long time. Was an hour long enough, or did I need days—weeks maybe?

It was hot as if the trees were holding their breath, adding to the heat. Nothing moved; not even the piglets made a sound.Strange. I don’t know if piglets are noisy, but I expected to hear some grunting coming from the piglet lair. I was sure I’d hear them when their mom returned. 

So, there I sat on the less menacing branch. Waiting. I didn’t know what I was waiting for. Was I expecting a burning bush or perhaps a ray of brilliant sunshine illuminating an angel? As if on cue, a perfect circle of light appeared on the ground in front of me. No aberration accompanied the sunlight, and no voice spoke to me. It just glimmered there taunting my imagination to make something of the luminescence. Perhaps I should fabricate a divine messenger heralding great promise, I thought. Maybe, if I step into the light, I’ll be baptized with great wisdom and will write something wise and inspiring.

I step into the light. It’s hot. I go back to my log in the shade. For a moment, I sit toad-like with my laptop perched on the branch by my side. What did I come to write—to ponder? I wonder. My life? 58 years to be exact.

 

Today is my birthday. It’s December in Florida, and it’s hot. It doesn’t feel like Christmas time. It doesn’t feel like my birthday.A December birthday right after Christmas was always a bit of a disappointment when I was growing up because the “combined presents” were inevitable.

I never really understood combined presents. One year I got a unicycle—my only request for Christmas. My dad informed me that the unicycle was a combined Christmas/birthday present. So, naturally, I wondered why I didn’t just get the wheel on Christmas and the rest of the unicycle on my birthday. 

I taught myself how to ride the unicycle by holding onto the walls in the house. By the time I became a one-wheeled pro, every wall in our home was as nicked and bruised as my shins and knees. The unicycle seat and pedals left permanent gouges in the wood floors throughout the hallways. When the handprints outnumbered the flowers on the wallpaper, I was banished from the inside of the house and graduated to riding between the cars in the driveway. I know the cars took a unicycle beating too, so I was given the ultimatum to either master the art of unicycling without props or give it up.

I never give up! So, after months of daily unicycle battles, I finally won the fight and took my first tentative no-props ride down the driveway. Within six months, I was riding backward, going up and down steps, playing basketball, and carrying my three sisters (one on each leg and one on my shoulders) all while riding my unicycle. It was as if the unicycle became an extension of my body. I was rarely without it and often rode to the store a mile away. I always had my hamster, Snowball, in my pocket while I rode. It’s a wonder he survived.

The unicycle did come in handy a few years back when I was “Skiddles,” the sweetest clown in town. I still rode that unicycle like a pro! I raced kids holding rubber chickens and did wheelies around the bases at home baseball games for our local team. I was a great clown until my knees killed my unicycle escapades, and my fingers protested balloon tying. It was good money, but I had to face the reality that Skiddles, the clown, had finally grown too old for her unicycle. The unicycle is tucked away in a corner of the garage now, waiting for another clown to rescue it. 

Unicycles, clowns, and combined childhood presents are all in the past now. I didn’t come out here to ponder those things.I didn’t come out here to ponder my birthday. I didn’t come out here to reflect on birthday presents or lack thereof. What did I come out here for? I guess I came to find God. I came out here to ask God to inspire my writing.

Lately, God has been hiding from me. He’s been chiding me with His absence or lack of availability. I don’t know. I don’t know much of anything these days. Is He absent from my life or just not available? Is it Him or me? Am I the one leaving God out of my life? My life... I can’t finish the sentence. Why is it just “my life”? I mean, there are so many other lives crisscrossed in this one life, like a big ball of twine.

 

Here I sit in the swelter of an unusually warm December day in Florida. I wonder, am I able to tell a story that keeps you on the edge of your seat? I’m on the edge of my log now. My butt hurts, and my knees creak. My brain dissolves—evaporates into the dryness. The dryness is in my fingers, too. No story right now in dryness. Not today.

Maybe it was a story back then. Perhaps it was a story worth telling once upon a time. I don’t know that it’s a story worth telling now. People ask me to tell it. They say, “You should write a book.” Or, “Your life is like a book.” Or, “You were on OPRAH!” So what. So what if I was on Oprah? So what if my life is book material? I’m sure there are lots of lives out there that are book-worthy. Why me? Why my life?

Someone once called me a “drama momma” because my life is so full of drama all the time. I don’t think he meant it to be complimentary, but I kind of like the title of Drama Momma. It suits me. I’m a drama momma now, but the drama started in 1960 when my mother died. I hadn’t even reached toddlerhood yet.

Fragments. That’s what I’m made of. Tragic fragments...“tragments.” Three children left behind with a dad that didn’t know what to do with his broken life. I keep thinking of broken glass—shards and slivers everywhere—tragments. Impossible to glue back together, so you do the best you can to reconstruct the shatters. You make something that resembles the old, but tragments cannot be put back together again because mommies don’t just reappear out of nowhere. Putting tragments back together again is like trying to glue Humpty Dumpty together again.

That was what my dad tried to do. He called all the king’s horses and all the king’s men. In this case, he called all the grandmas and aunts, but they couldn’t—they just couldn’t. Shattered lives. Tragments. That’s what I remember. 

The tragments were glued, epoxied, and cemented. I and my brother and sister were glued together, and we survived as kids will do. I even grew up despite my rebellious stage that involved drinking my way into oblivion. Oblivion was good back then. I was about thirteen-years-old when I had my first drink. I don’t know how or why I had so much access to alcohol, but I know I drank a lot for a long time. Whiskey, beer, and moonshine erasers were my constant companions. They took me places I wanted to be—mostly nowhere. They took me to nowhere and back—then back to nowhere again. I don’t know when I left nowhere, but I think it was when I was about twenty-five. Maybe, if I were brutally honest, I’d say nowhere isn’t far behind me.It’s a place I’ve become all too familiar with overtime.

 

Did I mention it’s my birthday? I thought that I’d become wise with age. What I’ve discovered is that I’ve become old as the years have progressed. That’s it—just old. Old and perhaps a bit crankier.

The pigs are noisy now. Maybe Momma has found her way back. I’d go see, but I don’t wish to disturb a mother boar and her piglets, nor do I wish to see if daddy boar is close by. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Felix. “Hey Felix,” I yell as if he’ll answer me. He looks my way, snorts his response, and gallops through the trees, leaving dust clouds in his wake. Maybe it wasFelix who disturbed the pigs. Perhaps it was Fred who is now visible in the clearing. Felix is lucky to have Fred as his constant companion. I wonder if they communicate with each other—dog to horse. I decide they must. Otherwise, why stay so close to each other?

“Are you God?” I ask the sunny spot that lights up the ground in front of me. No answer. “Of course, you are,” I say to the spot. “You’re God. The trees are God. Felix is God. All of you are God in one way or the other, aren’t you?” I’m so wise, I think to myself. I see God in everything. “So, God,” I’m yelling now at the spot. “Why did you let this happen to my daughter?!”

It wasn’t a question that I expected an answer to. I’ve learned that God doesn’t answer questions through sunny spots on the ground. My anger flares as bright as the perfect circular light in front of me. It flares in my soul. So much anger. Yet, I feel strangely calm. I am an oxymoron. Or maybe I’m just a moron. On the outside, I’m the perfect Christian woman saying all the right things about my daughter’s tragedy—God’s will and all that jazz. On the inside, I’m a raving lunatic. Rage is not the right word for what my gut feels. Rage is too mild—milquetoast. What’s the word? Indignation? No. Mania? No. Rampage? No.Rampageous? No. No word is adequate. No word will tell the truth about what I feel right now as I stare at the God spot in front of me. I have no words with which to spin this yarn. https://www.amazon.com/Drama-Momma-Land-Gwen-Thorne/dp/1947678159/ref=sr_1_3?crid=25LS42PVVH83F&keywords=drama+momma+in+the+land+of+un&qid=1644111169&sprefix=drama+momma+in+the+land+of+u%2Caps%2C104&sr=8-3

Herlong Mansion

Leave it to our treasure hunter sister, Lorraine, to find the diamond in the rough sparkling through the dusty antique town in the sweltering Florida sunshine. It certainly stood out like a hidden gem in a five-and-dime store. Its age-old beauty and charm were not lost on our sister as she was immediately drawn to the welcoming front porch. Herlong Mansion did not disappoint. From the moment she walked through the creaky front door and saw the majestic staircase, she knew this was the place for the sisters.

Lorraine, standing in the ornate parlor of the old house, immediately called Betty, one of the other Floridians in our scattered group.

"I found the perfect place for our yearly retreat," Lorraine said breathlessly into the phone. "It's a beautiful mansion that's also a bed and breakfast!"

Lorraine's phone call started the chain reaction between all the sisters and daughters. Calls went out to NJ, FL, and GA. It wasn't long before the Herlong Mansion was booked for the five sisters and three daughters. Thus the tradition was born.

In the spring of 2019, the eight ladies assembled on the massive front porch of the Herlong Mansion for the first of many group pictures. Now, those pictures have become treasured memories, especially the photos of our sister, Lorraine. Her laughter and smile always lit up our time in the mansion.

Laughter was mandatory during our three-day jaunts. Often, the laughter, along with the wine, would flow through the mansion well into the wee hours of the morning. Somewhere along the line, two traditions emerged. The first tradition is the passing of the cups, and the other tradition is the marking of the pillow.

It's not certain how these customs were inspired, but they most seemingly occurred after the marriage of wine and laughter at 2AM on the screened-in back porch. However they came to be, they are now part of the sisters' covenant which will remain two rituals in the unwritten Herlong Mansion sisters' bylaws.

The cup ritual is simple. Each sister/daughter must purchase a meaningful cup for the next older sister/daughter. Then the eldest sister/daughter buys a cup for the youngest in the group. The cups are unwrapped after a rowdy game of Cover Your Assets or What Do You Meme. Probably the most memorable cup is Betty's, which says, "Sisters are tied together with heartstrings" and has the name of each sister in a heart.

The pillow, too, has a special saying: "Sister is God's Way of Making Sure We Never Walk (or wheel) Alone." We added the "or wheel" part because Jenn, Betty's daughter, is in a wheelchair. Marking the pillow with chosen names follows the cup ritual. Every year, Esch sister/daughter is given a name to match her personality. That name is then written on the pillow.

Busterous, Badass Betty is the keeper of the pillow. Loyal, Lady Lorraine, the eldest of the group, is the first name on the pillow. She's first, too, because she was the one who found our perfect retreat. Although she will only be with us in spirit this year, her place on the pillow will be marked in her honor with our tears.

Astute Affectionate Anne Marie follows Busterous Badass Betty. Then comes Mellow Mischievous Mary Jo. Jazzy Jeanie is next, followed by Joyful Jokester Jenn. Killer Knockout Katie and Lovely Limitless Lulu are next. The last entry on the pillow is Mysterious Myrtle, Lorraine's cancerous tumor. This year, Mysterious Myrtle will meet the sisters' wrath, and her unceremonious demise will be planned and executed.

Myrtle may have taken our sister, but she cannot steal our memories. Lady Lorraine's memory will forever be etched in the fabric of Herlong Mansion. HER LONGlasting spirit will always be with us when we make our yearly jaunt.

Forgiven

When God calls, we often have a preconceived notion of a booming voice full of clarity. The voice will tell us our direction, purpose, and destination with certainty.

Isn't that the way we expect a calling to go? We don't expect God to whisper or send simple gestures. We expect powerful understanding because God's voice is always evident.  

So, why do I struggle with God's calling? He wants me to write. That is a certainty. Yet, I often criticize my writing. My critical voice tells me my words are strung together in meaningless, incoherent sentences. Even though I desire to pour a perpetual stream of beautiful words of hope and peace into every sentence, I often feel that is not what I achieve.

 I never want my readers to walk away feeling empty and disheartened. 

Yet, peace and hope often elude me. They play hide-and-seek with my thoughts. I have a bright idea; before it reaches my typing fingers, it's hidden in my brain's shadow.

Brain shadows come in many forms; sadness, anger, despair, and regret - to name a few. The shadows slip into gray-matter crevices and hide until the wee hours of the morning. Then, they slink out of hiding and snake into consciousness. Like a serpent, they strike. They spew shadowy brain-venom into the darkness causing restless wakefulness.  

 

Often, it's the "sadness" shadow that wakes me. The shadow slips into the night, shattering my stillness. Entirely awake, I reluctantly allow sadness to reach my fingertips. The "sadness" shadow tells my fingers to type because I must shine the light on gloom before hope and peace come out of hiding.

My son's story makes me sad. I'm compelled to tell his story from a mother's perspective, yet the tragic shadow screams that I cannot tell the story from the perspective of a mother! 

It shouts, "You weren't his mother!"

It's true. I wasn't Billy's "real" mother who gave birth to him. I didn't nurse him as an infant. I didn't even know him as an infant. I was his adoptive mother. I welcomed this strangely silent, petulant little boy into my home and told him I'd be his mother.  

I tried to be his mother. God knows I tried. I wanted to love him as my own. I wiped his nose. I nursed him when he was sick. I bandaged his knees, sang bedtime songs, and told him stories. I poured every ounce of mothering into him that I could. Our family gave him our name, and we gave him a room to call his own and a bed to sleep in. We got him a dog. We got him a cat. One day, I drew a picture of him in our home. He was pictured with our kids and pets, two parents, and a car in the driveway. I called him a son. He was mine!

No, he wasn't. He didn't belong to me. As much as I longed for him to be my son, a part of me knew he wasn't mine and never would be. There was the part of me that saw beyond the hopeful stick-figure picture with the sun shining through the clouds. I saw the boy, but I didn't see him. I didn't know the pain behind his eyes. I didn't understand the wretchedness of his life before he crossed my threshold. I chose not to see that because I would have to face the awful truth that he was never mine, even though he called me momma.  

Just now, in the quiet solitude of my office, his voice broke the stillness like he was standing right behind me, "Whatcha doin', Momma?" I even turned half, expecting to see my son grinning at me.

My tears are flowing now. God, I loved that boy!

In his heart, I think he always struggled with letting go of the mom he knew and loved before me. I never asked him about her. I never asked him to tell me, from his eight-year-old perspective, who she was. I bet there was a lot he would have told me. I bet there was a lot he wanted to say to me. Maybe he would have said that she was pretty. Perhaps he would have told me she made the best peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or called him snuggle-bunny. Maybe he would have cried, said she was mean, and didn't feed him. I don't know. I don't know because I never asked!

I wanted so much to be his mom that I blocked out the mom before, who did tuck him into bed and loved him before me. What was I afraid of? Was I scared the "real" mom would have been "more real" than me? Was I worried that she took up a place in his heart reserved for "real moms" that was under lock and key? I don't know. She was the ghost of someone who betrayed this little boy and left him broken and sad. I didn't want to know her. I didn't want to know what she did to him or why. Asking him about her would have made her real. In my mind, she was better left forgotten.  

I did my son a great disservice by not allowing him to tell us about his mom and share his love and grief over losing her. I believe that I am responsible for his wanting to escape the pain.  

I carry the heart burden of guilt. I'm guilty of not being the mother I should have been to my son.  

The heart burden has weighed me down and crushed my spirit. I didn't even realize it until I started telling Billy's story from a mother's perspective. A mother's perspective would require one to be a mother, and I was only his second mother!  

I should have accepted the second mother role – not tried to be his first and only mother.  

Yet, now, I'm begging my fingers to type the words my soul has longed to hear: Not Guilty.

Not guilty would mean that my son has forgiven me. Not guilty would mean that I've forgiven myself. Not guilty would imply that God has forgiven me. I want those two words to replace the grief, the sorrow, and the heavy burden of guilt. I want peace and hope to come out of the shadows.  

When my son grew up to be a man, he disconnected from us for about six years. Finally, after his daughter was born, he reached out to us, and we had a brief few years of a tenuous relationship. Something inside him wanted his child to have a better life, and he saw us as her lifeline. 

Unfortunately, so many demons were tormenting him that he couldn't outrun them. He gave up everything to chase the one monster that gave him a flickering moment of peace. It didn't matter how false or fleeting that peace was; he craved it over all else. I know he struggled every day of his life. I know this because, occasionally, he'd reach out to me and beg for help. Here's what he wrote to me six months before he died:

3/9/17, 8:08 AM

I'm really trying to be a better person. I never took my addiction seriously. But I don't want to end up dead or in prison. I love you, mom, no matter how ashamed I make you and how much I disappoint our family. I still want to be a part of it. Please go with me to my NA meetings. 

My response:

Please know that shame will only hurt you and destroy whatever we do have between us. As you know, it will be a long road of recovery, not "to" recovery. You will be recovering for the rest of your life. That's ok. What's not ok is us being on the sidelines while you struggle. I speak for myself. I can't speak for your dad when I say I want to attend your NA meetings with you. I'm sure your dad would like to go too. In any case, this is one way we can support you that makes sense. Trust must be earned back, but I am confident in you, Billy. I believed in you when you didn't believe in yourself. Isn't that what mothers do???

After that exchange, I wrote: 

September 9, 2017, @ 5:25 PM

You know, I always want to prove people wrong. I want to tell them that you WILL respond and tell us when your next NA meeting is. I tell your dad constantly that I expect to hear from you any day now. I wonder why he doesn't believe me. Hope springs eternal, I guess. I love you, Billy.

 

His very last words were written to me three days before he died:  

September 19, 2017

Yes ma'am. I love you too, momma.

I started this chapter by speaking about God's calling. I've learned that His calling is only sometimes noticed and often not acknowledged immediately. Sometimes, it takes hours; sometimes, it takes days, weeks, and even years. In this case, it took years. It took me reading those five words, "I love you too, momma." 

Perhaps I wanted to hear: "You are my one and only momma!" I wish I could have him back to tell him it's ok to love two moms. I wish I could have him back to say that having two moms is a beautiful gift. I wish I could hold my son in my arms, comfort him, and allow that comfort to spill over into my soul. Yet, he isn't behind me. He isn't here. His ashes are all I have.

God is here, though, and He is whispering: Not Guilty. As I write this, I can feel my soul hole healing. I can feel my soul becoming whole. It will take some time.  

I also know that the writing of this book is allowing me to heal. Writing allows me to step outside of my pain, shine a light on the addiction crisis in this country, and tell the stories of what it does to families and communities. No one emerges unscathed, but everyone can emerge forgiven.

Ask a Question

Hope the Clown

Ask a question; that’s what I say. Go ahead, ask away.

Ask your question here or there.  

Ask your question anywhere.

Ask, ask, ask, if you dare.

Can you think a think?

Can you drink a drink?

Yes, you can, man.

So, make a plan!

Ask that guy over there.

The guy with the white hair,

tripping up the stair.

I’m sure he’ll care!

You can ask him whether you are in or out of school.  

Asking him is cool.

Send your question, don’t be slow.

Send your question - GO GO GO!

Send it in a letter.

Or, maybe email would be better.

Send it by plane.

Send it by train.

Send that question that you thunk.

You can send it in a trunk.

Whatever you do, send it now!

Send it. Send it. You know how.

Ask the question and see if he answers you.

Or maybe Jen Psaki will answer too.

You’ll never know if you don’t try.

Send the question, don’t be shy.

The question of the day, I say.

Every every every day.  

The more you ask and try.

The more you question and ask why.

The more you’ll know about what’s going on.

Before your country is gone gone gone.

So, do it, my fellow American.

Do it so we can win!

Make him see!

We are still in charge of our country.

Ask him, ask him what they won’t.

Ask him, ask him what they don’t.

https://www.whitehouse.gov

This is the introduction to the new book I'm working on:  Sarah Pearl Patterson's Endless Summer.  I'm reading it since it's not published yet.  I'm asking kids to send me pictures to go with each chapter.  Something to do while home from school.  Anyway, if anyone want to send me a picture, send me an email at: hendersonbillandbetty@reagan.com