Forbidden Joy

On an early April morning I came into this world . . . feet first.  My mother named me Joy, but true joy is something that has been forbidden to me.  My own father was no where to be found in the day I was born; he was so important that he was put in a room surrounded with bars.  He had spent the day walking with his girlfriend on the streets and they put him in a room so they would not lose him.  I wonder. . . even to this day if he knew he almost lost his first born child that day?

My first years are filled with memories of my father yelling and hitting . . . and my mother screaming and crying.  I have memories of my father throwing my mother down the front steps of the house.  He dragged her along the cement until her back was torn and bleeding as I stood in the doorway crying.  Even today unwanted memories of those days flash back into my mind.  My father shaking his fist in my grandmother’s face as he yelled, “It’s your fault I am the way I am!”  I see him throwing my mother around like a limp rag doll.  I still at times see in my mind the strange lady that he flaunted in my mother’s presence. . . the woman he chose over his family.

I was not even two years old and I had already experienced much pain; not only did I witness the abuse of my mother. . . I shared it.  My father’s hands should have been a comfort to me as I placed my small hand onto his, but more often they were a tool to toss me to the ground.  One day my mother decided this had to stop.  My mother took what possessions she could carry and left my father with the help of a local church which my Aunt had contacted.

I found myself riding in a train; there were so many windows.  I still remember the darkness.  The methodical music of the train moving along the tracks was comforting to listen to, until I realized Daddy was lost.  I began to cry out that we had to find him.  For many years I woke up in the middle of the night begging my mother to find Daddy, but Daddy was never found.

Over the years life went on, but there was a distance between my mother and I.  My mother would look at my thick, red curls and my stormy, blue eyes and the resemblance was more than she could bare.  Other girls shared a closeness with their mothers, but my relationship with my mother was cold and distant.  I don’t remember ever being hugged or tucked into bed by my mother.

I was adopted by the Father who raised me, he was the best part of my life, but it was a very short lived time.  He adopted my brother and myself; he was a wonderful father, but he had work several jobs and we rarely saw him.  As all good things in my life, he was taken too soon.  He died early in his life of a massive heart attack.  Once again the joy I had been given in my life was forbidden for me to hold on to.

I did experience happiness for a short while in my teen years.  I met the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.  The happiest day of my young life was when he placed a ring on my hand and asked me to marry him.  We made plans for our future, but that future was never to be.   Two trucks collided at his job. . . he was a passenger in one of those trucks.  In just an instant his life was taken from me.  The future I had looked forward to was now forbidden to become a reality.

Other memories flash through my mind. . . memories of unwanted hands upon my body.  Moments that seem to last for an eternity as I begged him to stop.  Fearful moments rushing through my mind as I wondered if I would be left alive.  Survive I did . . . but I live with the memories to this day.  Unwanted memories that flood my dreams at night, recalling the terror of that stranger who overpowered me against my will.  I still carry inside myself the unseen scars. . . along with the guilt and the shame of that long dark night.

I have often been asked how I came to be called “Forbidden Joy”.  The answer is simple.  Joy is simply a part of life that has been forbidden to me.