To be continued;

A Story by ShirleyCorrea

A short story about my life and my family. Domestic violence and how we survived. My life now.

"THE WOMB"

In January of 1994, a month after her first marriage, my mother found out she was pregnant. She was excited, as was my father, after all this was their first child. Months went by and they found out they were having a little girl. She couldn't believe it! She always wanted her first child to be a boy, her response once the nurse told her it was a girl was "it's still early the sex can change".
They both lived in a little home, it had a kitchen, living room and bedroom all in the same space. She thought as though everything was going great, but in the back of her mind she knew something was wrong. "Did I marry the perfect man?" She'd ask herself. Then began the terror, he would work and she would stay home and clean and prepare dinner. One night he came home, dinner was ready, hot and fresh on the stove. He walks in she serves him a plate, she places it on the table, as he goes to sit down he asks "what is this?" He grabs the plates of hot food and he slams it across the room telling her "this isn't what I wanted, make me something new". With tears rolling down her cheeks, she goes to clean up the mess and start making him the dinner he wanted.
Days went by and she felt as if everything had gotten better. The weekend was coming, the days he'd like to spend drinking with his friends. It's Friday night she's decided to leave dinner prepared and go and visit her mother who lived two houses up, all of a sudden they hear yelling, it was him. Mother goes running down to see what was wrong, as she walks in he slams the door and punches her right in the stomach, he asks "who gave you permission to go and see your mother? I never told you, you could leave this house" she apoligized for having left the house.
Later that night, he apologized for having acted that way. He then starts to caress her, she lays on their firm mattress while he undresses her and without a doubt in her mind she knew he only apoligized because he wanted to have sex. She lays there stiff while he penetrates her, not feeling a thing, thinking to herself "what have I gotten my self into".
As he finishes she dresses herself and turns to the other side of the bed to cry.

3 months went by without any physical or mental abuse. She now sits there 9 months pregnant, her due date for October 2, 1994 has already passed and still I had not arrived.

"BIRTH"

It's Thursday October 20th, they went out early in the morning to buy groceries. As they finish up and are about to walk out of the store, a big red strawberry catches my mother's eye, she says "I want that big red strawberry" my father replies "I can go back and pay for the pack" she's says "no, I just want that one!" Quietly he turns around and grabs the strawberry for her. Minutes later she takes a bite of the sweet strawberry and boom she instantly gets labor pains. She looks at my father and says "it's time" he looks at her and says "the baby is coming!?" He rushes her into the car and speeds off to the hospital, they get there and it was one of the days there was no power jn the hospital. He looks at the staff and says "don't you see she's ready to have this baby!" The nurse looks at him and tells him that there is nothing they can do for her since they don't have power nor running water. Miles away in another city there was another hospital with electricity and running water, he tells them to get her on an ambulance and take her there. After an hour they arrive at the hospital where they rush my mother in and lay her on a bed, immediately they break her water and after a push, there I was, all you could see was a head full of dark hair.
The nurse hands me over to my mother and says "here is your beautiful daughter, born at 10:30am weighing 8 lbs and she's 21 inches long". She says with this only disgusted face " i dont want to hold her" afterall she had wanted a boy. She ended up naming me Shirley Ann, named after Shirley Temple.
A few days later I was able to go home with my mother. She was overly joyed with her precious new bundle, although it was a girl and not a boy as she had hoped. Everything was going great, she was able to go and visit her mother as she pleased, she sure needed it being a first time mother with no experience.
The first year after childbirth was wonderful, everything seemed to be looking up, I had turned a year old my mother threw me a birthday party and shortly after turning one it was time to say goodbye to our beautiful, Puerto Rico, my father had lost his job and our home was too small for all of us, we had no choice but to start over somewhere new. We had family in New York, this was our only option to a better life.

"NEW YORK"

Months into 1995, we are all settled in. My father now has a steady job and we have a 2 bedroom apartment in Western New York. Having no vehicle my mother would have to walk around with me in the cold to our appointments. The physical and mental abuse with my mother had started again. In 1996, my mother found out she was pregnant again. She did all she could to abort, she couldn't bare the thought of all of the stress a new pregnancy would bring aside from having a 1 1/2 year old and an abusive husband.
September 5th 1996, at 10:30 pm my brother was born, he was named Johnathan Luis.
After restless nights my mother finally got the hang of having two children. She loved them more than she loved herself, the love of a mother is the strongest of all.
In 1997, we moved into a 3 bedroom house, my grandmother and her two youngest children moved in with us. The abuse had calmed down a bit to only find out that as we all slept at night, our father was trying to get his hands on my mother's little sister. My mother eventually found out the truth, having to throw her family out of her own home because he threatened to kill her mother if he was the one who had to leave.
In 1999, my mother found out yet again that she was pregnant. A very stressful pregnancy, at 24 weeks pregnant she gave birth to a beautiful little girl whom she named after herself, Damaris.
Damaris only lived for 2 hours, 2 hours my mother will never forget.
My mother went into a deep depression after having to bury a child, she wouldn't eat and she couldn't do anything for herself. It was the perfect opportunity for my father to take even more advantage of her.
When she finally came to in the year 2000, she found out she was pregnant. Another stressful pregnancy after suffering such a terrible loss, lead her to give birth at 26 weeks.
Another babygirl whom I had the pleasure of naming Ashley Marie.
Ashley stayed in the hospital for roughly 3 months. She lived and we all enjoyed seeing the smile on our mothers face again.
In 2002, we bought our first home. These years were the hardest. Our father didn't let us do anything, we couldn't play, our mother was at fault for everything. In 2004, our mother found a job, the first thing our father told her was "jobs aren't for women, you're not gonna make it". Weeks into her new job, she'd come home to clean and cook. Her job was 15 minutes away so she always came home punctual. One day she got home 2 minutes late and our father waited for her at the door, slamming everything in his way, she walks up the stairs and he yells "where have you been!? You're 2 minutes late are you seeing somebody!?" She softly reply "it was only two minutes, what time does that give me to see anybody?" He quickly starts breaking everything and yelling. With nothing we can do we turn the other way. No one knows the pain I felt for my mother, not only did she endure all of this, so did we.
2006, I was at school, walking out the doors. I hear my phone ring, it was my mother. She calls and says "Shirley, go home behind the couch there is a suitcase and right beside is a hamper full of clothes. Quietly go home without your father noticing and put everything in the suitcase. I'll be home soon with the police." So I did as I was told, I went home sat behind that couch fearful everytime my father would turn and ask me what I was doing. I quietly got everything away and waited for my mother to arrive. My mother walks in with a police officer, I quickly tell Ashley and John to get their shoes and jacket on. My father turns to my mother and asks "what is this?" She says "I'm leaving you" he turns around and sees me with the suitcase and says "you knew about this!?"
My mother hands him a check and says "here so you can help yourself" he rips up the check and says "I don't need your money";

"Is She Free?"

After all of the chaos, we went on and moved to a domestic violence shelter for women and children, an hour away from where we were living and went to school.
It was winter, we'd have to wake up at 2 in the morning every night to make our way back into town and make our way to school and our mother to work. She would drop us off with our father where we would stay until it was time to go to school and she'd pick us up and we'd go back to the shelter. After endless nights and days, our mother couldn't take it anymore...
We moved back in with our father.
A week later the shelter called and told us we couldn't stay there, they gave us a hotel room in which we would live in until we got back on our feet.
We lived in the hotel room for three months, best three months of our lives. The three of us would run wild around the hallways, eat junk food from the vending machines and even walk across the street to buy subway.
Our mother bought an electric stove and she would make home made meals almost every night.
She finally found a 3 bedroom apartment, we moved and had to start over we had nothing but the clothes on our backs.
After we're all settled in with used furniture, my father found out where we were living. He started coming around and running the house. After about a year my mother finally gave up and told him she wanted a divorce. He didn't want one. At the time my mother's sister and her husband were living with us. One day he came over angered because my mother wouldn't answer his phone calls, he threatened to go to the police station around the corner and say her brother in law tried to kill him, and so he did he ran as fast as he could with my mother chasing behind... our dog ran in the middle of the road, there was a car coming she stopped and grabbed the dog and kept running but it was too late. The police were on their way to arrest my uncle. After spending the whole day at a bail bondsman she was able to free him.
A few months later we went to the police station and my aunt was finally able to free herself of the pain she held onto for so long. All she could say while crying was "he raped me and I had to keep quiet for the sake of my mother" he had threatened to kill our grandmother if she said a word.
He was finally gonna pay for what he had done, he spent two weeks in jail.
In 2007, our mother met a man named Mark, he had two children of his own a boy and a girl named Ryan and Michaela, they were the same age as my brother and sister. After a few months we moved again, this time with Mark. Things had gotten serious, we lived in a mobile home for a year or two before we were able to get our house back.

"Welcome Home"

In February 2009, while my father was out of the house, we snuck in and broke the doors down and put new ones up so he couldn't get back into the house that was under our names.
After weeks of fixing the house and getting everything back into place, we finally moved back into the house that was rightfully ours. In March my aunt and her uncle moved back to Puerto Rico. My mother happy and in love. But I was a troubled teenager by then having to go through all that pain with with my mother.
I was a young 14 year old in 9th grade.
A few months later I found out I was pregnant.
What was I gonna do?
I wasn't sure if I should tell my mother or not.
She always said if I ever got pregnant she'd kick me out.
I waited a few months, my cousins were coming in from Massachusetts and I figured it was the perfect time to tell her that way if she were to kick me out I'd have somewhere to go.
It was July 5th, I worked up the courage and told her. She had no words she said "do you want to ruin your life at such young age?" I looked at her and said "yes."
She told me to get an abortion and I was not up to it. After a month or so I got my first sonogram, she fell in love instantly and changed her mind. Months passed by and we found out the gender. "It's a boy" we planned on naming him J'den Xavier, and so we did he was born February 15th 2010. When J'den was 4 months old we found out I was pregnant again. 15 with two kids?
I turned 16 and awaited the arrival of my first daughter. We named her Danyella Rose, she was born January 2nd 2011.
In 2012, I left to Puerto Rico with my two children. We spent 3 months there, we came back around May. I landed a job in a factory a month after returning and decided to part ways from my mother.
Now it's my turn to live for my children and I.
I lived alone with my two children, we had countless dinners together, they had their own rooms. We played games and read bedtime stories but even with everything I could ever have, I still felt an emptiness.
What else could I need?

"Angel"

In may of 2013, I met the man that would change our lives, his name was Angel.
We met online, we lived in the same town but had never seen eachother.
I was 18 and he was 25.
We would talk periodically, I was hesitant on giving him my number or even using his.
One day I was sitting outside on my mother's back deck and I decided to text him.
We talked for countless hours.
A week later on memorial day he came over for the first time, we sat there and watched movies and talked for hours.
We made it a thing, he'd come over and we'd sit and talk every night.
He had a daughter her name was Angelyce, a beautiful little girl with big brown eyes in need of a mother to care for her.
After a few months we turned our friendship into a relationship and he moved in with me. Now we were a family of 5.
After some time we decided to plan for our own child. Around September, I was craving some coconut shrimp, I could cry from how bad I wanted some. Upstairs I had a spare pregnancy test. Angel looks at me and asks "are you pregnant?"
I looked and said "let's find out!"
I ran upstairs and peed on that stick, immediately I see two lines. I jumped up and down with joy. I ran downstairs and told him and he says "no, no you're not" I said "yes!!" I made my first prenatal appointment after taking 7 pregnancy test and there he was our sweet little baby boy.
On March 16th 2014, our sweet Baby boy was born, we named him Damien Ace. He had long dark hair. He was more than we could have ever imagined. Our love was stronger that day. Our sweet angel had bonded us even more.
November 2014, we got engaged.

"Our Wedding"

After the engagement, we moved into a whole house. We were comfortable with now a family of 6.
I started working full-time to help out around the house, it became difficult and our relationship started to fall apart. I was moody all the time I would blame him for things we had no control over.
In May, I quit my job I couldn't handle it anymore and then we found out we were pregnant again.
5 kids? Can we do this?
June 27th our big day.
Finally the day we join our lives to make us one.
It wasn't as expected I had planned for an outside wedding and just my luck it was pouring outside, we had to come up with something quick. I call my mother, we go to hotels and finally find one with a decent ballroom.
Invitations were only sent out to close family and friends so it was perfect.
We had the best day of our lives, we danced to our song which is now "a thousand years by Christina Perri"
We laughed and ate and when the night was over we went back home with our beautiful family.
After a few months I went to my first prenatal appointment, they did countless sonograms due to having two premature births.
I found out I had to be given weekly injections to hold the pregnancy longer.
Long after we found out it was a sweet baby girl.
Now we have the pair together!
Finally she was born February 2nd 2016.
A sweet little girl with jet black hair. We named her Valentina Ivett.
I endured the hardest part of my life with her, she was born completely perfect and a few hours later..
She had a collapsed lung, her pain was my pain. My sweet little angel.
I don't know how I kept it together, watching as they cut her side open to insert a tube, having them whisk her away in an ambulance to the nearest children's hospital.
After a long week she was able to come home. Now we are complete, our big family of 7.

"Now"

On August 1st 2016, we had to move in with my mother. Our rented home was falling apart. Can we do this? All live with my mother?
We spent hours and days looking for an apartment to rent or a house to buy.
Nothing.. we couldn't find anything.
After crying almost every night and stressing over what we were going to do, feeling terrible having to clean up after everyone, washing everyone's dishes and having to cook here and there for not just my own family but everyone else, I finally found something.
December 26th 2016, I found a house for sale.
I called and made an appointment for a private showing. We picked December 30th, my husband had off.
Friday comes around and it's time to view the house. We loved it, it was a great starter.
We made an offer and they accepted it.
Was this really happeneing?
Are we gonna own a home?
Here we are now January 10th 2016.
Officially going through the deal. We are going to be home owners.
Our struggles of finding a home for our family is finally going to be over.

Months maybe years from now I will write of how my life is going again. Thanks to my mother I am where I am today
For now I will leave it as is.
I now have a wonderful relationship with my father who deeply regrets all of his mistakes, he's married to a wonderful woman and he has turned his life over to Jesus Christ.
Everyone has the right to change.
My story isn't over.
God bless you all.

© 2017 ShirleyCorrea

Author's Note

Please let me know what you think.

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Coyote Poetry

A amazing story written. I liked the history of your mother and your father. You wrote of good and bad days. I did like the positive ending. You are right. We must know forgiveness. For ourselves and for the people we loved. Thank you for sharing the worthwhile story. I hope to read more of your work.
Coyote