The Comforter

This is how I was introduced to my sexual abuse and my abusers. My life has many doors, but only one door way and once I walked through the doorway there was no turning back. I had a dream when I was 9 years old where I was opening up the door to my basement and I came across another door then another door and so on. I was laughing because I thought it was fun. There were 10 doors that I came across and some doors I knew I got scared. I heard a man's voice. He was kind and gentle. He said, "Cindy, keep opening the doors."

I was afraid and I started sweating I heard the kind man's voice telling me to open up the door. I said, "No, I am afraid to." Then he said to me, "You have to do it."

I tried a few more times and it came open. I heard a small child crying and as we walked into the room, my footsteps echoed. The room was filled with bright lights. I remember thinking, this aint so bad why and wondered why I was I so afraid. The room began to come into focus and I saw a little girl sitting on a bed crying and she looked like me. I climbed up on the bed and put my arm around her as to comfort her and suddenly, I ended up being within that little girl. I WAS that little girl.

Taking a deep breath as I am writing this, ok hear it comes !!!

The next thing I knew, there I was sitting on the bed with my sexual abuser. I was scared and confused and I didn't understand why my mother wasn't coming. I'm not sure if I called out to her. I am not sure if I could even talk yet. All I remember is that I was very frightened and alone. I remember I hated the man for hurting me.

I now believe that the gentle voice, in my dreams is the Holy Ghost, my Comforter.
 

Tricker the Family Pet

Two months after the Dream of my sexual abusers I was playing with my friend upstairs at her house and we went into her parents room to play. I went into my first flashback mainly of remembering the room and another that looked similar to it.

After that I started remembering stuff but didn't know what it was I had feelings of feeling dirty, guilty and ashamed. I knew what happened to me was wrong. I remember it more clearly now than back then. By the help of Jesus and the Word of God is how I am here today. I was brought up in Church and Sunday school became my safe place. I loved the stories of Jesus because I found hope in all the madness.

In the summer of 1976, I was nine years old and I rode my bike down to the creek. I had it in my mind I was going to take my life. I was going to jump off the bridge into the water and end it all. I was a nine year old Girl who was scared and confused. The pain was deep. Something came over me that day and I was if I was in a trance. It was evil the devil wanting to destroy me.
 

The family dog Tricker followed me that day and he was actually glued to me that whole day no matter where I went, there he was. He started barking at me when I was on the bridge and the dog wouldn't stop. This barking helped me to come back to reality and see what I was doing. A car came by and stopped. I am blessed to be here today writing this to share with others. I had never considered how God used a dog to save my life until a friend recently brought to my attention how God used a dog to save me, just like God used a donkey to help and warn Balaam. The donkey was used to save his life.
 

God was with me back then and He is with me now.

He is my refuge and strength and my help in my troubles.

He is with all of you who are still hurting, suffering and feel lost and hopeless.

Let him wrap his arms around you and comfort you.

He is the Comforter of our souls.

He is here to heal us and set us free

The New Bikes

I want to share some fun I had with my family. My mother took us to buy bikes in June, the summer before. I meant to mention this in my previous chapter.

We were excited, my mother said she had a surprise for us. She took us for a walk to School Street to a man name Frank's house. He built bikes and he had a shop out behind his house.

We learned a little bit of history that day. The shop he built the bikes in was an old school house for the local children. I thought that was pretty cool, plus out in front of his house on the sidewalk were old tomb stones from the local grave yard which I thought was sad. I guess a lot of the people on the street had them for their side walks. I will have to look into that more to see how that happened. I do remember a lot of graves that did not have head stones. We also learned about some of this in 4h. The town I grew up in had a lot of interesting stories to tell.

Back to the bikes. Frank had me, my brothers and my mom try the bikes out to see how well we handled them. He had us ride the bikes coming down off a hill. He told us it was better for us to learn to ride that way, telling us how to use the breaks. My older brother caught on fast. He wobbled a lot on the bike. My younger brother had a hard time. We ended up teaching him. He mastered it in time, without training wheels. My Mother ... That was funny seeing her on her bike. She looked so scared. She said she had not rode a bike in years and hoped she didn't end up killing herself, and made funny noises as she rode her bike down the hill with us.
 
I was good at balancing my bike, only because my best friend in the whole world would leave her bike at my house and let me practice riding it. The only thing I didn't master was the breaks. Frank kept shouting, "Use the breaks," telling me how to do it. Frank was freaking out and he and my mom were afraid I was going to go out into the street.

That summer was one of the best summers that I had and I got banged up trying to remember how to use the breaks. I hit a tree and ran into a ditch and hurt my arm. God was watching over me that I didn't break it.
 
I had some good times with the bad. Had to share some good memories too. I asked God to bring back some good memories and they're just flooding back. The good with the bad, but the good outweighs the bad when God is in the picture. I have hope in God.

The Seizures

When I was 9 years old, I had a seizure and had to be hospitalized over night to have a brain wave, a cat scan of the brain. I was put on medication. I had to go to Children's hospital for the test. I had two seizures, one awake and I didn't know it was a seizure. I was walking around and one side of my face was numb and I was drooling madly. A friend and her kids were visiting and she told my mother I was having a seizure. My mother didn't take me to the doctor because we had no money, no insurance and no help from my father. She paid support and visited on holidays. I think this was why my mother started working so she could take care of us better. We were on welfare, getting food stamps and Medicaid did step in to help with the medicine and the doctor bills.

Now to Children's Hospital

The Doctor thought it was stress and a nightmare. He was trying to get me to talk to him. My mother was holding me on her lap telling me to be careful what I told him. The doctor ended up making her leave and she looked at me before walking out the door and said be careful what you tell him.

He asked me what was going on and that it was ok to talk to him. I told him about a dream I had of my mother when I was younger and that I was afraid of her. My father was in the dream trying to get me and my brothers. It was like a fairy tale dream. We were riding in a horse carriage. My Mother was an evil queen and my father was a King. He pulled me and my brother out of the carriage as we were riding and then he told me to run into the field of flowers and I would be safe.

The doctor asked why I was afraid of my mother and I told him because she was always yelling at us and cussing us out, but she was different at church. My brother was always beating me up and stomping all over me. He was 2 hundred pounds to my 55 that hurt.

I told him about my cousin Danny's death when I was eight years old. He passed away when he was a teenager and my mother punished me if I talked about or if I cried about it (I never dealt with his death until last year which will be another chapter later in the book)

The doctor told me to go out into the waiting room and called my Mother in. She came out she looked mad and she asked what I told the doctor and asked if I wanted to be taken away and my brothers to be taken away and never see the family again. I was thinking "umm, I could go live with my dad" but didn't say it.

The yelling and cussing stopped at the house and my older brother was nice for a while. The doctor told her that I could not be stressed out and things had to change in the house because he was worried that I would have a nervous break down. God kept me from having a nervous break down.

The yelling pierces through my body. I was always nervous wanting to cry but didn't dare. I was too afraid of getting punished for it. I knew other people at Church who lived their life the way the pastor preached to us to live and when we stayed at others houses or visited, there was no yelling, screaming, cussing or using the Lords name in vain. When my mother did that, it made my ears echo and vibrate. It went through my body.

My Mother is doing much better today. She rededicated her life to Christ and we attend church together today as a family and pray together at church and at home for our family to come to Church we speak it by faith like Hebrews says to. I see more healing now and more on the way for me and my family.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for. I prayed even as a child being brought up in church that my family would be like other families. I see it taking place now.

 

The New Kid in Town

I loved this kid, I must admit. I was not too fond of him at first though as he was an annoying little red head on a bike. He would go up and down Dutch Hill, the road I lived on, every morning at like six o'clock in the morning yelling "yehaw" like the Dukes of Hazard.

He was about 6 years old and I was 9. I think I was like three years older than him. His parents wanted him to have friends but they lived deep in the country and he had no friends out there, because they didn't think that was good for him.

When she said this I thought great bring him here to bug us. I also thought how sad I would be if I didn't have friends. My first best friend had been my friend as far back as I could remember. We were like sisters and were so close. I was like 2 years old when I met her. The family treated us like family. They helped my Mother take care of us. Sara and I were glued to each other. We kind of started drifting apart because her family was away a lot on trips, so I would miss her a lot.

I kept thinking about how he needed a friend. I took him into my heart and he became like another brother to me. My brothers and I played with him a lot.  We went on a lot of hikes. We had a hill that surrounded the town and we had a big hill in front of our house that you had to cross route 16 to climb up and it was steep. After a while, we had to walk up side ways to climb and you felt like you would be pushed down.

The hill behind the house was pretty steep too, but the higher you got the more humid it would be. It was called Gile Hollow, also known as Suicide Hallow. We used to scare each other repeating stories that we would hear that we thought happened on the Suicide Hallow hill.

One of the older kids said he went hiking up there and it got too dark and he lost his way and it started raining so he spent the night on the hill. He said he found a little cabin up there and slept there. He said when woke up the next morning that there was a skeleton in the cabin with him.

I was abused in my childhood. I have a lot of bad memories that hurt. I also have many memories that I treasure in my heart. Memories that nobody can rob me of. One of my fondest memories is when I first went to a little white church that sits next to a little creek on route 16. We had Sunday school outside. I asked Jesus in my heart that day. I remember the Sunday School teacher saying that if we didn't ask Jesus in our heart that we would be left alone in the dark. I was afraid of the dark, so I asked Jesus in and I felt Jesus enter into my heart that day. 

This little Creek side church was my first stepping stone to Christ. Shortly after this, we started going to The Assembly of God which we went regularly for quite some time. I learned a lot of neat stories about Jesus and his disciples and other Bible stories. I was like 3 years old when we started at the new church. I was getting the word of God in me. The church was a safe place for me. I wished I didn't have to go home. I loved it there it because it was peaceful and I loved the praise and worship songs, even the old hymnals that I didn't understand but loved to sing them. My older brother and I would pick the same two songs every Sunday. His song was On Christ the solid rock stand and I always picked page one All hail king Jesus. The pastor asked us if he could do a different song and we told him no. The people laughed and we sang those two songs again with other songs.
 

The Blizzard of 77

The Blizzard of 77. What a cold year that was. So cold even the dog didn't want to go out in it. He did his business in the hole of the porch. Sorry for being graphic. Come on now, you can laugh if you want. The dog would yipe as the door would open. It was so frigid cold the schools got canceled all over NY state for quite some time. The blizzard lasted from January 28 to February 1st. Me and my brothers were in our glory, no school. My mother on the other hand was not in her glory one bit. She used to tease us every morning while we were eating breakfast by listening to the radio for school cancellations. "You have to go to school, they didn't say your school on there yet." She would say that all the way through the cancellations. It was funny. There was a lot of excitement waiting for the cancellations. Not long after the blizzard, just before Easter, the heater broke down at the school. We had school off again. We were excited about that too. My mother quickly busted our bubble. Summer school was most definitely in the picture for us that year.

Easter recess. it was a sad time for us. Our Dog Tricker passed away. He was hit by a car. The night before Tricker got hit by a car my father picked me up to stay a few days with him and my stepmother. I asked my father if I could take Tricker with us. He said no. I told him, "What if I don't see him again?" I just knew it would be the last time I saw him. I somehow always knew when something was going to happen.

This is how I last remember Tricker. He came out from behind the sofa. He was laying on the register of the heater to keep warm. He came out, licked me all over the face and went back behind the sofa. I tried again to get my father and my mother to let me take him. He said, No, Bobo was out in the car and he didn't think they would get along. I said ok, and sulked.

I had a dream that night. He told me he was leaving. His job here was done, he did what he was supposed to do. Yes, I KNOW I have weird dreams. He asked if it was ok to go. I told him, Yes.

Kind of odd, when we First got Tricker, I had a dream he told me he was only going to be with us a little while. I know I'm a weirdo here. I believe God shows us stuff to help prepare us for it.

The night Tricker passed away, the Telephone rang. I begged and pleaded with my father not to answer the phone. It was my mother and she was going to say Tricker died!!!! I knew for sure that's what she was going to say. I thought if he didn't answer the phone, it would not be so. Good at blocking things out, even as a kid, the denial thing. My father answered the phone and said hello, and paused a second, and said she already knows Mom. I talked to her on the phone, crying, called her a liar, and told her I hated her. I didn't really hate her, I was mad because they wouldn't let me bring the dog.

I cried and cried for a long time. We buried Tricker out in the back yard next to his best friend, our cat Tootsie, who died at the end of the school year, the year before, hit by a car near the same spot on the highway. I often wondered if Tricker was looking for me.

We got Tricker in PA. Not sure where our old Pastor and his wife picked us up. We spent two weeks at their house and went to church with them. He was hosting Tent Meetings for The Assemblies of God. Different pastors preached. The pastor and his wife and family took my family under their wing and loved on us and helped my mother and us when our father left us. We spent a lot of time with them, practically lived with them. I decided Jesus was a beautiful person. I wanted him in my life for sure. Wasn't sure about God back then. I thought He was mean, letting bad things go on to me. I learned in time God and Jesus are the same being and both are full of love and compassion.

Back to Tricker. I was 5 years old, almost 6 years, in a month. September 26 is my Birthday. We just got to PA to their house and this little black and tan dog with pointy ears came running in to the house, jumps all over me and my family, and he did not like anybody. Day after day he was coming over to the house. he claimed us as his family.

We all kept working on our mother to let us have him and the pastor kept telling Tricker, "You have to kiss up to their mother." It worked. It worked good.

The people who owned Tricker tried to give him away a couple of times but he kept coming back home, run away, or they would bring him back. He was mean to them and growled and bit them. It's because it was not his family. God had it in His plans for him to be with us.

I believe, to show us how to love, he brought love and joy into the house. The dog actually bought us closer together as a family. The other reason he was in the family was to keep me from jumping off the bridge and killing myself. so actually the dream was right, he did his job he came to do. It was time for him to go home.

 

Pass it on

Two months after Tricker passed away, my mother sat us down in the living room and asked us how we felt about getting another dog. She said she knew it would not be not Tricker but asked how we would feel about it if we got another dog. Everyone agreed to get another dog and my mother said good, I was hoping you would say that because our cousin called and said they had a dog we could have if we wanted her. Her name is Tina and they were worried the dog would get hit by a car and the dog had a lot of energy and needed a place to run and she thought the country would be better for her.

My cousin drove from the city to bring Tina to us. My mother had me get in the car and get Tina out. I felt bad because my little cousin started crying. My mother asked our cousin if she was sure about the dog because the kids looked attached but she said no they were not attached as they only had the dog a couple of days, but the girls said it had been two weeks.

I got Tina out of the car. She looked around and jumped out of my arms. My mother said you better go get her. I asked her how could I do that because she is fast. My Mother said you better go get her. Our cousin said good luck with her and if we decided we could not keep her to call someone else who said they would take her if things didn't work out. My mother said no, we were going to keep her.
 
That dog could run. She was like a flash of lighting. She was a little white dog with floppy ears. Her left side of her eye was black fur and her ear was black. She looked like a little bandit or a pirate. Very cute and full of energy it was like there were ten of her.

That summer we had to got to summer school because of the blizzard and the heater broke. That was a hot summer. The school had a swimming pool that they kept open for the summer, so we could use it which was cool.

Jumping to a year later in the summer of 1978, my best friend and I were going camping to a Methodist camp for a week. She didn't want to go by herself, it was her first time of being away from her family and mine we were excited about going to camp. Some family paid for us to go which was nice. They were only going to pay for my friends, but they heard she didn't want to go by herself so they paid for me to go at least that is what we heard when we were listening in he other room, well eavesdropping.

Her mother had to take us to the city for a physical because we had to have a physical before we could go to camp. She was explaining to us what the doctor was going to do and she told us we had to have a pap smear and told us what it was. She asked us if we were ok with it and we said yes of course we would be ok with it because we didn't know what it meant!!!!!!!!

It was my turn to have my physical. The doctor did my physical and then he said he was doing the pap smear. He told me to hold my breath and look at the window. I was shocked and almost cried. While he was examining me, I looked at him and I was ticked off at him. I went into a flashback almost instantly. The doctor asked me if I had ever been touched and I said no. He said yes you were. I said no again and he looked at my friend's mother and asked if she knew that I was touched and she said not to her knowledge. He looked at me and asked who touched me. I told him I did not remember anyone touching me. He said you will and when you do I pray that God goes easy and gentle on you. Actually, I did remember something had happened but I could not explain it.

He told me to get dressed and go out in the waiting room. I was still having a flashback and thinking something must have happened if the doctor thought something happened. I was thinking about the dream that I had about the little girl crying on the bed and I climbed up on the bed to comfort and ended up inside of her and becoming her. I wanted to cry but held it in. I almost told my friend's mother that I thought something had happened but I didn't. I almost did when she came out of the doctor's office but she told us she had good news, that we both passed our physicals with flying colors and were going camping. I quickly put everything out of my mind and began to think about what I would take on the camping trip.

Off to camp. I had to take my camping gear with me up the street to my friend's house. We waited for a lady to pick us up to take us. We were nervous about going and it seemed like a long ride. It was only 45 minutes away. We got to the camp, got registered and we were taken to a place to do a crafts. We picked out a piece of wood and a card. We burned the outside of the card with a lighter and shackled the card on the wood and put piece of paper on them that had a scripture verse on it which my mother still has.

We went hiking, camping, swimming and had church every night. A man did magic tricks and another guy who was a ventriloquist had a dummy that he made look like it was talking. I think the guy that did the magic tricks had the dummy too. We also had a tug of war game and we had to keep from falling into the pond. We had to reverse and try to get the other side to fall in. I think some of my team fell in.

The last day at camp, I was chosen to help hang the flag back up. I was surprised he would ask me to help hang the flag. I felt like I was nothing and he should call on someone else. I said no but he said yes, I want you and a couple of kids complained because he asked me and said I was doing it wrong. I was letting it hit the ground. He looked at me and smiled and asked if it hit the ground. I said no he and said ok, then you're doing good. They kept complaining and told him you have to burn the flag because it hit the ground. He told them to shut up but I
don't think they heard it.
 

The highlight of the camping trip was when we sang outside. A man played a guitar and played folk songs and Christian songs. This is where I first heard this song called "pass it on" and it sparked a desire to witness to others. To pass on what I had learned from God. The camp counselor told me to listen to the words. I did and they were beautiful and spoke of what we should be doing as Christians. She told me a lot of these kids have never been to church and may never and this will be the first and maybe the last time to hear about God.

Here are the lyrics:
 

Father Knows Best

I had already been sexually abused by four people in my life. Some were family and others were friends of the family who stopped when I was around four years of age. It started back up when I was almost 11 years old, right after camp. The neighbor down the street who my younger brother and I use to go and visit every day. I started talking to him after a girl from town took me around a couple years before teaching me how to sell girl scout cookies. I was a brownie for a couple of years. He bought some cookies from me.
 

He was an older gentleman in his sixties. He lived at the end of our street. He seemed nice and lonely. Everyone liked him. He was quiet and polite. I use to try to get him to go to church with us. My brother invited him to come too, but he said that he was not allowed to go. I thought that was odd, a grown man not being allowed to go to church, but I didn't ask why. As I am writing this, it just dawned on me why he was not allowed to go to church. He was not allowed to be near Children.

One day, he asked me to sit on his lap, so I did. Part of me wanted to run, but he told me and reassured me that he wasn't going to hurt me, so I sat on his lap. He put his hand in in my pants and fondled me and stuff. I was scared and he told me little girls liked this kind of stuff. He whispered in my ear and told me not to tell anyone and that if I did nobody would believe me and that he didn't know what would happen if I ever told anyone but that someone could get hurt.

I was scared and never told my mother until I got older. She didn't believe me at first, but she remembered that I had said something to her. I was riding my bike down to the creek and I passed his house and I looked in his garage and thought I saw my younger brother in there. I got scared and my heart started pounding up in my throat. I went and looked in but didn't see him in there. It was completely dark. I had a bad feeling that something was wrong.

Later, I asked my brother if they were in there at that time and he said yes, that they were playing a game and that Jeff was sucking his own thumb so the old man went into the garage to get some horseradish to put on Jeff's thumb to stop him from sucking it and the door must have shut. I told my mother about this event and explained that I thought something was wrong, but didn't know what. She asked Jeff what they were doing and he told her the same thing that he told me about the horseradish thingy. I even asked my brother if he did anything to him but he said no. I was relieved, but was not a believer.

It was near time to start school. I was almost 11 starting in the fourth grade. In a month we were moving to a new town which was the small town that my mother grew up in. We had relatives there and our church was there that we went to regularly, for seven years. My mother had two jobs in the city as well. She cleaned the St. Johns rectory for the church and she worked at a local Bakery in the town. It was getting expensive to go back and forth to work every day and my father was not there to help. He paid support, but didn't really help out.

When my Mother told us that we were moving, I was kind of excited but upset too because I would not see my friends anymore. My best friend, practically from birth, and my newer best friend who was like another brother to me and I had to go to a new school. My mother announced that she had to take our dog Tina to the SPCA because we couldn't take her with us there because we were moving into a housing project subsidized housing for families with low income and no were dogs allowed.

I really didn't want to move after hearing that we had to move and not take the dog with us. My heart was breaking. It was not totally healed from Tricker and the cat passing away. I broke out and cried while I was outside playing with my brother and my friend. I said I thought it stunk that we were moving and we had to get rid of a dog that we just got to know and love. I said life was just cruel and not to love anything because it's going to die or get taken away from ya.

The move was a blessing from God even though I didn't think it would be. The house was falling apart. The walls were crumbling. The house needed repairs that my mother could not afford to do on her own. The people in the town tried to help with some stuff. The neighbors pitched in a lot to help us and we helped them out when they needed help. Small town people have big hearts. I think that I got some of my caring for others from that little town on route 16.

The last day we were in the house, the electrician came to the house to check the wires and turned the electric off. The electric would not turn back on. He tried repeatedly, but it just would not turn on. He checked the wires out and discovered that the wiring in the house was the old red white and blue wires. He said it was a good thing that the electric didn't turn back on or the house could have caught on fire because those wires were very old. It was the first wiring system they used when America started using electric. He said God was watching out for us
and we were lucky that the house had not caught on fire previously.

I do remember there being red white and blue wires in the basement by the fuse box. it is scary when I think about it. I see where God was keeping us safe from harm. Looking back, I see the move as God getting us away from the man down the street before anything else happened. God knows best.
 
It was time to move again. God was holding the house together long enough for us to get out. It was as if he was saying it's time to move and he let things get uncomfortable for us, to get us to choose to move.
 

It's a Small World After All

I remember looking back at the Old house one last time as we drove away to live in a new house. I said my good byes to myself to the house, to Tricker and the dog and cat Tootsie yes Tootsie like the Tootsie roll. We were trying to find a name for the little guy and had just eaten all the Tootsie rolls they were in against the bank.

Well, my older brother put the bank on the cat's head and he tried to walk with it and did for a minute. My brother said now he is the Tootsie roll king, so that's how he got his name. We all agreed he was a Tootsie roll King. Anyway, back to the move. I had a hard time imagining sleeping in a new strange place and having to get up in the morning and having to go to a new school with new kids that I didn't know or so I thought I didn't know.

A friend of our family took me and my brothers to the new school to register, which I thought was cool. It had the same name as my mothers maiden name. First, we took my younger brother to his class. He was in the first grade. Then it was my turn. I was in the fourth grade. I was 11 years old and had been held back in Kindergarten and second grade due to learning difficulties. I felt insecure wondering what the kids would think because of it. I got to the class and the daughter of the lady, who took us to school, was in my class. We met the family at church and became close friends but they moved away during the school year in the winter. Some of the kids that I met at camp were there also which made it easier to go to the new school. It's a small world after all.

I remember that I did my first book report that year on the Red wood tree and the history of it. I learned how the redwood tree can live over a thousand years and some of the trees were dated back to the great flood of Noah. These trees were around for the birth Of Jesus and furniture was made from these trees to sit on. The Indians actually lived inside of them. The redwood trees had two enemies which were Fire and man. The older the tree, the stronger it becomes. The trees are so tall that the branches are too high above the ground where the fire can't burn them and the bark on the tree becomes almost petrified, hard as a rock. All kinds of animals live in the trees in harmony with each other and all kinds of bugs which does not harm the tree, because the tree is so strong. The younger trees get their nutrition from the older mature trees, but a lot of them don't make it because their bark is still tender and they are closer to the ground where the branches can catch on fire.

That's the report I wrote and it took a while because of my reading problems. I wanted to explain how God wanted us to be like those trees and get planted in God's word, but I could not get it out on the paper. I heard a sermon on it around the time I was doing the report. I got an A on the book report. It was the first A that I ever got.

My teacher was upset when they were going to put me in Special Education classes. She thought I could be taught and that I was being robbed of a chance to have a good education. She believed that I could be tutored because I had good reading skills and that I just had a hard time getting it out on paper. I understood what I was reading, but had a hard time getting it to come out right. She said, so what if her math is bad, it could be worked on. She tried to help me.

Here I was again, having to go into another new class. I was afraid because the way the other kids talked about the kids in special education classes like they had a disease, which I would often defend because I have a cousin who has Cerebral Palsy. I would say he is in a wheel chair and I love him and they would say that's different. I would ask how it was different, they are no different than us.

I think it was January of 1979 when I went into Special Education Class. To top it off, it was right across from the class that I was in before. I would see all of my friends in the class I wanted to be in. The class I thought that I belonged in.

God intervened though, the way I hoped and prayed He would when a new girl came to class a little bit after me. She became a close friend of mine. We are still close friends to this day. There was a time where we didn't talk to each other, but we are talking now which I will explain more about in another chapter. I promise.

I was also introduced to the Special Olympics that year and did track and swimming. I was chosen to go swimming that summer. I got a gold medal in the breast stroke and a silver metal in freestyle swimming. Myself and two of my other close friends went together and we had a ball. This was at the end of the school year. A lot of children and adults with disabilities went to this big sporting event which the Kennedy's founded because they had a handicapped sister and that's why they started it.

It was a God send to me. I found some confidence in myself that was crushed with abuse and being put into Special Ed. because of the learning disabilities. I came to understand that having learning disabilities is not bad thing. It was how God made me. In my life, I have seen handicapped people being used by God to help lead others to Jesus. A lady in my church knew the pastor's wife was having to go for a test for her hip and leg that she needed prayer. This person has down syndrome and a slow learner. Some churches would have told her to sit down and be quiet, but not this Church. God bless them God uses a yield vessel.

I did have a complex about Special Ed. at first because my family and some friends picked on me for being in special ed. I think it was a God send to be put in special Ed to humble me to accept all people whether they were handicapped or not. God made us all. He wanted me to get that and get it good.