Author: Nikki In a Nutshell

Once again you’ve acted mightily in my behalf. May I without fail display gratitude toward you & look for ways to imitate your kind compassion toward me. Thank you. Please, help me live up to your name!

There are many individuals running around in this world ‘mad at you’ about things ‘they’ve done’ to you. Read that again. Many of these same individuals cannot make simple decisions about their own everyday lives YET are quick to tell others what & how they ought to do. The sad thing is that always & without question ‘orders’ are carried out. I’m talking about 50 60 70 80 year olds. Eyes wide open. Ain’t nobody there. When ‘another’ takes up issue with you because you confidently refuse to be manipulated by them, that is their problem … & none of your business. They don’t wanna be saved.

I hardly remember anything (physically) about my very early years. What I do remember are my emotions/feelings very well. There was a daughter born to my bio mother a year a month and a day after I was born of whom my mother has been proudly telling me has been suspected to belong to someone other than my bio dad. She called this man by his first and last name. Bio mom accused my paternal grandmother of pointing this betrayal out upon looking at said child after her birth. Now, I don’t know how true any of this is. I do know that bio mom never expected that I might ever say anything to anyone about it. Not to bio dad. Not to grandmother. Not to half sibling. Not to the first and last named man. My grandmother has sinced passed away, I wasn’t ever going to question her (in addition, I couldn’t care less) and I’ve not brought it to the accused man’s attention, I know him. I did recently tell my bio dad and he didn’t seem to care. #REDFLAG This alleged half sibling and I have never been close. Thanks to bio mom. Each time I looked at talked to heard of and/or thought of these 5 people over the dacades the load of having heard it got heavier and heavier I wasn’t taking another step with it. It had to go. This was bio mom’s secret yet she managed to way me down with it for many decades. I am a much wiser individual and much more careful about I let in/and keep inside. She does look like him.

It’s about mid-December 2017. Another year has come & gone. Both 2016 & 2017 were the real deal. I needed everything I got heard saw felt. Long story short if we haven’t been in regular communication during this time you can hang it up. Nikki as you thought you knew her is no longer. Shes gone. Not all waters ought be tested. Stop where you stand.

When I was 8/9 years old I was taken out of public school and sent to catholic school. I don’t know why. At public school (Carver) I went school with all the kids in my neighborhood/apartment complex (Bluemeyer). All black except for two boys with last name Lahue. The black boys were mean/abusive to the two boys daily. They hung in there though. It was awful. They too lived in the complex but on the other side. I can’t say how they were treated outside of school. There was one girl that I considered my friend at Carver. Her name was Rosalind. She too lived in Bluemeyer. My first year at Xavier (catholic school) I met many new people. Dwanita was my newest/closest friend at Xavier. We spent a lot of time together on the phone and outside of school. We’d borrow one another’s shoes, barrettes, jewelry etc. But it was Dwanita that brought up in me once again the uncomfortable feelings of ‘normal’ I experienced at home. I’m not sure if we’d been friends for one school year or two but shortly thereafter Rosalind was enrolled at Xavier. The two new of one another through me but hadn’t met. Perhaps over the phone. I can’t say for sure. I thought this was great! However … not long after the school year started they were the best of friends and wanted nothing to do with me. I was so confused. It was like they were in a secret club or something and  I was not imagining things. I was devastated. To this day I don’t know how/why this happened but of course I felt as if I’d done something/it was my fault. That was almost 50 years ago. FIFTY. The first (or second) year of DeeDee’s and my friendship while visiting her at her house she introduced me to a new family w/kids that had moved onto her street. Kim and Michael. Kim and I never developed a friendship. Michael and I did some 30 some odd years later. He became/remained quite dear to me. Him his son and his mother. Michael fell asleep in death on February 02, 2019. At his memorial service I was reminded again by Dwanita exactly how she felt about me this time as an adult and also as a human … who’d lost a loved one … that we both knew. I’m sure she had/has her reasons after all this time. I have closure.

I remember sitting in a hearing booth in kindergarten terrified. I don’t know how they managed to get me in that booth, by myself, close the door, and get me to sit through and participate in a hearing test. I failed the test in one ear. I eventually learned this. I don’t know when nor how. I do know that my bio mother knew I was hard of hearing. I don’t know if my bio father knew or anyone else with the need to know. No one talked with me about it EVER. Over many years time I would discover what being hard of hearing is. I learned of a deaf relative on the maternal side but I can’t say who. A male, much older than me. I don’t know where in the country he lived. It is the normal thing in this dysfunctional family to throw away people. Real, live, people. If anything is/was found undesirable in a member it was ignored, kept secret and held against you. FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. But know this, you could hang around but you will be treated with destain. I heard of it happening and watched it first hand. Dare you ask or say anything of it, all hell would break loose. The responses would always be disproportionate to the prompt. By the time I was 7 years old damage was well underway. I had lost trust in a few adults in my family circle. I know now that it wasn’t me but my understanding that whatever the problem was with them should not be pointed out by me. I was sad and would remain sad for decades. It became part of my personality. I was in my mid/late teens before I understood that the deaf/hard of hearing had a language all their own, readily accessible to/for me to take me out of her incapable/unwilling hands and thrive. That was too much like the right/loving thing to do. Instead she needed me to abuse and my life to emotionally distort, like hers. I didn’t need my bio father like I needed my bio mother and he wasn’t aware of my broken pieces for he was also broken. So the story goes I was stuck … my formative years went on … tainted … this way was my normal and I would learn that children my age where just as mean. Today I’m calling it evil because it is nothing short of that.