Imagine Me

IMAGINE ME

BRENDA FANTROY-JOHNSON

Copyright © 2017 Brenda Fantroy-Johnson.

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ISBN: 978-1-4897-1202-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-1203-5 (e)

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 03/17/2017

For my brother Mike and all of the crabs still in the barrel

Where are we going?

It’s not an issue of here or there.

And if you ever feel you can’t

take another step imagine

how you might feel to arrive,

if not wiser, a little more aware

how to inhabit the middle ground

between misery and joy.

Trudge on. In the higher regions,

where the footing is unsure,

to trudge is to survive.

Stephen Dunn, Before We Leave

IMAGINE ME

Imagine me loving what I see

When the mirror looks at me

‘Cause I, I imagine me

In a place of no insecurities

And I’m finally happy

‘Cause I imagine me

Letting go of all of the ones who hurt me

‘Cause they never did deserve me

Can You imagine me?

Saying no to thoughts that try to control me

Remembering all You told me

Lord, can You imagine me?

Over what my mamma said

And healed from what my daddy did

And I wanna live

And not read that page again

Imagine me

Being free, trusting You totally

Finally I can imagine me

I admit it was hard to see You being in love

With someone like me

Finally I can imagine me

Being strong and not letting people break me down

You won’t get that joy this time around

Can You imagine me?

In a world where nobody has to live afraid Because of Your love, fear’s gone away Can You imagine me?

Letting go of the past

And glad I have another chance

And my heart will dance

‘Cause I don’t have to read that page again

This song is dedicated to people like me.

Those that struggle with insecurities, acceptance, and even self-esteem. You never felt good enough, you never felt pretty enough,

But imagine god whispering in your ear,

Letting you know that everything that has happened is now… Gone

It’s gone, all gone

Every sin, every mistake, every failure

Depression? It’s Gone

By faith. It’s just gone

Low self-esteem? Hallelujah, it’s gone

All gone

All my scars, all my pain, it’s in the past. It’s yesterday

All gone.

What your mother did. What your father did

It’s gone, all gone

Kirk Franklin

CONTENTS

Imagine Me

Acknowledgments

Prologue

How in the Hell did this Happen?

The Good Child

School Days

Bob-Lo

Riots

Fires, House, Moving

Church Memories

Sticks and Stones

Mama’s Gone

Good Girl Gone Bad

Fall from Grace

Chain of Fools

Thomas, Family Life

Wash, Rinse, Repeat

All of My Children

Institutions, Church

Daddy

Employment

Neighborhood, Bus Stops & Fire

Alcoholic Crack

Climbing Out of the Barrel

Recovery, In out in

Job Training, Overachiever

Harvey

I Don’t Belong Here

Harvey’s Making Spaghetti

One Step, One Breath, One Heartbeat

Epilogue

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I ’d like to thank my mother who gave me the drive to continue by constantly telling me that if I stayed in school I would get out of the ghetto. She was right. Thank you Jennifer Wilhoit for believing that I could write this book, and my husband Harvey who taught me the value of learning how to nurture myself.

The will of God is the ceaseless longing of the spirit in you to become all you’re capable of being.

Pam Grout

PROLOGUE

A mong the well-to-do people all over the country, Bainbridge Island is known for its beauty. There are two great streets on Bainbridge. The first one is High School Road where, on a clear day, you can see the entire Olympic Mountains range. The other road, Miller, leads to a small retail district in the southern part of the island called Lynwood Center.

When I’m in my Mustang with the top down, driving down Miller Road, I feel as if I’m watching a movie and I’m the star. It’s the film that begins with a car driving through a beautiful green forest. The sunlight filters and flickers through the trees. It’s obviously warm, with a cool breeze, in this scene.

The wind blows through my hair. I smell pine trees. This is where I am, right in this moment. Serenity. Grace. Gratitude. Yes, I am at peace.

As I round the corner to come into Lynwood Center proper, I see Puget Sound. The scene opens up and, along the water, million-dollar houses appear from behind their hiding places. The skyline of Seattle is visible and Mt. Rainier is out to greet me. Just then I smell the mixed waters of the Sound. This saltwater/freshwater body is unique…just like me. I am here. I get to live on an island. Who would have thought?

And right then, I know. I have become just exactly what God knew I was capable of being.

When I heard my mama say: you’ve been slipping into darkness, pretty soon you’re gonna pay, War

HOW IN THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN?

O nce I drifted off from the pills and wine, I was in a very quiet place.

I am warm, comfortable, and content. I like it here and I want to stay. In the background, though, something is threatening this peace. I can just barely hear voices that gradually grow louder. I am upset by this. I hear a man say, You have to talk louder to her. You have to wake her up. Then I hear voices that I know. Brenda! Wake up! they insist. I don’t want to hear these voices. I don’t want to wake up. Why does my family always have to ruin things? Just leave me alone and let me go. But the familiar screaming voices are being encouraged by the strange man’s voice. She can hear you. Keep telling her to wake up. Finally, there is so much screaming that I cannot find my way back to the place inside where I can just be. Where it is quiet, serene, and safe.

Shut the fuck up. I hear you! Those were my first words out of the coma. Of course, I did not know that I had been in a coma for almost two weeks. I’ve always said that this was the most peace I’ve ever felt. But then I am awake and I realize that I’m alive. I cry because I don’t want to be alive.

Why the fuck am I still here? Of all of the times to be concerned, to act as if he cared. I found out that Thomas woke up in the middle of the night and saw that something was wrong. I’m not sure what tipped him off or even why he woke up. For him to call 911 was so out of character, so un-Thomas-like. That’s the one thing I did not plan on. He was supposed to get up early and either find me dead or ignore me like he always did and take off in search of that morning’s blow. Instead, there I was alive, waking up in a large, stark white hospital room with huge windows. A doctor I did not know was standing over me. My sister Deborah, and my brother, Mike, were there too. I was not happy to see them. I was not happy to see anyone.

I knew what was coming next, the question without an answer: Why?

I once heard someone say, when asked why he tried to kill himself, If you have to ask, then you would never understand. This is exactly how I felt. I wanted to not live more than I wanted to live. I decided to opt out of life. I was 20 years old. I had enough of this life and was ready for whatever came next. I really can’t blame this feeling on any particular thing; it was a combination of many things. I felt like I did not have a stake in the world. I felt like I had gotten off on the wrong foot and I had botched up my life.

Deep down inside I was just tired. Tired of the beatings Thomas gave me just because he could. Tired of the endless search for money to buy food, drugs, diapers. Tired of the things I had to do just to maintain some semblance of a life. I can’t blame my alcoholism for this suicide attempt. Life was just not all it was cracked up to be. I figured death would be easier.

My daughter, Tamiko, was learning to stand up but was not yet walking and I felt passionate about giving her a shot at a better life, a life without me. At the time, I really felt that this was the best thing for her. Because she had not yet been diagnosed with sickle cell anemia, I did not know that she would face her own battle her entire life. She would need me there to help her fight it.

I was very sore. Sore all over. I ignored all of their questions, trying to find my peaceful place again. But there was no more peace to be had for a very long time. The thing about suicide is that when you try to do it the way I did, by mixing muscle relaxers and alcohol, there are bound to be some side effects. I was awake but not lucid. When I would come-to I saw things. I would open my eyes to large monster-sized spiders crawling on the ceiling. I woke up rattled by my own blood-curdling screams. The nurses would rush in to assure me that I was okay. They made sure I had my call button so that when I saw a tiny bug slowly swallow a very large one, I could push my button and they would come to my rescue. This was not worth living through. I cried continually. I’m not sure why I’m here. I don’t want to be here.

Of course, I never answered any questions about it. I made sure that everyone knew it was probably an accident. I was smart enough to see the pattern, the way they sent social workers and psychiatrists to talk to me. I could see where this was going. I was not crazy, or maybe I was. But I did not want to be locked up anywhere. They asked questions about my frame of mind when I took the pills. Was I depressed? Yes, but I was not going to tell them that. I was not going to be a textbook-crazy-loony-tune. It was a mistake. I had back and shoulder pain. I took the pills, lost track of how many (thirty), and had a few drinks with my boyfriend. I screwed up that chance and now here come the consequences. No, I don’t need any help. Thanks for saving my life (not!).

It took about two weeks for me to come down from the high. I also had to convince everybody that it was safe to allow me out into the same cruel world that I tried to escape from. All was lost. My one chance to opt-out was foiled by a heroin addict who beat me for no reason.

Thomas was not at the apartment when my sister brought me home. After she left I held my daughter tight and cried. I tried to explain to her that I was so sorry for screwing up the suicide. I really believed that now she would get cheated out of a good life because she was stuck with me as a mother. What a selfish bitch I was. She may have been the only solid, good thing in my life. At the time, I did not see it. I only saw how I was going to screw things up. I decided that I must be here for something. God must have kept me here for something. I wish he had asked me first. Why don’t we have a choice? Where was the free will bullshit I had heard about?

So my life continued. The fights and the beatings continued. After a few days I had to go back to the clinic for a follow-up from the hospital stay.

The appointment was to get the dialysis tube out of my ankle and to look at the other incisions to be sure I was healing. The suicide attempt had taken a toll on me and apparently my kidneys had failed. The doctor had not wanted to discharge me from the hospital. But because it was Christmas, I appealed to his kindness. How would it be for my daughter to go through this holiday without her mother? This is ironic because I had no qualms about leaving her for the rest of her life. So I was discharged with the tube in my foot.

The clinic was in a small neighborhood not far from where I had once lived after the riots when I was a child. I stood outside of the doctor’s office, looking around and remembering when the Detroit Tigers won the World Series in 1968; I was ten years old and my siblings and I broke my mother’s rules so we could celebrate in the streets not far from here. I walked into the tiny, crowded office to register with the woman behind the bulletproof glass. I wondered whether this was a real doctor or just another pill doctor.

A cloud of smoke hovered in the room from folks puffin’ on their cigarettes. I got an intense lump in my throat from the smoke, so I asked the receptionist for a cup of water. I began coughing and my throat felt scratchy and tight.

I go into an intense coughing fit and can’t get the water down because I can’t stop coughing. People are looking at me as I try to convey the panic by pointing at my throat. I can’t breathe. I feel as if there is a vice grip around my windpipe. People are starting to see me panic. They shout to the receptionist to call 911. She is hesitant but then she calls. Someone helps me outside where I’m trying to understand. I’m not getting any air and this is going to kill me. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. People are crowding around me and they see that this is a life or death situation. They help me back into the doctor’s office. The lady behind the bulletproof glass says they are not allowed to treat me and that the paramedics cannot pick me up inside the clinic. Well, ain’t that a bitch. I’m going to die outside a doctor’s office. They don’t have oxygen in this place? That confirms that this is not a real doctor. I still can’t breathe outside. I lie down on the sidewalk wheezing. I hear sirens. Hold on Brenda, I tell myself as I hear them get closer.

They arrive and I’m questioned like I am a dope fiend. What did I take? What am I on? I can’t talk. I’ve got a hot poker down my throat. Feels like a balloon that has been tied in a knot, only a snippet of air getting through. I’m gonna die. Funny, now I don’t want to die. I pass out. I wake up on a gurney being wheeled into a large operating room. I have an oxygen mask on my face which is somehow making it harder to breathe. Of course, there are papers to sign. I do this quickly, without looking. On my chest is an x-ray of my neck, and a foreign doctor I can barely understand points to a huge dark spot that is blocking my airway. My windpipe is damaged. I’m suffocating. He’s telling me what he’s going to try. Do I give him permission? I scream with my eyes, Yes, please do whatever you have to do!

What a far cry from opting out of life. Now I am fighting to live! I want the doctor to fight for me, too.

When I woke up, I knew right away that life as I knew it had changed. My chin was tight and I could not lift my head up. My chest felt like an elephant with spikes was sitting on me and I was dizzy and sore all over.

I could not speak. The doctor came in to give me some of the details about my emergency surgery. They removed one inch of my infected windpipe. I took what felt like a deep breath which caused a great deal of pain. I was given a cup with a straw. This was equally painful. The water magnified the pain as it went down. My hand reached for the obstruction that was holding my head down. The doctor explained that my chin was stitched to the top of my chest. There was an incision from my throat down to the top of my belly with two holes in it so that the incision could drain. I felt like I was the freak in a horror show. I asked for a mirror but was not really prepared for what I saw. I looked hideous. I was split down the middle, bruised, and had more than twelve staples running down my chest. I could see a cloudy liquid oozing out of a small hole at the bottom of the incision. I was quite calm about the entire thing. I was alive and I could breathe. It hurt like hell but when I weighed what it felt like before, I was ahead of the game.

Still, I began to develop shame around the entire ordeal. I wore two hospital gowns to hide the scar. My hospital room had no windows and I kept it dark. There was a TV hanging from the ceiling and I would listen to it because I could not see it. There was an odor from the drainage that was collecting in the mostly-sealed space between my chin and my neck. I was not able to shower or get out of bed for days. The nurses gave me sponge baths and I complained about the smell of my neck. One nurse devised a way to clean this area using a dampened swab. I was ashamed that the nurse saw how nasty it was in the crevice. I only let her clean this once before I took over.

I remember my friend Bennie coming to see me while I was in the hospital. I would try to laugh when he walked in. Because of my head being sewn to my chest,