My Journey Through Hell on My Way to Heaven: Volume 1

Copyright © 2012 by Lucy Irving.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4691-6184-6

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-6185-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[email protected]

111325

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 1

From the time I was born (according to my entire family), l have been a hardheaded, strong-willed, stubborn person! I was and still am a hard shell, hard as a rock on the outside and soft as a teddy bear on the inside. Even though talkative, bubbly, and full of life, I’ve been damaged since elementary school. Over the years, I eventually became weak. And almost hateful. My heart was completely broken, and a damaged woman with a broken heart is like a bomb just waiting to go off!

I have decided that my life story can help millions of people. And by just telling it can help me get myself back. Names will be changed, and after people from my little hometown read it, I will most likely be forced to move. I thrive to be a good person and do the right thing, be at peace with the things I’ve been through. The truth is, the truth is the truth, a lie is a lie, fake is fake, and real is real.

There’s no way around it. And people who live where I live do everything they can to get around the way it is! They try to make up their own truth, their own fake, etc…

So me being as honest as l’m about to be, well, let’s just say people aren’t going to be very happy with me speaking the way that it is.

I am from a little town in Louisiana, where growing up, you could be on the main road, see the next red light, take your foot off the accelerator, never touch the brake and just roll on through the green light, and still never come close to running into another vehicle.

Of course, Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, and Homer Road (our main road) is unbearable to drive down now. So many people came and settled in Minden. Every time you go to the doctor, you meet someone else that came from New Orleans.

It all started back in 1980, when my mama had finally got my brother (twelve years old) and my sister (eleven years old), And at this point, after being married for twelve years (since she was fifteen years old), she had finally found the strength to leave my daddy. However, she also found out that she was pregnant with none other than me.

Of course, she felt forced to stay. Therefore, I am the reason she never had a life. Of course, never once has she said it was because she got pregnant and married at fifteen years old. It was just because she was twenty-eight years old and discovered that she was pregnant for the third time, with me, Lucy LaDonna McEachern, the worst thing that ever happened to my mother. Come to find out, l’m just about the worst thing that ever happened to several people in my life. But we’ll get to that later.

She knows she messed up by being married and having two children before she was eighteen years old. But she has always said she was finally grown and ready to have a life of her own, and here I come to screw it all up.

As far back as I can remember, Mama loved me and kept me in everything I could be in or do. She always kept me active. Of course, my being an overweight child has a whole lot to do with keeping me active. It kept my weight down.

But I was and still am very talented. l’m most of all a singer. People say I sound like an angel when I open my mouth. I’ve always loved hearing that.

She kept me involved in every pageant, talent contest, sport, and anything else she would run across. lf she could afford to do it, she or l did it. I can honestly say I did it all growing up. All in all, I had a very awesome childhood, especially when you were outside looking in.

Very few people knew what was really going on inside my world. Honestly, behind the door was a horrible, scary world, where a child never knew what was going to happen, and what mood my mother was going to be in from day to day. One day, she was the most wonderful, loving, fun, amazing mother any child could ever ask for! The next, she could be making me breakfast and throw my head into a wall without me ever seeing it coming.

It was scary. lf someone was around, I could get out of whatever was coming at that moment. Of course, sometimes it didn’t matter. The first incident I remember was in first grade. Mama sewed almost all of my clothes, and it was picture day at school. She had made me this beautiful red corduroy dress. She fixed my curly hair with a red bow, and I was so excited!

I loved picture day. She was dropping me off at school, and we were fifth or sixth in line. I could see the teacher in the distance getting children out of their vehicles and escorting them into the school one by one. The closer we got, the more excited I got. I remember seeing the front doors of the school that I loved so much.

I don’t remember exactly what I said (I was six years old). But I think it was something about my hair. She snatched me by my arm and my hair and slammed my head into the car window and slapped me in the face, screaming at me over and over. I remember begging her to stop. The more I asked her to stop, the more she hit and the louder she got. When we finally stopped at the teacher, I got out as fast as I could!

She said, I love you, Lucy, and I walked as fast as I could away from her as she hollered again, I love you, Lucy! I turned around, tears streaming down my little face, my beautiful curly hair a complete mess, and I reluctantly said, I love you too.

She looked at the teacher and said, She’s having a bad morning this morning. I couldn’t believe she said that! How could that teacher not see what was going on! How could she even have the nerve to say I love you! I know now why I loved my first husband so much. I believe, from the bottom of my heart, that every time he hit me, I loved him more deeply! I mean, your mother is the person who loves you more than anyone ever will, right? How she loves you is how you expect to be loved.

I remember going down the hall to my classroom as fast as I could walk. That was the first time I ever choked from anxiety. I was six years old walking to my class choking up. And the closer I got with every step I took, my soul took one more crack! Every time my feet hit the floor with another step, my heart took another stab! I didn’t know it then, but now I know, that was the day I was officially damaged!

I went and sat in my desk (right beside my school crush all the way through the seventh grade), and as soon as I sat down, I officially broke into a million pieces. I laid my head in my arms on my desk and broke down!

My heart was officially broken.

I cried and cried uncontrollably. Justin asked me what was wrong, and when I couldn’t answer, he said, Mrs. Gwen, something’s wrong with Lucy. She called me to her desk and gently took me by the arm as I pulled away in obvious pain. She pulled up my sleeve, and from my elbow to my wrist on the inside of my arm was the biggest blackest bruise you’ve ever seen! My face was red from the slaps, and my hair, a mess. She immediately asked me who did this to me, and when I didn’t answer, she said in her sweet caring voice, Did your mama do this to you?

I hesitantly shook my head yes, and she scooped me up, and off to the principal’s office we went! Funny thing is, I remember all these details like it was yesterday, but I don’t remember what happened when I got home. I had another wonderful teacher that called my mama to the school because I got in trouble, and Mama locked us in the bathroom and began to whoop me. That teacher could not get in the bathroom, and none of my friends could either.

He told me that from then on, if I made below a B on a test, he would secretly send it home so I could retake it, cheat, or whatever I had to do to pass it so that Mama wouldn’t get a hold of me because of his class at least.

Over the years, there were fly swatters in the face, slaps in the back of the head, handfuls of hair pulled out, pushes, thorn switches, etc…

I could go on and on. But when Mama said, l’m getting a switch, you better run! She chased me around the yard, and one day, she found all my sign papers that I had hidden. I had got a little pack of staplers, teachers’ red markers, staple removers, and a whole lot of good teacher stuff. So every week, I removed all the bad papers, had her sign the good ones, and replaced them for the teacher. I got away with that for almost a whole school year.

Of course, she found them stashed under my bed, and you can imagine the rest from there! Nowadays, if all this happened, she’d be in prison.

My sister and brother never really cared, and of course, they didn’t see what my best friend Danie and my cousin Brooke saw either. They both were married and had children by the time I was seven or eight years old. But one day, they came in, and Mama was slamming my head over and over into the wall, and I was just about to pass out. Children on their hips begged her to stop.

They finally got her off me, and that was the first time that they told my daddy what happened. He came to me and asked me what happened and how often it happens. I was as honest as possible. It stopped for a little while. But not long.

My mamaw would protect me from Mama every chance she got, and my daddy even jumped in front of the fly swatter once, and she ended up beating him with it! He actually had to say, Dee, you hit me or Lucy one more time, l’m gonna have to knock you out! I remember wishing, actually wishing, that he would. They’ve been married for forty-something years, and as mean as he’s been to her and she to him, he has never hit her!

Every morning, Mama would wake me up singing. She always made sure l woke up with a smile on my face. Now, once the morning got started, you never knew what was going to happen. But she always made sure to sing to me. And as I got older, I began to have to have that. The only way l could start my day was to hear