Memoir Sample Chapter: Forgiveness at a Funeral
The night before my mother’s funeral, a radiant figure appeared in my dream. She knelt beside me and caressed my hair, reassuring me that everything was going to be okay. I squinted to see who this mysterious apparition was. When I looked up, I gasped. I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Mom, is that really you?!” I shouted excitedly. The menacing tumor that once bulged from her head had disappeared. Her regenerated skin glowed.
Wiping away tears that blurred my vision, I wanted to see my mother clearly. I stretched out my hand and tried to grab ahold of hers. When she slipped through my fingers, I wanted to cry out. But as soon as I opened my mouth to respond to her gentle and calming voice, she disappeared.
I woke up to the deafening sound of silence. As I sat up in bed, I whirled my head around and realized I was alone in a dark and empty room. I had spent the night at my parents’ place, and I couldn’t believe it was already morning time. My father and son had already left for the funeral. I knew that they wanted to give me my space, so they didn’t try to disturb me in my sleep. I glanced at the clock and realized I needed to get moving—fast.
I showered and threw on anything I could find. I didn’t have time to brush my hair or apply makeup, but I didn’t care. I quickly stopped by a grocery store to pick up a dozen red roses. My mother loved red roses. I knew she would appreciate me thinking to bring them over to see her.
Then I drove over to the funeral home where everyone was waiting for me—my mother’s one and only daughter. The funeral home director had set up a beautiful photo slideshow that captured precious memories from my mother’s childhood up to her final days. I wished I could freeze time and space and step inside each photo frame to relive those sacred moments.
I surveyed the spacious room filled to the brim with people who wanted to pay their respects to my mother. The place was so packed that some guests had to stand outside in the overflow section. As I pressed through the crowd, I introduced myself to people I’ve never met before. It turns out some of them were my extended family members. For whatever reason, they said they didn’t know my mother had a daughter. I thought it was odd that my mother didn’t tell her own family she had a daughter. But maybe she had her reasons. I decided to stop telling people who I am.
I forced myself to push away any distracting thoughts and focus on what mattered that day. Finally, I mustered the courage to direct my gaze to the front of the room where my mother laid peacefully in a casket surrounded by a bed of flowers. She was clothed in a black suit with a pink floral shirt, adorned with earrings and a rosary; and her wedding dress was neatly folded at her feet. I made my way to my seat, and the funeral began.
***
When it came time to burying my mother, we congregated around a plot of land in the back corner of the field. We chose this private sanctuary as her earthly resting place because it was quiet, pristine, and surrounded by greenery. I passed out the red roses to my closest family members, so they could each lay one on my mother’s casket. While our family shared a moment of silence, I heard some people shuffling over from the opposite side of the lawn. I looked up and saw that they were my mother’s closest friends from church. I could tell they didn’t want to make eye contact with me, out of the immense guilt they felt for abandoning my mother.
You see, I got pregnant with my son as a teenager, and that news spread across my parents’ church like wildfire. People judged and criticized my mother and father for my decisions, and most of my mother’s friends stopped talking to her all together. My parents decided to step away from the church for some time. Towards the end of my mother’s life, my parents wanted to return to church and continue worshipping God and serving people. They didn’t let what others thought about them and their daughter hinder their faith. Still, many who judged my parents for my choices refused to forgive them until my mother got cancer. By then, the tables had turned, and they were asking my parents for their forgiveness.
At times, I felt like I should’ve asked my mother for forgiveness, too. In some ways, I blamed myself when my mother’s friends walked away from her. Even so, all that mattered to my mother was that she had her family. Between the time my mother discovered the lump on her head and toward the end of her life, her friends came back around. It was difficult to watch those who hurt and betrayed my mother come crawling back.
Now, I didn’t want to make my mother’s memorial service about me. Instead, I wanted to celebrate her life—so much so that as soon as the casket was lowered into the ground, I felt a cathartic release. I doubled over with laughter, clutching my stomach and holding back tears of joy. It was contagious to the point where my closest cousin started cracking up next to me; and soon, my three brothers joined in, howling hysterically.
I had a feeling they felt what I felt. I don’t think my mother would’ve wanted us to be sad at her funeral. No way. She would’ve wanted us to rejoice with her because she was no longer suffering or in pain. I felt like my mother would’ve given us permission to laugh. We didn’t care what people around us thought. Their discomfort at our “inappropriate affect” didn’t hinder my brothers, cousin, and me from sharing a special moment.
Meanwhile, the same naysayers who stood at a distance shook their heads in disbelief. People scoffed at my father for my “disrespectful” behavior, but my dad had my back. He said if his children felt something, it was because their mother touched their hearts and brought them together.
Memoir Sample Chapter: Nightmare on Elm Street
Trigger Warning: Crime Scene, Domestic Violence
As a child, the world of Freddy Kreuger was less frightening than reality. Growing up with parents who fought all the time, my life felt like a horror film. The violence was overwhelming. I remember spending nights curled up in a ball next to my big sister because I could rely on her to call the police if anything got out of hand. When neither of us could drown out the rage or quell our anxiety from the maelstrom brewing inside our home, we turned to a movie series called “A Nightmare on Elm Street”.
One time, I awoke to the sound of screaming and clattering in the kitchen. My parents were fighting again. With the furnace blasting, my throat was dry. I desperately needed something to drink. But I knew that I couldn’t just walk into the middle of my parents’ fight. So, I urged my sweat-drenched body to go back to sleep and wait for the storm to pass.
When I woke back up, I strained my ears and heard nothing but silence. Thinking the coast was clear, I climbed out of bed and tiptoed to the door. At the end of the dark hallway, I saw a cool, white glow coming from the kitchen. As I gazed upon the perfect tableau for a cold glass of milk, I couldn’t help but swiftly pitter-patter toward the kitchen light.
I entered the kitchen quiet as a mouse. For a split second, my vision went out of focus as my eyes adjusted to the light. I thought I was seeing things. Then, I froze. What I saw next shook me more than any nightmare ever could. With his back turned toward me, my dad pointed a metal revolver square in my mom’s face. My knees trembled and buckled beneath me. At that moment, I wished the ground could give way and swallow me whole.
I wanted to disappear and pretend like I didn’t see anything. At seven years old, my mind was awhirl with disturbing thoughts: What happens if I leave my parents alone? Would I find my mom in cold blood the next morning? What do I do if my dad pulls the trigger right this second? Do I call 9-1-1? But he’d go to jail. Then what do I do? I’d lose both my mom and dad.
I clutched my chest as I felt a panic attack ensue. With every beat, my heart throbbed uncontrollably, louder and louder, faster and faster. Just then, my dad’s thunderous voice pierced through my fragile frame and stopped my heart dead in its tracks. “Take your a** back to bed—NOW!” he bellowed without turning around. I burst into tears as I fled a potential crime scene, leaving my mom held hostage in the hands of a gunman.
I ran straight to my room and found my sister waiting for me on my bed. She had also woken up from the fight. As I dove face first into my pillow, she caressed my hair and comforted me. My sister knew exactly why I was crying even before I spoke a word. She then broke her silence and whispered a secret in my ear, “What you just saw for the first time, I’ve seen one too many times.” That night, we were two little girls wrapped in each other’s arms, grappling with what no child should ever have to witness between the two grownups who were the center of her world.
Deep down, I knew my dad wasn’t going to pull the trigger. I trusted him enough to know that. But even as a child, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that my parents had a big problem, and they needed professional help. I was afraid though that if I told anyone, my dad could go to jail or my mom could leave my dad and abandon my sister and me, too. I asked myself: What happens if my parents are taken away from me? Will I have to leave home? What’s going to happen to me? Will I become a foster child? Who will take care of me? Having to ask myself these difficult questions at a young age prepared me for the worst and changed my life for the better.
Memoir Sample Chapter: Breaking the Cycle of Domestic Violence
In the early 1990s, I came across an alarming statistic about the impact of domestic violence on children. According to a local city attorney’s report, kids who witnessed abuse were a thousand percent more likely to become victims and perpetrators of abuse compared to those who haven’t been exposed to it. I stopped dead in my tracks and thought: Huh?! This must be a mistake! Eager to correct my local publication, I picked up the phone, dialed the source’s number directly and told him he made a grave error.
“Where do you see the typo?” the attorney calmly asked.
I cleared my throat.“‘For starters, ‘a thousand percent’ isn’t a real number.” I must’ve stumped him because he was quiet on the line.
Then I heard a deep sigh followed by a simple yet striking question. “Well, what would you like that number to be instead?”
I was caught off guard. It was my turn to pause. Any figure north of 0 percent would be disturbing and unfathomable. I knew I was in trouble.
“I’ve never heard of a statistical figure like that!” I protested.“So are you saying your data is true?” I braced myself as I waited for the final blow.
“Yes,” He firmly replied.“It is.”
Suddenly, my eyes welled up with tears, and the dot matrix paper on which the research had been printed began to look blurry.
“Well, you know what? I don’t want it to be any number!” I started blubbering. “Besides, how can your finding be accurate when it hasn’t been corroborated?! More people need to verify your research!” I huffed as I gasped for air and slammed the phone back onto the receiver.
Later on, I learned that many experts have revisited this study countless times. Not only was his finding true, but the research was extensive. Today, the impact of abuse on children are even more harrowing and horrific than ever before. For example, youth who are exposed to abuse are ten times more likely to be victims or perpetrators of abuse; they are six times more likely to commit suicide and twenty-four times more likely to commit sexual assault as adults; they are also 50 percent more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol and 70 percent more likely to commit crimes against others.
How can we turn a blind eye when the numbers are so staggering? Clearly, domestic violence isn’t confined to an abusive relationship between intimate partners. It can deeply impact future generations. Domestic violence is a leading reason why children enter the foster care system.
At our nonprofit, we have several therapists who support parents and children in the foster care and adoption systems. Many children come to foster care from abusive homes and need specialized care. These therapists utilize the Parenting Adopted and Traumatized Children (PATCH) program, which provides a trauma-informed model that assumes both foster-to-adopt and adoptive children carry symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder into their new homes. Behaviors such as aggression, withdrawal, anxiety, defiance, sensory issues, meltdowns, and a generalized inability to cope often interfere with developing healthy and meaningful attachments and can hinder children from learning and feeling safe and a sense of love and belonging. The PATCH program focuses on providing education, understanding, and support for these children and their caregivers by equipping them with practices to diminish trauma responses.
Kids who experience domestic violence are likely to continue the cycle of abuse in adulthood. Our organization offers a youth mentorship program called “Breaking Generational Cycles” that serves those who have been exposed to domestic violence. The program helps children, especially in the BIPOC and underprivileged communities navigate current stressors and life circumstances while building healthy and meaningful bonds. We meet to discuss topics, including trauma, coping strategies, self-esteem, self-care, and more. The goal is to encourage kids to build resilience, dream big dreams, and find hope for their futures, apart from violence.
For teens and young adults, we run B.R.I.D.G.E.S., a program for ages 14 to 20 that is geared toward those who have exhibited violence to manage emotional discomfort. The program considers the latest research on adolescent dating violence and violence intervention and recognizes violence as cultural, systemic, and interdependent. Participants meet for 24 weeks and practice regulating their emotions while actively challenging their belief systems about violence from an intersectional framework.
Most of our participants come to us either through the county juvenile court system or internally as clients. They don’t have to be a perpetrator of abuse to join the program. We simply ask that they be willing to address emotional dysregulation and challenge their belief systems about violence. Some components of B.R.I.D.G.E.S. overlap with adult domestic violence treatment protocols and thus lends itself to offering more tools to help.
After decades of working with victims and perpetrators of abuse and reflecting on my own story as a survivor, my heart breaks at the impact of domestic violence on children. While on my own journey, I will continue to engage others and fight the good fight. There have been unintended consequences in this field and polarization between partners in all kinds of relationships. There are good people losing their rights as parents; and there are victims who have lost their lives because they haven’t been protected by the criminal justice system. This work of advocacy to help both victims and perpetrators heal is confusing, messy, and devastating.
In addition to my role as the executive director of my organization, I also serve as a school mental health counselor once a week. I provide support for children who come from difficult family situations. Across the board, I have found that kids who grew up witnessing abuse in their family think that was completely normal. What happens then is that as they get older, they are likely to repeat what they’ve been modeled and are confused when they get arrested and sent to jail. They don’t realize their actions have consequences. Instead, they may come to believe that the criminal justice system is against them. When they reintegrate back into society, they are less likely to own their trauma and are at risk of suffering mental health issues, addictions, and homelessness as adults because they were never taught healthy coping strategies to deal with their trauma as children.
A major factor that influences whether kids who has been exposed to domestic violence will repeat history as a victim or perpetrator is whether they have one sympathetic adult in their life who engages with them about what’s happening. It could be a coach, schoolteacher, grandparent, after-school supervisor, or someone who really seeks to understand them.
At the end of the day, we all want to feel seen, heard, valued, and empowered to face challenges. Counseling other people’s children has challenged me to confront the painful reality that I couldn’t protect my own kids as well as I wanted to and still show myself some grace. I’m heartbroken as I think about how I tried to shield my kids from the impact of domestic violence by moving away and setting up a whole new life for them. I missed out on the opportunity to tend to their emotional needs and validate their feelings. Now that they’re adults and have kids of their own, I see the impact their exposure to abuse is having on them. I have so much compassion for them and want to learn from my mistakes.