Out of Egypt: A Cry for Justice and a Search for Identity

© 2014 TIKVAH BAT MOSHE. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/29/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4918-5833-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-5785-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-5832-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014901823

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

The Hebrew Prayer For The Journey

Chapter One: My Search For Identity

Chapter Two: The Wilderness

Chapter Three: Through The Valleys

Chapter Four: House On The Prairie

Chapter Five: The Bottomless Sea

Chapter Six: Birth Of Hope

Chapter Seven: The Inner Monster

Chapter Eight: The Spiritual Residue

Chapter Nine: The Abyss

Chapter Ten: The Place Of Many Sorrows

Chapter Eleven: Out Of Egypt

Chapter Twelve: The Crossroads Of Faith And Identity

Chapter Thirteen: Mt. Sinai And Across The Jordan

Selected Bibliography

About The Author

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To my sons, I am both humbled and honored to be your mom. You are my joy and my inspiration. I love you very much.

To my family and friends, thank you for supporting me and encouraging me on this journey.

To the many wonderful people who have been a light in the darkness. I could not have done it without you. Your sparks of light have been the compass that guided me home.

My Beloved Children,

I wanted to start my book by thanking you for all that you have inspired me to become. Because of you, I became the mother you see before you. You gave me the strength to continue to press forward. You gave me the courage to fight the good fight. There were times when I didn’t know how to get out of bed to face another day. Yet, it was you two who came to my bedside, gave me kisses on the cheeks and said, I love you, Mom; it is going to be okay.

We lived through so many extremely difficult times together. I will never really know why so much hardship happened to our family. Everywhere we turned, we faced another tragedy, another trial, and another time where it seemed hopeless to go on. We fought daily for our family and for our future. I would always tell you that we survive because we have each other; when we are a broken and separate family, our family will crumble. I would always tell you that we need each other and we need learn to live, communicate, and grow together as an interconnected unit. Our family is the lifeblood of our success.

My sons, we survived. As a testimony to the world that a family with no birthright, position of power, wealth or fame could survive and become messengers of hope to those who have none. I believe that G-d has a purpose for our family and I believe that we must tell our stories.

I am writing my story so that you might understand the sins of my past are a significant portion of what has affected you today. In many significant ways my circumstances caused you tremendous suffering. For this, I am so sorry. I have sinned against you. I have led you down some horrible roads because I was not functional or whole enough to give you a life filled with peace and security. I was not capable of giving to you the things I felt you deserved. I am grieved at how little I gave you but I hope that you understand that I gave to you with all my heart and from all I had. I gave you the little love that I had when I was a lonely single mother, drinking away her sorrows, to the few dollars I had saved for your birthday when I was unemployed or incapable of giving you gifts on precious holidays.

I am troubled because the only message chiseled into your hearts is that of distrust, unfaithfulness, loveless, and hopeless. I have failed you and those who should have loved you failed you. All the scars that you bear on your hearts echo the lifetime of hurts and disappointments you have experienced. Your hearts were broken. You have bleeding wounds and dark secrets from people who were supposed to be trustworthy. It pains me to know that there are wounds I cannot mend or erase. I am so sorry.

Yet we have grown together through all of it. In the midst of all the hurtful experiences, we found joy, love, and friendship. We found each other, and somehow knitted together our home and created an environment where we freely feel, cry, suffer, enjoy, laugh, and share.

I’ve done everything wrong as a parent, but I am so pleased at how you have grown. You are strong and courageous men who, out of the murk and the mire, became the cornerstone for the liveliness and livelihood of our family. You are like strong pillars; though weathered by storms, they still stand tall. I am so proud of you.

I cannot say in just a few words how blessed I am as a mother to have been chosen to spend what time I have had with you. I cannot tell you in a few words the joy I have because of you. I am so glad you were born. When you were born, hope was born.

With Love,

Mom

Beloved,

I begin with beloved because that is what you are. You must first know who you are before you can enter this journey with me. You are precious and you are valuable. Today marks the beginning of our journey together and I want to thank you for your willingness to travel with me through the pages of my life.

I believe the gift of storytelling is a lost art. I am not talking about the telling of a tale that is fiction, filled with pretend characters, in places far, far away; nor am I talk talking about telling stories that have happy endings. I am talking about sharing our lives with other people. The stories once told were stories about us. There was a time when we had voices. We sat in the company of our friends and our families and shared stories about the past. We once a part of a community that centered on telling old legends because this is where ‘our people came from’. Today, people scoff at stories told by grandparents when they began with, "Back in the day, I used to . . ." But grandparents were telling their stories in hopes that their listeners would know their identity: where they came from, what their families went through, and how their families struggled. A large portion of self comes from our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. They lay the backbone of our identities through the compilation of historical experiences, cultural celebrations, and through the telling of their failures and successes.

We once knew how to share our pain through the art of poetry. We knew how to share our love and joy through the art of songs. We knew how to share the beauty of the world through art made with fresh paint or charcoal pencil. We knew how to reflect on the past and look to the future through the art of sharing our own personal journey to our children and our grandchildren. Unfortunately, with the technology and entertainment hype, we no longer hear the stories about our parents or our grandparents because the storyteller in our home is a television, a radio, or a computer. We are wiping out our histories and we are losing our cultural identity. The joys of our experiences are dying.

Most the stories told today are not our own, but fictional stories of people who don’t exist. The heroes in the stories are not real; they are actors who pretend to be heroes. The beauties in the stories are pretend women who think that the beauty of a woman is on how thin she is or how good she looks in make-up and expensive clothing. Our world has gone from truth and personal experience to a nuance of different ideals and fantasies. I believe however, we all want to be that hero or that beauty. I believe we want our lives to have meaning and adventure. However, it is difficult to find that in our day-to-day living. In the process, we silence our voices. I also believe that silencing of the voices of the people weakens our powerful nation. Stories of our past, laid the foundation for this glorious present. Unfortunately, there are those who are eradicating the past and seizing power over the powerless and the voiceless people. There are those who are destroying our history and creating generations of children who are ‘unknown’. We have become nameless faces existing in a vacuum void of personal perception of self.

Our future?

Thankfully, it has not written yet. We have the power to shape and change the future by remembering and telling the stories of the past. Our families have hope because we have power to voice the past in order shape and mold the future.

Telling our story is a scary thing; this much is true! It might be the scariest thing you will ever do. But your story is important as is mine.

The truth is, when I wrote my story, I felt inadequate. I felt ashamed. I felt fear. I felt anxiety. I felt vulnerable and I felt weak. Telling my story was one of my greatest challenges. It wasn’t just penning the story that was difficult. It wasn’t just trying to remember the details so I can depict them to you on paper. It wasn’t reliving the pain, feeling the filth that made this story difficult to tell. I struggled more with the shame and fear of rejection. The thought was horrifying that you would not like me when you’ve read it. As I wrote I was haunted with the, What you would really think of me? I thought, You might reject me. And, You might think poorly of me. I found myself overwhelmed with the anxiety of what you would think of me after you read it.

I spent many nights lying awake imagining all the terrible things that could come out by being so transparent. We are a culture of reasonable doubt, which means that just enough good or bad, will set someone free or convict them before any certainty of truth is properly established. We are in a culture and time where the media loves to embellish stories and scrutinize its leaders. We live in a culture that loves to defile personal stories, and then we plaster it all over the billboards and the internet. We are in a culture full of Psychological diagnosis to explain away the dysfunctions of people and their crimes.

What kind of woman would you think I am? Would I be guilty of being various forms psychological disorders? Maybe you will try to make sense out of all the mess and conclude the woman suffers from depression, anxiety, attachment disorder, and has an overactive imagination. Would I be some crazy fanatical woman starving for affection who found love in all the wrong places? Maybe I am just another woman who battles with her insecurity. Maybe she lacks coping skills and made terrible decisions because of a dysfunctional past?

Perhaps to some of you this will be like a lame thriller movie. You have the suspense, the bad guys, the helpless good guys, and the suspenseful music playing in the background. You get to the scene and you find yourself shouting at your TV because you know the woman is walking alone down the dark ally in the middle of the night.

You scream, Get out of there! What are you, crazy? You are an idiot! Of course, she can’t hear you but you shout anyway. You sit at the edge of your seat knowing the inevitable will happen . . . And it does.

I am sure many of you can say, Maybe if you had continued going to therapy or stayed in church or read self-help books, your outcome would have been much different.

But then . . . Perhaps . . . all of this is true.

Perhaps, by reasonable doubt, I am one of many broken religious people who wandered in and out of churches and religious institutions baring bleeding wounds and scars. We sit in the pews every Saturday or Sunday because they are looking for comfort and assurance. Perhaps I am not the only one who has had experiences like these. Is it really possible that a Holy and Righteous G-d be loving, merciful, and miraculously heal people? Is He that powerful that He can reach into someone’s life and supernaturally deliver them from what torments them?

Some of us read the stories in the Bible where G-d swoops in and delivers His beloved Israel from tyranny and oppression over, and over again. Numerous stories throughout the pages of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and the B’rit Chadasha (New Testament) demonstrate G-d’s Holiness and sovereignty. If this were true, then surely, His compassion for even the least among us would circumvent. It would seem that if G-d were so loving and merciful he would do something about it. But this is madness! G-d can’t be very powerful. Those are just stories for the book.

If you could see my face, hear my voice, know my heart, you would know there is a G-d who goes through great lengths to redeem those He loves. As I struggled with, if you would think less of me, I thought, perhaps being the least of you isn’t all that bad. As I penned my story, I found a greater value in transparency and vulnerability than hiding behind a false sense of self.

The truth is; I do not know what you will think. Does it really matter anyway? I realized I have nothing to lose by sharing this with you, while at the same time, I realized I have nothing to gain by sharing either. When it is all said and done and my life is over, I know that I lived and lived well. I didn’t merely exist in a state of ambiguity, painted by a false imagination; nor did I trivialize my experiences by believing this was all in my head. I am a free person with a voice, and this my friend, is the greatest feeling of all.

So I am inviting you on a journey to my past. As you walk with me I will shared with you my pain, my sorrow, and my joy. You will know my shame, mistakes, and my spiritual, emotional, and struggles. I am sharing with you the most intimate story about myself. My story isn’t just a thriller or sad story. My story is full of joy, victory, courage, and redemption.

Come away and journey with me; I have so much to tell.

May the L-rd bless you and keep you.

THE HEBREW PRAYER FOR THE JOURNEY

May it be Your will, G-d, our G-d and the G-d of our fathers,

that You should lead us in peace and direct our steps in peace, and guide us in peace, and support us in peace, and cause us to reach our destination in life, joy, and peace, and return us in peace. Save us from every enemy and ambush, from robbers and wild beasts on the trip, and from all kinds of punishments that rage and come to the world. May You confer blessing upon the work of our hands and grant me grace, kindness, and mercy in Your eyes and in the eyes of all

who see us, and bestow upon us abundant kindness

and hearken to the voice of our prayer, for You hear

the prayers of all. Blessed are You G-d,

who hearkens to prayer.

CHAPTER ONE

MY SEARCH FOR IDENTITY

There are many kinds of metaphors to describe what life is like. Some will call it the making of a tapestry. From one perspective, the artist is making a picture out of an array of colorful thread that goes back and forth, formulating a deformed picture that is supposed to represent a person’s life. It is meaningless and chaotic. But the picture is only visible from the back of the tapestry and no one can see the real picture from the front side. Who really knows what the other side looks like? Some would say that life is a series of events that were predestined before our time. The objective is to fulfill that preordained destiny. This perspective says there are no choices and that the order of a person’s life has already been predetermined for them. On the contrary, others would say that one’s destiny unclear to until the person stumbles upon it. That person suddenly becomes a manifest passion of their greater significance. This perspective would say that they have the ability to choose what path they will take believing the outcome has the possibility to be life changing. Still, others would say that life is a destination. They live their life from one destination to the next. They are born, they get married, they have children and grandchildren, they retire, and then they die. Their live is a series of destinations formulated by a ‘to-do list’ checking one event off at a time.

There is certain kind of mystery to the first metaphor; it leaves me wondering what my life looks like on the other side of a tapestry. Does the chaos in my life have a system that makes sense? Is there something amazing about my life that I can’t see? At the same time, I don’t believe that that my life was predestined to be what it was, although I believe that it took G-d time and great care to make and design me through generations of men and women who married and birthed. It is hard to imagine that the troubles and experiences in my life were predetermined by G-d. It is equally difficult to believe that He withdrew himself during the most troublesome times of my life because those events were predestined. This idea turns G-d into the all knowing, all powerful, and all loving that I read about today. How can G-d be all three? I believe this is contrary to His divine character. I don’t believe that I stumbled upon great destiny or great purpose, but rather discovered passion and a belief system based on experiences. And finally, I don’t believe that life is a series of destinations. I believe life is a journey and the destinations and end are unknown. A journey is different from a destination. The destinations of my life are merely milestones but hold the least significance compared to the moments spent traveling. Although I don’t always know what that purpose really is, it is comforting to know that my life has meaning. I believe people cross over dry deserts and raging rivers. Some cross over vast oceans and uncharted waters where the hope of finding a land is unknown. Many walk through valleys and climb perilous mountains.

Our hope?

It isn’t simply to find the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey but to embark on an adventure that is greater than ourselves. It is to find restoration and peace along the way.

Our purpose?

To live and to find truth.

As I thought to share my story with you, I wondered where to start. Do I start with the ‘now’ and tell you how I am doing and then talk about the ‘then’? I thought that I would just give you a brief summary in hopes that you would grasp the message but concluded that we would miss the walking together and then it wouldn’t be quite as wonderful. Adventures are amazing, but they are not quite as joyous when traveled alone. You see, I believe the best adventures happen when shared with someone else. So, I decided that perhaps the best way to start is to start from the beginning. Who knows what places we will venture together, or the joys and the sorrows we will share of together?

I heard it said that just before Jesus was born, Nothing good can come from Bethlehem, but from the pit of the world was born Salvation. So I say, Nothing good can come from Albuquerque, but out of the pit of despair came hope. I was born in Santa Fe only sixty-three miles from Albuquerque. Albuquerque is the city of my youth. It was the place that I went to school, made friends, graduated high school, and began exploring my faith and identity. It had significant influence on my life.

I hated Albuquerque. When I moved away from New Mexico in 2010, I left behind my home, my neighborhood, my friends, and my family to start a life of my own in a city I had only seen on TV (usually the news when something bad was going on) or read about in book. I loved my home state—the breathtaking mountains, fly-fishing, the beautiful winters, and the flourishing churches. I left it all behind, packed up my Jeep Cherokee, and drove away from my home never looking back. Not one moment did I look through my rearview mirror and remember the good times and the people I would later come to miss. I didn’t entertain the regrets of my past, nor did I long to rekindle old relationships. I spent two days on the road wondering about the future, what would be G-d’s purpose for my life in San Francisco and the impact this place would have on my future. I thought about new beginnings, new relationships, new opportunities, and while the excitement of newness urged me forward, I wrestled with the terrifying unknown. I knew two people out of the nine hundred thousand living in the greater San Francisco Bay area. I had no job, no home, and no certainty things would work out. Yet, onward I drove down the long highway that would eventually lead me to the place where I can discover new hope, affirm identity, and find courage to share with you my story. None of this would have been possible had I not surrendered to the voice of my heavenly Father, who softly and gently said, Go, and I am with you. I remember driving down that highway on my way to a new place not knowing what it would look like, what would happen when I got there, if I even had a place to live when I arrived. I was not looking for fame and fortune, as many aspiring writers and actors are when they come. In fact, over the years, I have seen so many full of hope and ambition find themselves disillusioned by the tremendous hardships they face a few months after they arrive. So what did I really leave behind? Was it the city, the culture, the people? Or was it really my old life? Was I running away from the curse from a traumatic past that could have led me to my death? Was I attempting to pursue a possible blessing that would somehow redeem my family?

I believe that San Francisco was the place where I shed the old and entered into the new. I found my heart, my hope, and my identity. I found redemption from my past and future and entered into something completely amazing. My tremendous achievements could have never been possible otherwise. I was a single mom moving to a place so unfamiliar, so many uncertainties, and so many people saying, "Go home!" There really were times when I should have gone home. I didn’t. I stayed. I suffered, I cried, I was broken and broke.

Yet, I was triumphant.

My friend, what a beautiful life it has been as I look back across the years.

Moving to San Francisco not only helped bring closure to many broken areas of my life but also gave me resources to find the answers I have been looking for over many years. For many years I searched for the answers to the unknown sources of pain and controversy I experienced; answers to the why me of those experiences.

I wanted hope.

I wanted value.

I wanted context.

I wanted above all this identity and redemption.

After moving to San Francisco, I flipped through papers, genealogies, and websites searching for clues that might bring healing, hope, confirmation, and affirm my identity within the context of my family, my faith, my country, and my relationship to self and a people I only read about in books. My hope was to discover that my name, my last name, my heritage, was more than just some meaningless identity that would be forever marked with pain, abandonment, drunkenness, and poverty. It was because of this that I finally contacted my biological father (whom I hadn’t spoken to in nearly fourteen years) to see if he might have our genealogy. After a few on and off conversations, he finally sent me a copy of a small portion of the documents.

I never felt the name held any significance or importance even after I discovered the great secrets of my family name. It held no honor to me. I was born from a man named Leo Junior whose parents who bore the same last name but from different families. One family migrated from Mexico directly to New Mexico and on into Colorado. The other migrated also from Spain, settled in Mexico then moved to Southern California, then Arizona and Nevada, and finally Colorado. My father used to tell me stories about the long line of ancestors that came to the United States from Mexico. My father’s side refers to themselves as descendants from Spain and the last name had ‘great’ honor. They were conquistadors. Our family has a shield and sword. We were valiant heroes of the early settlers in the Americas. Our last name should be something to be proud of, he’d say. He would say we are Spaniards not Mexicans. Even he didn’t take pride in being called Mexican or a Mestizo and mentioned many times he felt the term Mexican was a derogatory term that took away from his Spanish heritage. There were even arguments between the family members over being Mexican and the pride that comes from the Mexican heritage or being a Spaniard and descending from a great nation. In my mind, they were all folklore, stories from the past, and the present condition of my family. Although not proven to me through the genealogy, they were stories that were passed on from one generation to the next and I would be the heir of those stories.

My father was deeply concerned with his roots. He spent hours talking with siblings and his parents about his family and their history. My father was determined to discover something new in his rich history. On the mornings I sat with him and his parents for breakfast, they talked about religion and identity. Why? What was significant to him that is significant to me today? What redemption he was looking for I will never know. The entire family searched their family roots for the discovery of their own heritage and hoped to find something meaningful within their history.

Others say my father’s side is a descendant of those who served Solomon’s Temple, which was said to be the meaning of our last name. Although this has never been conclusive, it gave me a glimmer of hope that there could be more to my past than I thought. I was more thankful when I discovered there was a possibility it was more than just Mexican. The Jewish heritage of my last name was the only hope I had in finding redemption for a legacy of drunkenness and prostitution. My father’s family didn’t walk in their Jewish blessing, but rather took on the culture and lifestyle of the poor Mexican families suffering from the economic oppression and being a minority. Granted, there is a certain pride that comes with one’s last name, but I wasn’t proud of any of it, and the only hope I had for even bearing the last name was that I discovered there was hope my name could somehow be redeemed. Any trace of the Jewish identity is lost on my father’s side if in fact there was Jewish blood.

My mother’s name is Lola who was born of Chanan and Rose. My mom’s side is European, Spanish, and possibly Middle Eastern. My grandfather was born in 1917. There was speculation that my grandfather’s lineage could be traced back to the Mayflower. Some said that he was related to Abraham Lincoln. Unfortunately, the genealogy is lost and no one seems to know where it is. What I do know of my Grandfather was that he served in World War II and received several certificates for his performance during his time in service. The war is what moved him from Kansas to New Mexico. He worked for a Union Depot until he retired. It was in New Mexico that he met my Grandmother. My Grandmother’s side is predominately unknown. I know that she was born in the San Louis, Colorado but precious records of my heritage were lost, and my journey in finding peace with my name seems to be a journey that will hopelessly take a lifetime. No one seems to know who she was, or where she was born. When I asked about her parents, no one knows. I was excited to hear that both last names bear Crypto-Jewish possibilities. Yet again, it is inconclusive.

I wrestled my way through the beginning of my book, searching for hope and that as I write my story I would somehow find redemption. I thought I would save my family name and restore my family and pass on to my children a new legacy filled with power, redemption, and blessings. So I have to tell my story without the hope of saying, I have been redeemed, and I have a happy ending because I found redemption through my heritage.

Why is Jewish so important? Who really cares about the last name and who really cares about being Spanish, Mexican, or Jewish? Some say it is a wonderful birthright to be Mexican because of the culture and the beautiful art and wonderful music. This could be true, the beautiful dancing girls with their colorful dresses, or the wedding dance, and the great storytelling. But really, is it all that great? Some would still say being Jewish is a blessing. Chanukah candles, the Menorah, the sound of the shofar are sacred and holy. The Jewish people are, after all, G-d’s chosen people. But who really wants to a part of a people who have a history of being martyred? So the question, What is so important? is an interesting question to ask after reading this first portion of my story because the basis for it seems to lack relevance with respect to the rest of my story. On the contrary, it holds tremendous significance, especially for someone like me who has never had a real family before. Stripped of any identity, the hope of a future legacy for my children was out of reach. I had no name, no significance, and my existence would be forever marred with hopelessness like those who died before me. In some strange way, there is hope that my story can end differently than those before me. As you continue to read my story, my hope is that you would understand the significance of a name, a heritage, a forgotten lineage, and the hope for redemption. Redemption doesn’t just come from the deliverance from sin and death; it comes also with the renewal and restoration of a family heritage, breaking bondage and creating newness and blessing for the generations that follow.

I was born in Santa Fe on an ice-cold spring afternoon in March almost forty ago. I grew up in a large poor family. I am one of six children. There is Ezra (AKA: Ezzy), Dana, Lynea, Brandy, Ruben, and Myself. My parent’s names are Lola and Leo Junior.

It seems every child is born into the world with much rejoicing and celebration. My entering the world was quite the contrary. When I was born, they placed me in the arms of my father who stared down at me and shook his head with shame and disappointment. In fact, he held me only for a moment and couldn’t bare the shame of my having been born a girl. He handed back to my mother and I nestled up against her broken heart. My entering the world was not a moment of joy, celebration, or excitement. My entrance to the world was shrouded in shame and silence. There were no happy faces to look at, no loving arms to hold me, or gentle hands to touch me. I was not greeted by the world with celebration, but shame and dismay. My father was so disappointed that he left not long after seeing me and was angry with my mother. However, I do remember the warmth of my mother’s arms. Though she was exhausted, she held me for a moment. In that moment, I sense both joy and tremendous pain. It was a different kind of pain—one that spoke to me and told me that I was an unplanned added burden. How painful it was to look back and remember that day. Woven throughout my life are the various nuances of rejections such as this one.

My parents used to be regular Christian churchgoers. My father converted from Catholicism to non-denominational Christianity some years after he married my mother. He was a deacon, and my mother became a devoted woman of G-d who believed the church was good. I remember growing my first few years of life in church. I remember Sunday school and the story about how Jesus died on a cross for my sins. The message that I remembered most, however, was that this Jesus loved me. How significant that was for me, and how powerful those words were, because that is what I so desperately needed. I needed love. My parents experienced many hurts from the church and eventually moved away from it before I was six years old. We moved from Santa Fe to Albuquerque in 1984 with several other moves in-between.

At one point, my parents called themselves devout Christians. Though my father claimed to be Christian, he didn’t live like a Christian. In public, my father was a respectable man and boasted on how good his children behaved. He smiled all the time and gave openly to anyone who asked. At home, my father was an entirely different man. He was abusive toward me emotionally by treating me as if I was not good enough and would never amount to anything. He was firm on teaching me the proper place for a woman. When there was no public, he scolded me and was very physically abusive. My mother? As it would seem to me, she was a silent backdrop to my young life. She was quite nurturing but had very little to give. She was spread thin. Torn between me and five other siblings, she had to work, raise a family with a mostly absent husband. When my parents separated for the first time when I was three years old, my mom worked to provide for us by working at a fast food restaurant. She spent her days working at local seafood restaurant while my father was off working as a janitor at a local education center. My mother lived in a house behind her parents and my father lived at his parents’ house. I don’t know how long my father was gone. It would seem like it were years. The next time I remember my mother and father together, we were living in a small duplex on the west side of Albuquerque, New Mexico. My mother managed to get a job with the elementary school I attended and wound up staying with the district for many years as a secretary.

From there, though very young, my life changed and was never to be the same. As I recall, I was sexually assaulted at least three times in my young life. One perpetrator was a doctor and the other times were by family members. I was assaulted as young as three and the last event took place when I was six. To express them or describe them is far too painful. But I will say that when it happened, the prayer that echoed deep inside my soul was for someone to come rescue me from that place. I cried out inside for someone to come in and stop it from happening, and my world was shattered when no one did. I spent my young life struggling with feeling shameful for what had happened while still trying to cope and make my life seem normal. It is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. My world shrouded in shameful secrets. I never shared those secrets but the little girl in me was crying out to say something. I often found myself sitting in my grandmother’s kitchen on the verge of telling my secrets. I would look at her, my heart would race, and I would wonder if she were a safe person to talk to. I was desperate and frustrated on the inside because I was afraid of what would happen if I did say something. When the painful words started to swell from the pit of my gut, I held them back and forced the tears back. I would smile and shake them off. It was at this time in my life that my purpose and portions of my false identity would slowly begin shaping me. I carried with me the lie that sex was all I was worth. In time, through continual instilment, I believed it.

My father was awfully abusive. He was always angry and he and mother always fought. They fought over money, or my father being gone and never there for her. They fought on birthdays, holidays, and any time in between. And when my father was angry, I was struck with a kind of fear that made me wish I were never born. He would grab anything he could find to spank me or hit me with it. He flexed his authority by using anything from 2x4s, Ping Pong Paddles, steel-toed boots, fly swatters, and belts, and many other things. If there was nothing around to use, it was an openhanded slap over the head, and enough to send me tumbling to the ground. The wrath of my father’s anger gripped my childhood, like a monster jumping out from behind a corner in an old horror flick. My father became a different person. I was torn between my anger toward him and this need for his attention, affection, and approval.

My mother, on the other hand, was always tired or frustrated. She struggled to raise kids on her own. Though she was married, she was married to a man who devoted very little of his time and effort to fathering children and being a husband to his wife. She worked hard to take care of us, but it is very difficult to remember her happy. I mostly remember her heavy-hearted and quiet. When my father went on a rampage, my mother seemed to disappear. When my father got angry with us, I don’t ever recall seeing my mother. I later learned to resent my mother for this.

One of my most frightful memories of my father’s fury was when I was about five or six years old. I was in kindergarten at the time. I remember the duplex and the windows. I remember all of us slept in one room on mattresses on the floor. There was mattress after mattress; lined up on the floor in rows on the bedroom floor were where my siblings and I spent our nights. This place was so small that now when I look back at it, it is hard to imagine that all six kids slept in one room. The house was small and had very little room for us to move around and play. We spent our summers outside and only came in when it was time for dinner or bedtime. I remember it was evening and the sun was setting behind the distant mountains. The night air was clean and fresh. I can hear the crickets chirping in the bushes. My sisters Dana, Lynea and I were outside on the steps. I could see right inside the living room and the bedroom in which we slept. My bedroom faced the street, with a huge window (it seemed huge then; I drove by about two years ago and the place was run down with only a tiny window).

Looking inside the window, I saw my baby sister Brandy crying and my father standing over her yelling. I remember she was wearing a baby blue dress with white lace. He picked her up and screamed at her as he shook her. Then out of nowhere, he threw her face first into the wall. I remember watching in horror outside and wishing so badly that I had another family somewhere else. This is where my fantasy of a new family coming to find me began. I watched my sister’s baby blue dress turn a crimson red as blood poured out of her nose. My father still screamed for her to stop crying as he slapped her over the head, knocking her back down on the bed. My heart broke. I wanted to save her and rescue her from my father, but I knew I was not big enough to stand against my father. I knew as well that if I did I would be worse off than she was. For the first time I wanted to run away. For the first time I wished I had a different family. In order to cope with memories like these, I began to imagine I had a different family far away. They were out there and somehow I was switched at birth. I really belonged to another family and they were out there somewhere searching for me.

I remember another terrible time living in that tiny apartment. My father was upset and I remember he came home from work in a rage. I remember feeling the cold stare as he stormed in the house and began yelling at my mother. My brothers, sisters, and I hid ourselves in the room and hoped he would calm down. That night we whispered and giggled between ourselves. My father would yell, Go to bed! and we would hush ourselves for a minute or two before we would pipe up again with giggles and whispers. To us kids this was funny! We were trying to have a conversation in the dark, hoping my father would eventually fall asleep so we could talk. Shut up and get some sleep! he hollered from the other room. It didn’t take long before we heard the stomping of my father’s footsteps and the door slammed open and the light turned on. Blinded by the light, we were unaware of what he had in his hand or the expression of rage that his face. One by one, we were spanked with a 2x4 piece of wood. You stupid kids! I told you to go to bed! he yelled. I remember he grabbed each one of us by the arm and picked us up from the bed and spanked us. Anger and hurtful words spewed out of his mouth like poison to my spirit.

My most painful memories were not what he hit me with but how he hit me. The physical scars and bruises he left behind were minute by comparison to the wounds he left me from his verbal assaults on my heart. I remember when he hit me he emphasized my stupidity and my inability to do anything right. I remember he called me stupid or ungrateful, selfish, or other terrible names. Yet it wasn’t just the name calling that hurt; it was his ability to make me feel bad because I hurt him. Children want to make their parents happy. They want their approval, and when they feel like they hurt their parents in some way, they shrivel up in shame or guilt. I wanted so bad to measure up and for him to be proud of me, but no matter what I did or how hard I worked, my achievements never made him happy. I spent my life trying to measure up to someone and a bar that was unattainable.

My father was not an alcoholic. My father was always sober and shunned the use of alcohol. On occasion, my father took a sip of wine or champagne, but he was never drunk. My father was an intellectual man and manipulated through reason and coercion. He was a brilliant mastermind of deception covering his self-pity and low self-esteem.

I also remember the painful first years of school. The boys and girls would get into an argument over who is better. You know the boys-are-better-than-girls debate that gets both sexes fired up. I remember one day in particular.

Two boys were shouting out how good they were and how much better they were because they were boys and I was a girl.

I shouted back in my defense that I was just as good and it didn’t matter if I was a boy.

One spit back in his fury, G-d loves the boys and doesn’t love the girls.

I said, It isn’t true!

The other shouted, Yes it is, the Bible says so.

I said shouted, You’re a liar.

One boy said in his, I-am-so-smart-voice, Yes it is. G-d made girls to serve boys. You are my servant. You are supposed to do what I say.

I was appalled. In my young reasoning G-d couldn’t possibly make me what he said. G-d loved me and there was no way that G-d would make me serve a boy, especially a boy like that.

Then he said the words that shot into my soul like a fiery arrow. G-d made boys first so boys are better. G-d made girls second so they are in second place. Besides, girls are made to make boys happy. That’s why G-d made you. To make boys happy! Girls are supposed to have babies and cook and clean the house. That’s what you are for, Adira! So there!

I reasoned inside myself that what this boy said was a lie. So to prove that it was a lie, I would ask the ultimate source of divine knowledge: my parents. I would tell my parents what happened at school that day and plead my case to them and they will defend me. That’s what parents are for, to defend the cause of their children. I got off the bus, marched straight up to my mother, and told her what had happened. She didn’t say anything. She looked at me with a blank expression and said she was tired. So I took my case to my father. I half expected him to get mad at the boy for making me feel bad. I imagined my father getting upset and going to the boys and telling them like it was. I thought for sure my father would defend me. After all, he was my father! Fathers are supposed to love and protect their girls from terrible boys who bullied and picked on them. Somewhere inside me, I knew fathers were supposed to protect their children. I told him what he said and my father looked down with this I understand you expression on his face and said that it was true and the boys were right. I sat on my knees untying his shoes and taking off his socks, listening to my father talk about how I was made and what I was made for. Adira, you know why I love your mom? She takes care of me. She cooks and cleans the house. No one will love you if you don’t cook and clean for them. That is your job. In his laughing voice, he tried to explain himself by lightening the mood a little to keep me from crying. G-d made girls to cook and clean, and no boys like girls who don’t cook and clean. G-d made girls to have babies and to take care of them. Your dad can’t have babies. That is why G-d made girls because girls can. And G-d made girls to make boys happy.

I didn’t understand how this could be true. How could G-d make me just for that? I remember trying to say that I wanted to work for G-d.

He said, "G-d doesn’t use girls