Tasha Hunter - What Children Remember

Copyright 2020 by Tasha Hunter

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: tashahunterauthor@gmail.com.

FIRST EDITION

Printed in the United States of America

www.tashahunterauthor.com

Paperback: ISBN 978-1-7344178-9-0

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-7344178-7-6

eBook ISBN: 978-1-7344178-8-3

Tasha Hunter books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please email the author at

tashahunterauthor@gmail.com.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020902379

I dedicate this book to Myrtle Ester Hill. Ive always known I would spend the rest of my life honoring you. Thank you for loving me.

Disclaimer

This is a work of creative nonfiction. The events are portrayed to the best of my recollection. While all the stories in this book represent my truth, names and other identifying details about those individuals who were a part of my journey have been changed. In most cases, I have compressed events and changed the names of exact locations in order to protect the privacy of those involved. I did not write my story to cause shame or embarrassment to family members who are still a part of my story today. I wrote my book, and I tell my story in order to free myself from years of shame-based secrecy and to cast a light on the darkness of c hild abuse.

Intro

The lions story will never be known as long as the hunter is the one wh o tells it.

~Unknown

This book is my story and my recollection of childhood and young adult experiences which shaped the self-possessed and fully awoken woman I am today. With honesty, transparency, and vulnerability, I have dared to speak about my past. Telling my truth has meant reliving some of my most horrifyingly painful memories. Through my writing process, I found a constructive way to overcome my fear and apprehension about personal disclosures by envisioning those women who may see themselves reflected in my storywomen who are still living in shame and suffering in silence. I wanted to write a book that transcends age, race, religion, and socioeconomic status because child abuse is found in every corner of the world. In writing this book, my goals remained clear to inspire and to encourage women from all walks of life. There is strength to be had and resolve to be experienced beyond the pain of insufferable shame and silence. It is possible, because I am possible. This book has been written for women who think the horror of their experiences is beyond the reach of Gods grace. I hope my story will resonate, inspire, uplift, and give readers HOPE. I testify as a witness for myself and for others that it is possible to overcome seemingly insurmountable circumstances and to forge and possess a future which represents the best of who you are. The past does not dictate your future. You may not yet believe the truth of this powerful statement, so it bears repeating: the past does not dictate your future . What you choose to do with the experiences that have plagued and scarred you, will help give birth to the success of your future.

The hardest part of recounting the experiences of my life has been the arduous process of inching my way forward on this emotional tightrope of speaking my truth, while protecting the ones who (central to my recovery) have robustly inspired meand challenged meto share the details of my life with candid honesty. In the process of writing my book, I have felt high-strung, heart-palpitating emotions arising from the fear of judgment by people who knew me at certain points of my life, and by extension, think they know wh o I am now.

What kept me writing in spite of the fear of scrutiny is remembering the little girl I was who desperately needed to hear this exact storyfor every girl who feels utterly alone on an emotional island, emotionally battered and spent while waiting for a noble cavalry to rescue her and fight on her behalf. Even now, as a fully actualized adult who knows the value of my contributions, while writing the book, I still imagined the text and phone conversations this book might elicit among my family and friends: Girl, did you know she did that? Why would she share that? She should have taken that one to the grave. These doubts held me captive until I stamped them out by taking full authorship of my story. This memoir isnt written for the criticsits for those of you who are reading this book because you recognize that a part of your personal story is also a part of mine. This is a book for those of us who are tired of hiding. On my very best days, of which I am now blessed to have many, I never neglect to recognize that I am still that little girl who appears on the following pages. She is all of me, not separate from me, and this i s our truth.

Heavenly Father

Thank you for making it possible for me to tell my story today. I pray it is representative of the message you have called me to share. Those times in my life when I felt like a failure, you called me a success. When I labeled myself as a victim, you taught me how to survive. Thank you for using my life to empower, heal, uplift, and educate others. I am grateful for each and every person youve sent into my life to help me on my journey. I pray you bless each person reading my story. Bless those of my sisters who feel lost, left out, forgotten, a nd unloved.

In Jesus na me, I pray.

Amen.

Chapter 1

The 11 th Year

When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.

~Psalm 27:10 (KJV)

Be ready to get a beating when I get home. This is what my mother, Katrina, said to me in a phone call that would change the trajectory of my life forever. While the beatings I endured were commonplace, this turning point was an act of defiance in which I learned the importance of standing up for myself. At the time, I was just a few months shy of my eighteenth birthday and tired of well-meaning adults asking me boring questions such as, So, what are you gonna do after high school? I had no idea, seeing as how every fiber in my body was exhausted to the brink of collapse from the daily struggle of just trying to get by. I didnt have time to lay out a well-developed plan for the next four years of what people called adulthood .

During my senior year at North Pulaski High School, I was failing chemistry. I had tried unsuccessfully to study atoms, positive and negative ions, and kinetic theory. But when studying failed, I placed a cheat sheet inside of my TI-85 calculator. On the day of my exam, my teacher, a petite brunette named Ms. Ricci, was surveying the room and picked up on the awkward way I was covering my calculator. Leaning forward, she discovered the cheat sheet between my forearm and chest. She snatched my test from me and instructed me to wait after class. With a disapproving look, she said, Latasha, I cannot believe you cheated on my test. You are getting an F. Youll have to go to summer school if you want t o graduate.

Grabbing my backpack, I left the room in a spell of panic, my mind hard at work devising a plan. During the last week of school, I told the secretary I would be moving from my middle-class neighborhood in Gravel Ridge, Arkansas to some other address. I made one up on the fly, hoping I would be gone, long gone, by the time the postal employee marked the schools letter with return to sender . Thinking back, I didnt liein fact, I predicted my future.