First and foremost., I am NOT a celebrity. I am a fortunate individual who works for the Simmons Estate, but consider them a part of my family. I have only one job in life, give divine service. Divine, meaning service whole heartedly.
Recently I spoke with a representative of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. When we first jumped on the phone, my goal was only to discuss how I could help spread the word about http://www.ndvh.org, but 5 minutes into the conversation, I knew this would turn into something much bigger than expected.
I started talking about how domestic violence not only effects the victim but it also effects the people around it in different ways. My youngest childhood memory is of my father beating my mother helpless in the kitchen while my brother, sister and myself stood and watched. The natural instinct of a child is to defend his mother but we were too young to do anything. Besides after he finished beating my mom, he’d find a way to beat us too.
Well my father couldn’t beat me because my older brother and sister would hide me until his rage calmed down. This didn’t continue for long, as my grandfather (an ex cop and former Minister of St Marks United Methodist Church in Harlem) intervened and told my father that he’d better leave for good and if he ever came back he’d kill him. At that moment my grandfather became my father and my biological father was dead to me.
My mom vowed that moment she’d never hit us growing up and told us never to fight each other and fight only those who tried to harm us or our family. We soon started a new life, in a new neighborhood and things seemed as if it couldn’t be any better. In time my mom had a few boyfriends. For some odd reason she seemed to attract these same type of losers as my father. One of these idiots actually put his hands on my mom. I went to a friends house and asked to borrow his gun so I could shoot him in his sleep. Thank goodness my friend had much more sense then me and said no. As fate would have it, the next day I found out my neighbor kicked his ass nice and good. But I saw it only led my mom to be unhappy.
I didn’t want my mom to be unhappy. She was raising 4 kids by herself and she deserved the right to have relationships and fun. Soon there after she met someone else and said she was in love. I remember my mom calling me saying she wanted to get married and wanted my blessings. All I could think of was my mom being happy, so I gave my blessings. A couple of months into her marriage, my uncle delivered me the news that her husband had murdered her.
That was 17 years ago. Since then I’ve had good and bad moments and now better moments. I always wished I could go back when we were kids to save my mom but I know I cant. The other day when Jay Leno asked Kanye what did he think would his mom say about his actions, the only thing I thought of was what would my mom think about the way I’m living my life? I’m 100% sure she’d be proud of me but she’d also want me to take what I have and make the most of it. Within that single thought I felt obligated to become a voice for the National Domestic Violence Hotline as I am a victim as well (from a different perspective). Domestic violence is wrong and as you’ve read, it can effect everyone.
I’d like to end this
