A Love for Tessa
A Love For Tessa…
Tessa
had such a hard life. She was thrown
into the fire by force. Everywhere she
turned there was turmoil and strife. It
seemed nothing good ever came her way.
It seemed no one really loved her and she didn’t know why. She was a thing instead of a person to be
used by any and every one. She was a
sweet, mild-mannered soul and people just sought to take advantage of her. Because she was illiterate, uneducated, and
unschooled in the ways of the world, she was an open target. Her mother abandoned her and she never knew
her Father. Her mother left her alone
all the time with her step-father knowing what kind of monster he was. When Tessa was forcefully impregnated by him
her mother blamed her for enticing her step-father. She was delusional and the crack cocaine that
she ingested on a daily basis didn’t allow her to be a parent at all. Tessa was sent to a group home while she was pregnant
at the age of 11. That’s how she got her
first son, Deven. She vowed to be the
best mother she could be with whatever resources she could get. She would never let anyone hurt her children
like her mother did her. At the group
home when Deven was one, a new foster guard honed in on Tessa and tricked her
into going to the nurse’s office claiming that there was baby food and milk for
her baby. He raped her and that’s how
she got her second child, Sissy, at the age of 12. The guard threatened to kill her and her baby
if she ever told. Life dealt her a sorry
hand. She couldn’t escape the horror; it
just kept getting worse for her.
She met a no good boy at school
nick-named Smoke; he was black as tar.
He claimed to care about Tessa and treated her nice at first but he
found Tessa to be passive and useable.
He knew all she wanted was someone to love her and he used it to his
advantage. He forced her to have sex
whenever he wanted and wherever he wanted.
He became cruel and started beating her and burning her with cigarette
butts. He would threaten to hurt her
kids when she didn’t want to do what he wanted.
One time he burnt her with a coat hanger trying to carve Smoke on her
leg but he couldn’t get it right and he punched Tessa in her eye. He would take what little money she would get
for her kids and make her by him food instead of her kids. If she refused to come outside of the group
home for days he would punish her whenever he saw her next. He was just a mean-souled person and rotten
to the core. She got pregnant with her
third daughter, Lauri, at the age of 14 and the group home put her out. Can you imagine, having 3 kids at the age of
fourteen? What kind of fate allows such
a thing? Smoke took her again against
her will before her 6 week checkup after having Lauri and she got pregnant with
Malcum. Because Malcum was a boy; Smoke’s
boy, he treated her ok for the first 6 months and then he went back to his
cruel ways. He would take Malcum for
days at a time and she didn’t know where or what he was doing with her
baby. She would cry all the time, but
she had the other kids to look out for so she had to suck it up. Smoke went to jail for a few years and Tessa
was so happy that he wasn’t around. She
didn’t wish nothing bad on anyone no matter what they had done to her but she
needed a break for him. His constant
abuse was making her look old and worn out.
He made her feel like killing herself but the thought of her kids
experiencing what she had gone through scared her more. She was now fifteen years old with 4 kids; no
man would ever want her. She was
wrong.
She met a nice seventeen year old
boy named Falcon, who was living on his own and took a liking to Tessa’s sweet
spirit. They started dating and Tessa
found out what happiness really was. He
started teaching her how to read and she was now reading on a 5th
grade level. She was able to watch other
people’s kids to make a little money in the one bedroom apartment that they
shared. He showered Tessa and her kids
with gifts when he could and tried to be a father as best he could. When Tessa told him how she had come to have
4 kids at such a young age, he loved her even more. He couldn’t understand why anyone would be so
mean to her. She was a beautiful girl
with a beautiful smile and her heart was as equally beautiful. She was a good mother and always put her kids’
needs ahead of her own. Tessa wore the
same jeans for almost a year just so her kids could have clothes. Finally, he got a big pay day and he took all
of them shopping. They went to the food
court in the mall and the smell of the food was making Tessa sick. She knew she was pregnant again. She had Careem 9 months later and they were a
happy little family. They enjoyed days
at the park and on occasion when Falcon could get his friend’s station wagon, they
would all go to the dollar movie theater.
It was such a treat for them. Soon
after, Tessa was pregnant again and Falcon was happier than he thought he ever
could be. He himself had a lonely child
hood. He didn’t mind all the kids. Tessa had an appointment so they could find
out the sex of the baby and it was a girl.
This would make baby number 6 but they didn’t care, they were young and
in love. Falcon promised her a better
life and vowed to do all he could to support them all. When Falcon dropped Tessa off at the house
and went to return his friend’s station wagon, he got into a car accident and
died. The happy day that had started was
now the saddest day of Tessa’s life. She
didn’t understand why God would send her an Angel only to take him away. How would she ever live without him? He was the bread to her butter and their
loved flowed like water. She couldn’t
even grieve properly because she had 5 kids to take care of and one in the
belly. She cried every day until Natalee
was born and that’s probably why Natalee had such a sad spirit. She rarely got excited about anything. Tessa blamed herself. She now had 6 kids and no man living on
welfare barely. It didn’t look like life
would get any better for her. When
Natalee was a year old, she went out with some raunchy people to a hotel party
and met a cute dude named Christian. She
had a one night stand with a condom this time but it broke and 9 months later
Miley came into the world. She never saw
that dude again. Luckily for Tessa, the
state she lived in had some great laws about people with 7 or more children. The state put Tessa up in a house and her
public assistance benefits increased and they put her in a program to educate
her so that she could get her GED. It
was so hard for Tessa at first, loading kids on and off the bus every day but
she did it. The good thing was that the
3 oldest kids were in school and in helping them with their homework she
learned more and more. The older they
got, the kids started teaching her things that she never got a chance to learn. She was close to her kids and people admired
Tessa and her strength to raise all those kids by herself. They admired her quiet manner in raising
them. They never once heard Tessa raise
her voice to her kids and they never saw her beat them. She truly was a sweet soul. For a while, they were doing well and she was
now reading on an 8th grade level.
In a few years, she would be able to get her GED and get a job. She still had a lot to learn about life
though. She was so excited about
learning how to read and write properly when she made a mistake and wrote a
letter to Smoke in jail. The letters he
sent back were short and sweet and he would send her pictures that he had
drawn. She couldn’t afford to go see him
but she continued to write him until he got out of jail. It was a bittersweet reunion because he was
nothing like the sweet letters he’d sent.
He was now bigger and angrier and crueler than before. All the kids hated him except Malcum, he
loved his Father right or wrong. He was
misguided in his thinking. He felt that
if Tessa did what Smoke told her he wouldn’t be so mean to her. He didn’t know any better. Smoke beat Tessa for the kids she had with
other men while he was locked up. He
beat her for not feeding him first. He
beat her for coming home later than he thought she should. He beat her for anything. He got her put out of her place because of
all the noise that was being made at all times of the night. He was just pure evil and he didn’t love
himself so he didn’t know how to love anybody else. For 4 years, she did well without him and now
he had ruined everything. He forced her
to quit the GED program and she was back at her starting point. She was forced to move in the hood in a two
bedroom apartment. It was so cramped but
she made it work. He was back to forcing
her to have sex with him and she became pregnant with Jayden. The nurse at the hospital had come into the
room to talk to her and Smoke about Tessa getting her tubes tied so that she
could not have any more kids. She really
didn’t want any more. She was tired of
having babies. She just wanted to raise the
kids that she had and live her life as best as she could. When the nurse left, Smoke threaten to beat
her if she even thought about getting her tubes tied. She did it anyway without telling him and the
nurse offered to help her get back into the GED program and she was able to
finish. Finally Smoke got locked up
again but this time she had no contact with him. She moved again so that he would not know
where she lived. She was sorry that she
could not let her kids have contact with him.
She especially couldn’t let Malcum have contact with him, because he
would tell where they lived. She was
doing well again and now she had entered the Welfare to Work program and she
was in training to be an Administrative Assistant. With the help of the nurse and the kids
teaching her everything they were learning she managed to become a better and
stronger person than she had ever been.
She passed her GED and she passed her training classes with flying
colors. She was now able to get a good job
that would ultimately allow her to give her kids a better life.
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